Earth Day festivities

Happy Earth Day! As you may already know- I am big on the "go-green" movement. So big on it in fact, that I was recycling and caring about the planet long before it was the "hip" way to be. So it only makes sense that I would drag Kraig to an Earth Day Festival. Isn't he a supportive husband?

St. Louis boasts that it has the largest Earth Day Festival in the Midwest so I wanted to go and check it out. It was really big, and there were tons of different booths and organizations present. The festival was held on the Muny grounds of Forest Park. It was a really cool place, and we want to go back there later this summer.

The festival had tons of craft booths, non-fried food booths, vendor booths, and advocacy booths. There was a lot of information about alternative fuels and energies, recycling, global warming and so forth. We really enjoyed ourselves and got a lot of information. We also got a lot of free stuff including: tons of reusable bags (10 to be exact), trees, flowers, seeds, and food. Kraig even got to make his own environmentally friendly cleaning solution!!! It was really fun despite the cold and rainy weather.

The highlight of the day for me was one booth in particular. Now- do not make fun of me.. this has been a goal of mine since I was a little kid. When I was younger, I saw an elephant painting a picture at a zoo on tv. Ever since then, I have wanted a picture painted by an elephant.... and NOW I HAVE ONE! Unfortunately, I did not get to see the elephant paint it, but maybe someday I will visit the village in Thailand where my painting came from. (If so... I have a few more ideas and dreams to realize while I am there- and that's all that needs to be said). Anyway, I grilled the ladies at the booth before buying my painting, and I am 95% sure that my money is not going to help the villagers beat or restrain the elephants or harm them in any way.

The elephants used to do manual labor (like logging) before they came to the village. Most of these jobs for the elephants are disappearing or being outlawed in Thailand so there is no place for the elephants to go. So, this village took them in, and they discovered that 3 of the elephants really like to paint! The paintings are sold to raise money for the elephants and for the village to build a health clinic. I liked that, so I am now the proud owner of a masterpiece painted by Orachi, the elephant. I love it, and I am so happy. It is so going in our living room the next time we are home!!!

Earth Day St. Louis was awesome! Kraig even had fun too. He had fun asking the workers tons and tons of questions about fuel and energy... and really just testing them to see if they knew their stuff. As it turned out, most of them did. I also got some ideas of places to visit that are environmentally friendly and maybe some places where I can volunteer.

Afterwards, Kraig and I went grocery shopping for Mystery Monday and ate dinner at a local restaurant in Columbia, IL called Bully's Smokehouse. The food was great, and the restaurant had a funny name so it met with my approval. Also, since it was our first time going there, we got free dessert! It was the perfect ending to the day!!!