Missing Two Festivals In One Day - A New Record!

My sister Susan and I missed two festivals in a single day yesterday afternoon, which I believe has never happened before. We were planning to attend both the Delray Coastal Showcase at Old School Square in Delray Beach, Florida, which was supposed to feature "talented local artists, skilled makers, and creative entrepreneurs." After that, we were going to attend Oban Weekend at the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens, also in Delray Beach, which would include a walk through six distinct historical Japanese Gardens and "live taiko drumming performances in the spirit of Oban," as well as a lantern floating at the end of the day. However, when we arrived in Delray Beach and got to Old School Square, seen in the photograph on the left, there were no artists, skilled makers, or creative entrepreneurs to be seen. I knew this was going to be a low-key kind of show, but I definitely didn't expect this. And I still don't know why the event didn't take place. In any case, instead, we walked around downtown Delray Beach for a while and really enjoyed hanging out in that vibrant city, which was quite lively even during the summer.

As for the Oban Festival, Susan, my mother Mary, and I attended this event years ago. As I recall, it involved a LOT of taiko drumming, which Susan really seemed to get into, as seen in the photograph on the right that I took at the time. But the highlight of the festival was at the end, at sunset, when everyone launched a "guiding light lantern" into a pond, which was quite an impressive and moving experience. I tried to take photographs of those floating lanterns, but it was too dark and the photos never turned out. This time, however, I planned to use my Lumix camera with the fast, 1.4 Leica lens and get a decent result. But then I read the festival's web page and found out that "the only lantern floating will take place during the Launch the Lantern Dinner on Sunday evening."  And the cost of this dinner was $200 per person. I know for a fact that the last time we went to that event, everyone there was able to stay until the lantern floating, and we did not pay $200 each for the privilege. And as for the drumming, I had enough of that the first time, even if it was 25 or 30 years ago. And so, we skipped the Oban Festival and took a nice drive back to Stuart along the ocean, which cost us far less than $200 each.