Holiday in the Park

Last night Carl and I bundled up and headed down the street for Burbank's 

Carl had heard that Magnolia Park (not an actual park, it's a stretch of road) was preparing for their annual holiday festival in which the town shuts down a 40-block section of Magnolia Boulevard. He heard there would be food, classic cars, street vendors, and music. It sounded like a holiday version of the Be-Boppin' In the Park that we attended in August which was a lot off fun. 

We walked from our house up  the road to the festivities. There were  a lot of people heading that way and we were pretty excited. One of our favorite bakery's had set up a tent on the strip and they had quite a long line for the free food samples and coffee. We continued walking, and walking, and walking. There were no classic cars. There were no street vendors. There were no food stands. 

We did see an ice sculptor. 

What you can't see in the photo is that directly to the right of the chainsaw wielding ice sculptor is a kid's play area. Yup, tons of little children tumbling on mats, climbing on play equipment, and running around. Who thought  that would be a good idea? Kids and Chainsaws go perfect together! Not to mention that fact that ice if flying all over the place and the ground is wet and slippery. 

There were a few street performers like jugglers, elves on stilts, and actors dressed as characters from the story 'Scrooge'. And of course the highlight of the festival was the 18-wheeler tractor truck decked out with lights, carolers, dancers, and music. It was a one vehicle parade. 

Apparently no one put much consideration into how this GIANT caroling truck was going to turn around once it reached the end of the 40-block stretch. It managed to turn around some how without running over any small children  or lackadaisical adults. 

We walked about 4 miles in an hour so at least I feel like I got my daily  exercise in and  worked up an appetite. When we got back to the house we hoped in the car and headed to downtown Burbank to grab a bite to  eat. Thankfully we were not in a hurry because we got stuck in  parking garage for 20+ minutes driving up 8 flights only to drive back down 8 flights because there were NO parking spots available. After we finally did get a parking spot in another parking deck we headed to a restaurant called Pomodoro. We thought there would be a wait  on a Friday night at 8PM, but we got seated right away. The food was excellent and they had perfect portions. 

After eating we  thought we would walk through the mall to get to our car and avoid the chill of walking outside around the mall. However, we soon realized that almost all of the stores were closed, including the one we had to walk through to get to our car. I have never heard of a mall cosing at 9PM especially on a weekend night and especially with the holidays close by. It's not like we wanted to go shopping, we just didn't want to walk all the way around the mall to get to the car. 

We were home by 9:30 and in bed by 10:00. And on the first day of my week off for Thanksgiving Break I couldn't sleep in past 7:00 AM this morning. It's raining. And for the first time in the 10 months the gardeners did not come at 8 AM this morning which means I could have slept in without being woken up by leaf blowers.  Go figure!

It's okay though, I have big  plans today. Clean. Read. Nap. Write. Cook. Laundry. And I will probably do them in that order. 

What are your plans for today? Do you get extra time off this week? Are you a Black Friday shopper? Why is the sky blue?