By Catherine Bodry
It's easy to breeze right through a little town on the highway, but if you pass one with a festival going on you might want to hit the brakes. Small-town festivals offer low-key, budget merriment with fresh local flavor. Check out these tiny-town festivals and discover your own on country road trips.
Child among tulips, Skagit Valley tulip festival.
© Lawrence Worcester. Lonely Planet Images.
Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, Mt. Vernon, Wash.
An hour's drive north of Seattle, off Interstate 5, Mt. Vernon is cozily situated in the fertile Skagit Valley between the Cascade Mountains and Puget Sound. The valley's climate produces a bountiful harvest of tulips, daffodils and irises every spring, which are celebrated the entire month of April during the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival.
As fields undulate in waving pastels, travelers converge for the charm of Mt. Vernon's community and the colorful photo opportunities — let's face it, it's hard to find a bad angle in a field of flowers. Pacific Northwest artists sell their wares at the street fair, and the poster created for the event is a collector's item produced by a different artist each year. A mellow driving tour will take you past Roozengaarde's, which has been growing bulbs since the 1700s, and Tulip Town, which will feature the Tulip Peace Garden in April 2008.
Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Ashland, Ore.
From the Tulip Festival, head south on Interstate 5 — which passes through numerous small Pacific Northwest communities — until you reach a Southern Oregon town where Shakespeare's English lives on.
The Rogue River Valley in Ashland, Ore., has been hosting its Shakespeare Festival for more than 70 years, and the festival has grown from a few local drama students performing "Twelfth Night" and "The Merchant of Venice" on a single stage to a full-blown, 10-month long, three-stage affair.
From February to November, Ashland's rolling hills provide the backdrop for a Tony award-winning festival so popular it has earned its own 4-acre campus. Traditionalists will appreciate Shakespeare favorites on the round Elizabethan Stage, while those who like a twist can enjoy new original works in the Angus Bowman Theatre. Offstage events include noon concerts, backstage tours and the "Feast of Will," a festive barbeque dinner that marks the opening of the Elizabethan Stage for the summer.
Great Wisconsin Cheese Festival, Little Chute, Wis.
Sitting right on the Fox River in Little Chute, Wis., is a small Dutch village with a huge dairy industry. To kick off "Dairy Month," the town holds the Great Wisconsin Cheese Festival — or Cheesefest for short — on the first weekend in June to celebrate all things related to everyone's favorite dairy product. Although the town has only 10,000 residents, the festival has claimed national attention; in 2003, for example, the Food Network showcased the Cheese Festival as one of its Great American Festivals. Every event revels in cheesy glee, from the elaborate cheese-carving demonstration to the whey face dipping for the "Make Your Own Milk Mustache" contest. Dessert rounds up the weekend, with a cheesecake competition that spectators can sink their teeth into — after the contest, cheesecakes are divvied up into slices, which are then sold for $1 apiece.
Mayflower II replica in harbor. Plymouth, Mass.
© Hanan Isachar. Lonely Planet Images.
America's Hometown Celebration, Plymouth, Mass.
After you've had your fill of cheese, duck under the Great Lakes, head east and roll into Plymouth, Mass., for America's Hometown Celebration, held on the Saturday after Thanksgiving Day each year. What better place to celebrate Thanksgiving than where the Pilgrims organized the original feast? Festivities involve serious chowdah sampling at the New England Food Court, and a parade with displays so intricate they ought to pop Macy's balloons' pride. Floats include a detailed model of the Mayflower, a depiction of the first Thanksgiving in 1621, and — always the final float — a replica Victorian church complete with carolers. There's also no scrimping on American pride — all branches of the armed forces are active participants in the merriment.
Bio: Catherine Bodry lives and writes in Seward, Alaska, a tiny town with its own huge Fourth of July festival. You can find her recent work in Alaska Home Magazine and on AOL's Gadling.
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