Saturday, February 20th, 2010
Ithaca Commons, Ithaca, NY
On this beautiful, only moderately cold Saturday morning, Tahra, Hillary, Melissa, Robbie, Illika and I headed down to the commons to take part in Ithaca's annual chili cook off. We sampled everything from the dragon's breath spicy chili, to the belgian chocolate and paprika chili, to Thai chili.
For some reason, one of the booths had set out sour cream, shredded cheese, and chocolate chips as the chili topping options. So, of course, we had to give it a try. It pretty much tasted like candy in chili.
This chili was a blend of spices, pinto beans, tomatoes, and LOVE.
But of course, that's just the "chili" part. There's also the "fest" side of things. This included several radio station booths, a guitar hero contest, karaoke, and a mechanical bull. In spite of the very, very public setting-- a whole crowd was milling around just to watch people make fools of themselves on the bull-- I could pass up the opportunity to check mechanical bull riding off my life goals list. A little public embarrassment never hurt anyone, right?
The bull was surrounded by a nice, cushy inflatable arena. The bull itself was insanely slippery, made of shiny hard plastic. It didn't have to get going very fast for most people to just slide off the side, which was probably a safety precaution.
Hillary and Tahra both participated in a contest that one of the radio stations was holding-- dance by yourself, with everyone watching, for a minute. It's amazing how many people were unwilling to do this, even for a $10 gift certificate.
