The weekend's high hemperatures...

` ...While I'm not a pot smoker, last weekend I was surrounded by them on all sides.
` Where?
` At this year's Seattle Hempfest... which happens to take place in the same city where the Crappy Digital Photos (CDP) of my bonus post come from (though I've been hiding those from you since February)!

` Typical of this time of year, the weather was bright and sunny and hazy and smoggy, which is why Mount Ranier is barely visible right below that seagull. (Click for larger images.)

` Lou and I stopped for a bit at a park where we watched the boats for a while. Unfortunately, there were some trees in the way.

` Darn trees! All they do is stand there and supply us with oxygen and house small animals! Luckily, I found some stairs from which I had a better view of Puget Sound....

` That was a big frickin' freighter, which totally dwarfed the tugboats as they came rushing out like happy little puppies....

` After scenic vista time was over, we got back in the car and managed to drive all the way up to the park. We crossed a nifty spiral-covered bridge (which I didn't bother to get a CDP of) and soon enough we came to one of three stages, this one featuring the musical stylings of some amazingly untalented hippies and an old toothless guy groaning unintelligibly into a microphone. (No exaggeration!!)

` I preferred to keep myself aimed in the opposite direction - here you can see the ghost of Mount Rainier on the left: Near the center is a parasailer who apparently glided relentlessly for the whole fest.

` At the original scale, it's slightly easier to see him:

` To my right was a huge boat we had passed, which I hadn't even photographed when I'd been up close to it. Also, there appears to be some kind of man-made structure used by the seagulls as a refuge to rest further away from the incoherant hippie noise.

` There were tons of booths selling everything but marijuana; hemp clothing, treats that taste like/contain marijuana, and some bad-ass bongs... check out the gas masks!

` Lou bought himself one of those Chronic Pops, which tastes amazingly realistic. (Their slogan was something like, 'don't worry about the cops!') I wonder in what country the taste-testing was done?
` Somewhere near the second stage we ran into Dead Fetus Guy, listening to a heavy metal rehearsal. And yes, that is the Space Needle back there, as distorted as it appears.

` At the third stage, after a little side-trip to the beach, there were some guys doing a rap parody about marijuana, though I can't remember how it went. We kept going until we ran into the hemp celebrity Jack Herer's tent. Lou considered buying one of his famous double-barrel pipes and having it autographed, but he decided not to because that would have cost fifty dollars, and he would have had to use my debit card.
` Later on, though, we did listen to Jack speaking on stage for a little while. I don't remember a whole lot of what he said because I was distracted by this guy who appeared to have dipped his hands and upper face in black latex, shirtless and with a tube taped to his back, and was being followed around by a troupe of masked vampire ladies and a camera crew.
` Ooooooookay.
` Reportedly, there had also been a guy running around wearing only seaweed. (!) There were also strange creatures dressed as grotesque weirdos and marijuana leaves, and the guy at the 'God Smokes Pot' booth went around on stilts while dressed presumably as God.
` And then there was the bus creature who was playing a mandolin or something....

` I forget what his deal was - I think he's one of the many people there who were evicted from their homes because they were caught using marijuana for their cancer/glaucoma.
` Then, there was this strange creature at a smoothie stand who was behaving strangely and speaking in an announder-type voice: "...The arctic ice and the fruit go on in an unending battle to create... Fruit Ice!" they also sold sticky rice with chunks of coconut ("The other white meat.")
` Shortly after we'd passed by, one of the creatures called Hare Krishnas got Lou interested in one of their Hare Krishna books and asked him to 'donate' for it. ...And he did!

` Soon after that we got the hell out of there and I was glad because I was a little overwhelmed by the strangeness of the day. Finally, when I'd made it home, I took a nice, hot shower with the dishes.