Americana

Our pastor knows that since I've been here, everything that screams USA really intrigues me. Since he's a history buff (just try sitting with him and not learning something about a president, a battle, or preacher) he's offered to take Nathan and I to some really cool things around here. Like today - we went to the Santa-Cali-Gon Days festival.

The first Santa-Cali-Gon Days Festival was held in 1940 to celebrate 

the unique heritage of the City of Independence as the starting point of 

the Santa Fe, California, and Oregon Trails. A second celebration was 

held after World War II in 1947. The event would not be held again until

1973. The festival, then called Three Trails Days, featured a beard and

mustache contest, the Miss Independence pageant and a pioneer costume 

contest. In 1974 the festival was renamed Santa-Cali-Gon Days, a name

originally penned by Velma Katschkowsky in a 1940 contest to name the

festival. In 38 years the Festival has evolved into one of the nations premier

festivals, drawing more than 225,000 people.

 It wasn't really anything special - it had a midway, band stand, a few tents with crafts, but it was CRAZY with people! We have fairs exactly like this at home and nobody goes. It's so strange but the whole place was a big lineup. We saw some really interesting characters. We had fun looking through the crafts tents and Nathan enjoyed his cotton candy treat. We only stayed a couple of hours then we headed home. 

 

 

 

 

Since we were with John Mark and we were in the city of President Truman he just HAD to show us Truman's boyhood home, his home that he lived out the remainder of his life in, his wife's childhood home and then the Truman Library. John Mark knew so much and it was great to be able to learn so much - I really like that type of thing and his enthusiasm is infectious and I'm so thankful that we have someone who wants to show off his homecity of Independence.