H Street Festival

[Welp… a week+ late at this point and now I have both the Pope’s visit and Landmark Festival to catch up on too! Never mind that I’ve got two years’ worth of Michigan trips that I still haven’t mentioned…]

Last year, when Marlon lived in the H Street district, he helped put up posters advertising H Street Festival and landed us coveted Block Captain spots for the Fest’s set-up. We had to be up on the early side, but we got walkie-talkies and had to solve all sorts of problems like when the cops wouldn’t let the RedBull MiniCoopers in because the streets had been closed off already. Talk about a barely-averted crisis! Thank Jebus we were there to tell the cops what’s what (read: get one of the coordinators on the walkie-talkie to tell the cops what’s what) and save the entire festival.

sole surviving evidence of last year’s festival: wearing mustaches as part of some gimmicky tequila shooting ritual. but hey, they were free! (and i guess it doesn’t take much to get me to don a fake mustache.) (also let it be known that the tequila-shooting took place post-volunteering.)

Even though we live all the way over in Shaw now, we had to get in on the H Street Festival action again this year. It was another morning full of strategic problem solving and walkie-talkie brandishing, and by the time noon rolled around and the Festival officially kicked off (ready to welcome the 100,000-or-so people expected to pass through at one point or another) everything was pretty much in place and ready to go.

(And of course I kid about Mar’s and my single[double?]-handedly saving/running everything– there’s a huge volunteer presence at the Festival and everyone cooperates really impressively to make H Street Festival come together. #WHERESTHEICETRUCK?!)

Of course, after rushing home to shower and take the dog out, we went back to enjoy the fruits of our labor. And who decided to join us for the day but Dear Old Mom and Dad! We met up with a bunch of Mar’s friends (and even one of my middle school friends from the Netherlands now living in the area!) and everyone had a grand ol’ time. I took a lot of pics and from those pics I made a number of gifs (naturally). Et voilà.

One of the first problems we solved was when an unidentified truck was parked in Dyvine BBQ in Motion‘s spot (turns out it was one of the H Street Festival supply trucks! Whoops!). After making a few exchanges on the walkie-talkie to sort it out, we had the pleasure of chatting with Chef Derrick, who was more than happy to let us take a look inside the smoker; and his associate, who assured us that if we wanted one of the Flintstone-sized turkey legs, we were going to need to act quick cuz they were going to go fast.

This was our block, as it came together throughout the day:

Here are some balloons that were set loose (for shame!!!) :

A stroll down H Street during set-up:

After foolishly carrying/rolling some large tables for a silly distance early in the day and determining it to be a taxing experience, we decided that finding a better way was a problem worth solving. For Round Two of Table Transport we solicited a ride on a Gator, which made both moving the tables and getting street time lapses a lot easier.

Another problem we had to solve was when the Grindstone booth was missing its tent. We found a spare (thanks to some walkie-talkie coordination, of course), but it was tied to a giant cinder block. Luckily Kathleen-from-Grindstone had brought her trusty skateboard, and she got in on the problem-solving too! We are so smrt!

marlon meeting his heroes from ‘seinfeld’ was the _opposite_ of a problem-to-be-solved.

Like any good festival, H Street Festival had live music. Marlee in the Mixx kicked off the day on the west end of the fest and they were  a w e s o m e. Check out their tunes here.

before heading home we got the taco+tecate for $5 deal at chupacabra

DID I MENTION WE GOT WALKIE-TALKIES?

my dad not embarrassing marlon at ALL by shaking his polaroid picture while singing (you guessed it) ‘shake it like a polaroid pict-cha!’

the really fantastic and well-lit polaroid being shaken above.

And to top off the evening we got to see the guy who made a reckless U-turn across the crosswalk we were attempting to cross get pulled over for a DUI! What a day!

[Bonus features: Turns out I totally lied and there is more surviving evidence of last year’s Fest!]