Maybe we can just say we took him to the Catholic Church first.

Topping the list of dubiously appropriate places to take your toddler is Eeyore's Birthday Party. Even though it sounds like a Pooh themed children's event (and there were tons of kids there), it is actually a hippy celebration of spring complete with costumes, hula hoops, men in skirts, and lots and lots of weed. As we walked down the hill from our car we could see a cloud of smoke rising over the park (which was probably mostly from the grills at the concession stands but the whole time we were there we were asking "is that pot or incense? Should we stand somewhere else?").


We dressed Charlie up in his tie-dye shirt and shark hat and carried him there in the hippy approved Ergo carrier.

One of the main attractions of the event (besides the pot) is the drum circles. Instead of an actual circle it was more like an amoeba of dozens of bodies with instruments of all kinds--some marching band style drums, hand drums, maracas, tambourines, horns, kazoos, and even five gallon water jugs--all playing and moving together as one. The energy was infectious and we wanted to get closer to be a part of it. We got as close as we could but still couldn't see more than a couple of the people with drums. The sound was exhilarating. Charlie loved it.


Drum circle is somewhere in there.


Eeyore Statue of Liberty marks the location of the largest drum circle.

We met up with my sister and brother-in-law and their friend and after we watched some kids tie a man dressed like a giant to a Maypole we settled in for some people watching.



Sister, friend, Brother-in-Law

That's when things got really interesting. My brother-in-law came back from getting drinks and excitedly related seeing a couple dressed in elaborate bird costumes performing "a crazy bird sex dance" up on the hill where he said "all the really crazy hill people were" (a really remarkable statement considering we saw a man dressed as a tree, a woman who had been hula-hooping since six in the morning, and a man wearing only a thong and a bandanna before we even got near the hill). Then Eeyore himself walked by on a leash held by a man who could have been Willie Nelson's brother. THEN a guy came by and discretely offered us hash brownies for a bargain price of $5 each.



Charlie was too wiped out for a bath when we got home last night so he went straight to bed. This morning I cuddled him in my lap as I was putting on his shoes and OH MY GOSH we sent him to the church nursery with his hair smelling of incense.