What to expect when you Pumpkinfest
Lots of pumpkins 🎃 being destroyed in various ways!
I had visions of spending an idyllic fall weekend in Maine, a quiet break during Dan’s precious few days off during the baseball busy season for us to decompress and be together.
We’d have two nights and a full day to do as little as we wanted, leisurely cruising around the back roads to our favorite spots, strolling down the hill to Main Street — still charming but emptier in the offseason — for cozy dinners at the local pubs, generally bumming around with no agenda.
Yes, we were going to have a picture-perfect peaceful Maine trip.
What we got instead was Pumpkinfest. And I say that in the most complimentary way.
Maine has quite a few fests and fairs, many of which are familiar beyond the borders of the Pine Tree State: the Maine Lobster Festival in Rockland, which David Foster Wallace famously wrote about in “Consider the Lobster;” the Maine Oyster Festival in Freeport; the Common Ground Country Fair, an “annual celebration of rural living” in Unity; and (known to me at least) Oxbow Brewing’s Goods from the Woods Festival at their rustic brewery site in Newcastle.
But how, in all my years of spending time in this very particular region of midcoast Maine, had I not heard of the Damariscotta Pumpkinfest and Regatta?
Reader, now I know. And now I know I have to do it again.
Highlights of Pumpkinfest:
After a few years’ hiatus, the Pumpkin Drop proved to be worth the wait.
A crane hoisted a big-ass honking squash high, high, high in the air and then, with a jaunty three-toot of the horn, let ‘er rip to crowd-thrilling effect.
This is the 500-pound pumpkin:
And this is what happens when you drop a thousand-pound pumpkin on a junked car:
The Pumpkin Regatta was no less amusing, because what else would you expect when you have people paddling (and motoring) about in extremely large pumpkins hollowed out and used as watercraft?
We were all thrilled to see Gnome Guy professionally chugging his pumpkinboat around the harbor…
And equally thrilled-slash-dismayed to watch the unicorn bite it.
For those who prefer a more analog experience, there were quite a few heats of paddle-powered pumpkins.
I bought a bumper sticker that says “my other ride is a pumpkinboat” and can’t wait to get questions about it.
Local artists created pumpkin tableaux throughout Damariscotta and Newcastle, and though they were all sponsored by specific businesses, there didn’t seem to be any requirement that the artistic theme need to be tied to the business in any way.
I love that there was complete free rein to be as weird as you wanted with this art, and I particularly appreciated these:
Other Pumpkinfest takeaways:
Sure, it took me a few years to get the hang of dressing for the weather in Maine, but I’m not (yet) a local. And even I knew it was going to be potentially drizzly and windy for a good chunk of the weekend, so I brought the appropriate layers, waterproof coats, and Bean boots.
But I was shocked to see so many people showing up to the regatta on a very soggy morning in jeans, basic sneakers, and completely un-water resistant jackets or gear of any sort. I assume a lot of them were Mainahs, and I am stumped.
If only there were an outdoors-focused clothing company anywhere in Maine that could supply these poor folks with some weather-appropriate clothing….
And this might seem like a minor quibble, but the cotton candy was highly touted and I was highly disappointed to discover the flavors for sale were Pink Vanilla and Blue Raspberry. This is a PUMPKINfest in October in New England! For the love of LLBean, get some maple cotton candy for next year!
Also, bleachers for the regatta. I appreciate the availability of a livestream at the cute movie theater, but for those of us who are short and want to see it at the water’s edge, it would surely help.
Plus, don’t you want me to be able to get better video footage the next time I attend Pumpkinfest??
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