(Lauri's excellent photos follow her report!)

 

The Utah Picnic in Salt Lake City was a very different kind of Charming Tails event held in very unusual picnic grounds – in the desert, under wide-open skies, on the shore of the Great Salt Lake.  The weather was warm and sunny, the sand hot, fine, and deep, and a really well-thought-out and –planned Charming Tails event was in full swing.

We arrived at the picnic pavilion a little late, but were greeted by Dean and Yvette and Wanda and given our goodie bags and pins, and seated ourselves to listen to the ranger talk.  It was interesting, and the ranger also told some stories.

Our picnic fare was quite regional – buffalo burgers, with an option for a chicken sandwich if buffalo wasn’t quite to your liking (it’s really good, by the way).  There were salads and chips and sandwich fixin’s, and watermelon to provide the seeds for the seed-spitting contest later.

The day was so fun and went so fast, it’s hard to remember it all!  Phyl’s daughter Tammy was quite the competitor, and a really excellent hula-hooper.  There was a treasure hunt for Charming Tails all around the pavilion, and we played horseshoes (I had never done that before).  The fruit-carrying relay was challenging because it was held on the sand, which is particularly fine and soft, and the team of Pat and Talli won that race.  (I didn't mind, since Pat gave his prize to me.  And Talli gave her prize to her mom, Jean!)

Easily the most entertaining game was the fruit-passing relay, each team composed of 5 people who had to pass an orange first down the line (NO hands - just gripping the orange tightly under the chin), then reverse and pass it back up.  The positions and, uh, closeness of the teams got to be very interesting.  Pat said that had anyone been videotaping this, they might have made money by selling tapes (no, no one did that!).  But it was lots of fun and absolutely hysterical to watch.  Jean’s daughter Maren and I were on the same team, and were wonderfully surprised and delighted to find out that our team’s time came in first, and hence we each received a wonderful green-apple pin, of which only 15 were made (5 for each picnic).

Another fun contest was the no-hands banana-split eating contest.  I participated but lost by a landslide, I was laughing too much to eat.  I don’t remember the name of the gentleman who won the contest (man, was he FAST!!!), but he won one of only THREE (one per picnic) pig pen pins (see photo).

It was a wonderful “cozy” picnic because there were only 35 to 40 people in attendance (perhaps Fitz & Floyd has a more accurate number).  So there was plenty of time to chat with other people and Dean had plenty of time to sign our watermelon pieces and our pins and even our t-shirts.

We had a plane to catch, so we left about a half hour before the picnic’s end and didn’t see how it all wrapped up, but it was well worth the trip, and wonderful to meet with Dean and the good folks at Fitz & Floyd and - of course - all the wonderful CT collectors.  One couple even brought their kitty with them; she stayed in a corner of the pavilion with her water bowl and seemed to have as good a time as everyone else!

Enjoy the photos!