Festival of the Tater

One of my goals this year is to visit more Ontario attractions and festivals that I haven't been to before. I suppose all those 'love Ontario' TV ads have finally influenced me. I wanted to explore my own backyard a bit more - because it is a pretty great backyard! Last weekend I finally went to Toronto Island and had a great time. So this weekend, after years (maybe even a decade) I've finally made it to the potato festival in Alliston, Ontario.

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On this beautiful, sunny day Brad and I packed up our offspring in our Loser Cruiser (minivan), picked up our requisite 'double double' large coffees (Remember! A happy mom is a caffeinated mom!) and we were off. We had a beautiful day to drive the few hours to Alliston.

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Potatoes are, as I have mentioned before, in my eyes ... perfection (cue angels singing) and one of my favourite things to eat. Driving there I was envisioning potato booths as far as the eye could see. A veritable feast for these potato lovin' eyes (no pun intended). I was envisioning a potato mascot greeting me and showing me aisles of perogie booths, baked potato booths, and french fries up the wazoo! I was hoping, but not expecting, mashed potatoes, scalloped potatoes and even the sweet tater to make an appearance too!

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Well, they did have lots of french fry booths and a couple of baked potato booths ... along with various other non-tater foods like deep fried Mars bars (a fav of 10 year old Cub's), burgers, corn-on-the-cob etc. Harumph! I was able to get myself a really tasty baked potato with all the fixin's and it was quite tasty. If only I could have also had some perogies.

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Overall, a really good time. We saw a wonderful busker who had some great one liners, the boys got to ride their first mechanical bull (and did quite well too!) and an old car show (for Brad and Cub to oooo and ahhh over various machines).

Does anyone know of any other great summer festivals in Ontario? What are your favs?