Children's Day

October 31, 2018

 

Children’s Day

The very final event of the Fantasy Fest schedule is always held on the final Sunday of the ten day festival and is the annual event that is designed for children to get to experience a little piece of Fantasy Fest magic. Bleary eyed parents escorting thousands of the island’s children as they enjoy a day of rides, games, food and fun at Bayview Park.

 

Sponsored each year by Historic Tours of America, First State Bank and others, the day features costume contests, a full entertainment schedule featuring all manner of school bands, local musicians and more as well as any number of booths by a myriad of local non-profits and just about every school group from all of Key West’s schools all trying to sell food, host games or simply ask for cash donations as a way to raise funds for their causes.

 

It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day for the event and I must say this year had about the most large rides and bounce houses, slides, and more than I have ever seen at a Children’s Day. It was by any measure a huge success and literally thousands of screaming kids could attest to that fact.

I have gone for the past few years as my final photo assignment of the Fantasy Fest week and of course to grab a nice bite to eat, usually of Conch Salad or some other tasty treat. Photographing kids is a tricky proposition, first they are hard to photograph and second, I am always conscious of asking parental permission so not to be perceived as some weirdo taking pix of kids. 

 

While it is not one of my favorite events, usually I am just about exhausted by the time the event rolls around, but it is great to see such a popular event for families and it seems that every kid and parent in Key West is on hand for the fun. Hopefully the charities involved had a successful day and if the size of the throng on hand is any indication than they most likely did.

 

 

 

With Fantasy Fest over, the Key West schedule returns to its abnormally regular scheduled self. There was one other cool event during the week after the festival concluded and that was a campaign visit from the Democratic nominee for the State of Florida’s Governor, Andrew Gillum. Gillum is running against Republican Ron DeSantis for the governorship and made a rare Key West visit for such an important race.

 

It is rare for a candidate for Governor to come to Key West, so it was sort of cool to be out at Salute restaurant early on a Wednesday morning for the campaign appearance and stump speech. A pretty large and enthusiastic crowd of supporters was on hand to see and hear Gillum and they hung on every word. He certainly seemed like a pretty good choice as he expounded on positive ideas for actual positive changes.

Susan

The crowd responded well and it was a pretty cool thing to see and experience. I know in the state of Florida, Democratic candidates are up against it most of the time as Republicans seem to have a lock on state politics, but even so, Gillum seemed like he potentially has a bright future weather he wins this particular election or not. He is currently the mayor of Tallahassee and is trying to appeal as sort of an anti-Trump sort of candidate while his opponent seems to be embracing just about everything that President Trump stands for, making for an easy distinction for voters to choose from