04.10.16 Baldwin County Strawberry Festival in Loxley, Alabama

Sunday, April 10, 2016 – The Baldwin County Strawberry Festival really surprised me with its size and attendance. Being from the Ponchatoula area which boasts the title of Strawberry Capital of the World or something like that I didn’t expect a Strawberry Festival elsewhere to be very much. But it really was!

We first had to make our way through a huge traffic jam from cars heading to the festival on Saturday. ponchatoula Someone pulled out of their spot on the highway and we were able to jump right in it after waiting in line at least 30 minutes.

The location of the festival is at the Loxley, Alabama Municipal Park, several acres of beautiful southern pines with a 1/2 mile walking trail. The craft and food vendors lined both sides of the walking trail. It was quite similar to Ponchatoula’s Festival in regards to what was there, just how it was laid out and the setting was different!

Over the years, the Alabama festival has seen much growth from a handful of craft and food vendors, to more than 175 arts and craft exhibitors, a dozen different food vendors, an exciting carnival, wonderful children’s games, antique auto show, exhibits and live music.

What was missing was the dozen or so tents or booth that local clubs, churches and school groups have at the Ponchatoula Strawberry Festival. The food vendors were businesses and there were no chocolate covered strawberries or other strawberry delights except for strawberry shortcake. I missed that aspect of the festival. Here’s a few photos I took while we were making our way through the festival.

FIRST THE STRAWBERRIES

THE STRAWBERRY COURT

SOME OF THE SIGHTS AT THE FESTIVAL – Some of these will never won’t be found in Ponchatoula at the Festival!

THE RIDES

I left quite impressed with what we saw. It was much larger than what we had time to see today. We saw food, rides, crafts and lots of people. We didn’t make it to the classic car show, music venues, nor did we see nearly all of the food and craft tents. Everything that is spread out on many streets and side streets in Ponchatoula is all in one place here. I liked that!