Welcome to the Wild Old West

I have had a recent stroke of good luck with winning things.  I won free tickets to the Old West Festival thanks to a giveaway hosted by Adventure Mom Blog. I was thinking of checking out this festival anyway, so this cemented that decision. I swear, I have been to more festivals since moving to Ohio than I've been to in my whole life probably!  

So, we headed down September 14th just south of Cincinnati to check out the festival. Since it was on the way, we decided that Holtman's Donuts would be the perfect breakfast pit stop. Holtman's had provided one of the featured snacks at the Yelp Shakespeare with a Twist event, and both me and Francisco had been impressed, so we picked a variety to munch on for the short road trip.  

Oh, and my jolt of caffeine was courtesy of Starbucks with my first Pumpkin Spice Latte of the season!

This year was the sixth annual festival, and it's all about celebrating everything about the Old West.  People come dressed up in period attire, ready to indulge in some Old West fare, fun, and shows. I have never had Sasparilla, so when I spotted these soda barrels, I figured it was time to give it a try. This was a popular drink back in the 19th century, and it definitely tastes like root beer.

We wandered around, checked out the stores that lined the grounds.

 

We stopped to watch a couple of 'gun fights' with drunken cowboys.

We watched the Pickled Brothers Circus perform their impressive fire-eating and sword swallowing acts.

Francisco tried his hand at shooting a bow and arrow.

We watched one more gunfight that concluded with a lot of dead cowboys before we made our way out of Dodge City.

 

We stopped at Red Robin to share a burger before we went shopping. 

And we decided to check out the Jungle Jim's on this side of town. For some reason, I thought it would be smaller and/or have less stuff. But it is just as ginormous as the original. We kind of liked it better since it is a little newer, and most importantly, it was far less crowded on a Saturday afternoon.  The only downside is they did not appear to carry Match Meats, our new favorite food, at this location.