Frankenmuth Snowfest

We decided to go out and have a little winter fun today.  We went to the Frankenmuth Snowfest.  If you're unfamiliar with the town of Frankenmuth, it is Michigan's "Little Bavaria", because it resembles a Bavarian village.  It also has the world's largest Christmas store.  It's a little touristy, but still a fun place to visit.

We had no idea that this was such a popular festival, but it was really crowded.  It took us 30 minutes to drive through town (a total of about 2 miles).  We had to park on a residential street because every lot in town was full.

The first thing we did was stop by the Frankenmuth Brewery Restaurant.  It was only 4:00 and we thought we might catch an early dinner a little bit ahead of the dinner rush.  We couldn't have been more wrong!  The estimated wait time was 65 minutes.  We knew it would be the same in every restaurant in town, and that it would only get worse as it got later, so we waited.  When we were finally seated, we got a great table and great food.  It was worth the wait.

Looking down from our table over the first floor and bar.

After dinner we shared a decadent dessert of deep fried Oreos served with ice cream, chocolate sauce, caramel and whipped cream.  It was amazing!

  

We left the restaurant just in time to see the fireworks.  It was a nice display and went on for a long time.

Then we headed down the street to where the snow sculptures were displayed.  Some of them were amazing.  Some of them, well, we just couldn't figure out what they were supposed to be (you can click on the pictures for a larger view).

I have no idea, looks like a whale and some other sea creatures.

Something sleeping.  A dragon, maybe?

After we were done viewing the snow sculptures we stopped at a candy store.  We were greeted by this guy when we walked in the door.

He was holding a tray of toffee samples.  I didn't want to hurt his feelings, but the toffee wasn't very good.

This guy was in front of another store.  I didn't pay any attention to what they sell.  I think he's a little creepy.

We saw a few horse drawn carriages on our way out of town.  It would have been fun to ride in one, but there were all full.

To top off the evening, we saw this lovely sight on our way back to our parking spot.  The view is little obscured by some trees, but I'm sure you can still see what it is.....

.....a full moon.  I hope you found something fun to do this weekend, too!

A side note:  I found out about this festival when Pure Michigan (a tourism page) on Facebook posted it.  I didn't know until recently that they had a Facebook page.  If you are a Facebook user, check and see if your state has a page that you can join or check their website to find events and activities you may not know about.  It's fun to be a tourist in your own state.

Willoughby