This Festival was on March 9-11 and we went on Sunday the
11th. I read about this festival about 15 years ago when the Anaheim Angels
manager, Mike Scioscia gave some of the players a spring training assignment. He gave pitcher Jarrod Washburn the assignment
of going to the Ostrich Festival. The next day he came in the locker room with
an ostrich which sent pitcher Ramon Ortiz into his locker yelling “el Pollo
grande”. After I read about it I didn't really think much more about it until
recently when I was looking for 30 things to do this year. The more I read
about the Ostrich Festival the more I wanted to go and since it was the 30th
annual I just had to go.
On Sunday morning we wanted to get up early to get there,
but we were tired and didn't get up so early, but since the event lasted all
day it was okay. We got there just around lunch time and when we arrived the
parking was nice how they just had the handicapped section in with the VIP
section and was not very crowded at the time we were there. We bought tickets
which were $15 for adults and my parents got the senior rate of $8. Once we entered
we walked down the main road through the event where all the vendors were
selling just about everything, ostrich this and ostrich that but I was in
search of an ostrich burger.
Once we
found the food area there were so many choices including barbecue on a stick, fried
items and just about everything you can imagine but eventually we found the
ostrich burger stand. I ordered mine
with cheese and it also came with grilled onions and pickles. They had
condiments out on the table in front of the stand but I thought I should try it
without. We found a nice grassy area next to the stand to eat. The burger was
kind of like red meat like a regular beef burger, but there was a rather odd
taste to it and I wasn't so sure if I liked it. My dad ended up eating the other half.
After this we went to watch the pig races. This I thought
was not too exciting and a bit hard to see sometimes when oblivious people lean
over in front of you to take pictures and block your view. But the pigs were
racing around a little fenced in area and the winner gets an Oreo cookie and the
losers get the crumbs that were laying underneath.
Once this was over we had
time to get to the main attraction the ostrich races! We got there about an
hour until the races, but so did a lot of other people.
When we got to the arena
area the ostriches were out and about. One was just walking around and looked
rather odd with real skinny legs and neck and the midsection area bouncing
around a bit and this just made me laugh. Another one was sitting down and
resting until there was a kid that was pestering the other one. He came over by
the fence to defend his friend and the kid was lucky to not lose a finger.
After a while they got all the ostriches
rounded up and ready to race they had three racing at a time with rider on top
of each. When they took off they looked even more ridiculous than before especially
with the riders on top. The crowd’s main reaction was just laughing about it and
I can't tell you which ones won any of the races, if it was the red white or
blue rider. They also had kids running with the emus and chickens and even a
couple camel races. All these things
were kind of interesting but just not the same as the ostrich races. Once the
races were done most of the crowd immediately got up and left. Right after that
they let the ostriches out again. The
whole group of them ran right up in front of us and we could easily see them
since everyone had left.
After all this I was kind of tired, so we decided to head
out but I had one last thing to do which was to get an ostrich cup. They were
selling these right next to the ostrich burgers. When we were done with that we
left. This was quite the adventure and I
had a lot of fun watching all the ostriches.
There was so much going on and I could’ve easily spent all day at the Ostrich
Festival.
