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Hernando Today

Sun Smiles On Swamp Fest

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By TONY HOLT

Hernando Today

Published: March 8, 2009

WEEKI WACHEE - Vendors and festival organizers are constantly at the mercy of Mother Nature.

She showed it Saturday for Swamp Fest 2009. After consecutive years of wet and colder-than-normal conditions, the sun was shining brightly over Linda Pedersen Park.

The event, which also runs from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. today, featured live entertainment, food vendors, prize drawings and rows upon rows of Florida-themed vendors.

Sandra Sebahar sells hand-form plastic garden art, which includes egrets, flamingos, palm trees and other wildlife-oriented designs.

It was her third Swamp Fest.

"They usually have big crowds at this place, but I'm thinking they will have a record crowd this time," she said. "They might have 30,000, 40,000 or 50,000 people come through here."

Two hours after it opened, the vendor area was mobbed with more than 1,000 people. It stretched beyond the stage and into the food area, where people could buy anything from crab cakes to Philly cheesesteaks.

Dana and Donna Gibbon were visiting from Buffalo, N.Y. They left sub-freezing temperatures for the 80 degrees in Weeki Wachee.

It was their second Swamp Fest. Their first was in 2004.

"It's still a great festival," Dana Gibbon said. "Everybody's friendly and the food is excellent. We even got to see a few manatees."

The Hernando County Recreations Department offered people the chance to see other wildlife - including a baby otter and a sulcata tortoise, the largest African native tortoise.

It was crawling along asphalt walkway toward a baby carriage. The baby was staring at it the same way as most people. No one had seen such an animal before.

"They seem to like it," said Michael Williams, of the Parks Department. "It's fun for them to see something new and interact with it."

He would dart toward reptile whenever it gained momentum and crawled faster toward the other vendors.

"Oh yeah, he can really move," said Williams just after he picked him up and carried him back toward the shade near Jenkins Creek.

The volume of cars posed more than a few problems throughout the day Saturday. People were offered the opportunity to park east of Shoal Line Boulevard and take a shuttle bus to the festival.

Some parked across the street while others tried the parking lot.

"We loved everything once we got inside," said Donna Bartholomew, who visited the park with friends.

She had attended the event years earlier when it was at a smaller venue. The parking might have been easier then, but there was less to see and fewer food selections.

"It's so much bigger now than it was then," she said. "There are just more things."

Her friend, Betty Bodine, was eating clam chowder and fried oysters. She and Bartholomew just tried some onion rings from another vendor.

They were among the hundreds who sat down to eat along the park benches well before noon. The food was too tempting to wait until the usual lunch hour.

Among the food servers were Road Trip Cafe Inc., Brian's Place, Cassie's, Greek Flame Food and Weeki Wachee Eagles.

There was confusion about the annual Swamp Monster contest. The newspaper advertised it for Saturday while event organizers chose to have it today.

Cary Frazier was the only one who showed up in a costume Saturday. She was draped in Spanish moss and wore a lamp shade over her head. Her face was covered in green makeup, but it was mostly concealed by the moss. She also decorated the costume with plastic "critters" - including frogs and butterflies.

"Everyone kept giving me hints and advice on what I should do," said Frazier, who was displeased by the scheduling mix-up, but happy to pose for photographs. "I had always made (my kids') costumes from scratch, so I thought it was time for me to do it."

Reporter Tony Holt can be reached at 352-544-5283 or wholt@hernandotoday.com.

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