Hola Festival Comes to Downtown Knoxville

Cacti on Gay Street pointed to the festival, Knoxville, October 2010

South Entrance and Stage for Hola Festval

Hispanic Heritage Month, celebrated in October, culminated with the Hola Festival held on the 100 block of Gay Street. Music, food, colorful costumes from the various Latin American countries and Spain set the tone for a fun and festive day attended, according to the KPD by ten to twelve thousand people. Special mentions were made of the miners trapped in Chile as well as historical figure and local namesake Admiral Farragut whose father was a Spaniard who fought in the revolutionary war. He has been adopted by the local Latino community as a sort of symbol of Spanish-American pride.

The festival was much to big - it ran from Summit Hill to the viaduct north of the 100 block - and long (from 11AM to 8PM) to be covered in a single blog post. I also want to post as many pictures as possible, so this post will simply cover a few pictures I took as it was getting started. I'll follow with more in subsequent posts.

Gracious Ladies

Precious Girls

To those of you who have become accustomed to nearly daily posts and have noticed that I didn't post for several days, I'll just say that sometimes real life trumps digital life and that's why I haven't posted for three days. I think that's the longest span I've missed since I started. Until I become a full-time blogger (read "never") that will probably happen from time to time. I do promise to simply pick up again and spare you the personal details other bloggers might expect you to suffer through. :-)

I hope you enjoyed the pictures. I hope the joy of the event shines through. More pictures will follow.