At any rate, for those who don't know, Juneteenth is in celebration of freedom from slavery out West. Apparently, they didn't know they were free until two and a half years later. There is speculation as to why it took so long, maybe the soldiers who were supposed to come out here were killed or maybe the slavemasters knew but didn't tell their slaves. Who knows. There is more information found here.
I went to the Denver BBQ festival first. Most festivals around here are free to get in. There are a notable few that have a cost -- like the Taco Festival is $5. It was held outside the Mile High Stadium where the Broncos play. Football, if you didn't know. After walking around to see what was there, I ordered two barbacoa tacos on corn tortillas with lettuce, tomatoes and a green sauce (really good) for $14! Yes! $14! I almost went backward when the man behind the counter told me that. I was not happy.
After finishing those tacos in about a minute, I decided it wasn't worth staying any longer. So I went to get my bike to ride to the Juneteenth celebration which was downtown. Before I left, I noticed the dark clouds. Typically during the summer in Colorado, we will have afternoon thunderstorms. They don't last long and it's beautiful outside afterward. However, the storm did delay my journey to downtown. I stopped under a bridge for a bit to wait out the rain before continuing. On the bright side, I got to take some awesome pictures!
When I FINALLY reached downtown, it was crazy! So many people were at the celebration and of course, there were other festivals and events happening that weekend. It's always nice to be around fellow black and brown faces especially when you spend most of your working day with whites.
Juneteenth's options for food were abundant from traditional American festival food to African/Jamaican food. Every year, I get a funnel cake and kettle corn. I decided to postpone the kettle corn for another time. There will be plenty of opportunities to get it as the summer goes on.
Towards the end of the day, Ashanti, an older black RnB singer was supposed to perform at 7. I had waited towards the front of the croud for 20 minutes or so before someone decided to light up in front of me. One of the reasons why I don't like music festivals is because of this. I have no desire to inhale cigarette or weed. So I moved and then other people decided to do the same thing. By this point, we had all been waiting for her for 45 minutes. Some guy with a computer was playing some music but where in the world was Ashanti?
I ran into an old work friend and she too was a little annoyed waiting for the singer. So we walked around and decided to leave a little after 8pm. We have no idea if Ashanti decided to show up or not but we were done.
Overall, it was a fun and tiring day! Happy Juneteenth!
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