2017 Moon Pie Festival in Bell Buckle, TN

Howard and I finally went to the Moon Pie Festival after talking about it ever since we moved here almost seven years ago!  The one-hour drive to and from the festival was worth it in and of itself.  We drove through farmland and quaint little towns with everything from dilapidated barns and trailer homes to beautifully restored homes that are at least a century old.  Interestingly, we've noticed that in TN the lawns are always well manicured no matter what the condition of the home is.

We lucked out and got there right when the parade started.  Here are some highlights from the very brief parade.  We loved this old-time fire truck.  One of the riders threw something at us right as I was taking the picture.  It was a chocolate moon pie!  Yelling, I informed them that we needed another one.  (Howard and I aren't very good at sharing chocolate.)  We soon realized that everyone on the "floats" was tossing moon pies into the small crowds.  We scored five big ones and three mini ones.  Howard wanted me to put them in my purse so they would toss us more when they saw that we were empty handed.

Here's the moon pie girl with her moon pie sandwich board.

The one and only band and cheerleaders were from Cascade High School.

We gave a shout out to the trombone section of the marching band.  Howard and his buddy, Joe, used to play the trombone in high school.

There were several Shriners driving cool cars.  I accidentally took two-second videos of some of them instead of pictures.  Doh!

A lot of the locals took advantage of the tourist traffic (expected to be 20,000) and had yard sales.  I became obsessed over this tree at the only yard sale that we went to.  I must have one of these trees!  Does anyone know what kind it is?

So, I had to drink an RC Cola with my moon pies.  Apparently, that's a thing - a Southern thing.  A guy named Big Bill Lister even wrote a song about it.  He was known as "Radio's Tallest Singing Cowboy" measuring in with a height of 6' 7".

Speaking of big, did you know that the largest moon pie ever made weighed 55 pounds and contained 45,000 calories.  That would really blow a diet!  You can find out more about the history of the moon pie here.

We decided that we will go back to Bell Buckle when the moon pie festival is NOT happening.  There are a few antique malls and several cute specialty shops.  It was just too crowded too enjoy them.  I especially want to go back to eat at the Blue Buckle Café which has a 4.5/5 rating on tripadvisor.com.  We found out that today there was a 2.5-hour wait!  That's worse than the wait time in Boston's North End!

You must attend the Moon Pie Festival if you are ever in Nashville on the 3rd Saturday in June.  Put it on your calendar right now!