WHY I LOVE ME, 31

This week's Why I Love me is big. Really big. The 62nd annual Maine Lobster Festival takes place July 29 through August 2 in Rockland, Maine. Every year it takes eleven months of planning to make every Lobster Festival the biggest event in midcoast Maine every summer.

I've never been to the lobster festival (yup, I'm From Away), due to my aversion to lobster and all things shellfish. Oh, I don't hate them personally, but I'd rather pick up NutJob's yard presents than hang out at a festival with mass quantities of people and the stench of steamed dead things.

Last year tens of thousands of people flocked to the festival and over 20,000 pounds of lobster was prepared. Hotel reservations are made a year in advance. There are even free shuttle buses that bring you right to the festival so you don't have to hunt for a parking space. See? This IS big. In addition to lobster, you can also clog your arteries with fried clams, steamed clams, fried Maine shrimp, shrimp cocktail, steamed muscles, and other carnival food like fried dough, sausage and onions chased with shots of Mylanta and a double dose of Lipitor. The festival also has the dubious distinction of having the world's largest lobster cooker.

People come all this way just for lobster? Nah! There's a lot more than stinky lobster such as:

The Sea Goddess pageant where a new Maine Sea Goddess is chosen every year.
The Maine Lobster Festival Seafood Cooking Contest
The Maine Arts and Crafts tent
The Marine Tent
The Big Parade, where 25,000 people line Main Street
Road races
Entertainment/Music: Jazz, comedy, oldies, Celtic, reggae, folk and blues.
Coast Guard Station tours
US Navy ship tours

Competitions for kids include:
Lobster Eating
Cod Fish Carry (little kids dressed as fishermen carrying huge cod fish)
Diaper Derby Costume Parade

While those are great events, by far the best event ever is the Lobster Crate Race. No, these are not crates that you leave your lobster in while you go to work so they don't poop on the floor. Lobster crates are used for storing lobsters. The crate race consists of 50 lobster crates strung in a line and partially submerged in the harbor. The winner is the one who can run across the most crates, back and forth, before taking a dunk in the ocean. Some run barefoot, some wear socks, all fall in.

From the Maine Lobster Festival website:

In recent years a young man from Austria won the race with over 2000 crates crossed before he fell into the cold waters of the harbor. The NEW all-time record, set in 2008 is 4,501 crates, run by Andrew Bachiochi, a 12-year-old participant from Stafford Springs, Conn. The previous record was held by a midcoast girl, Susan Lundquist, who managed 3,007! That record took 25 years to break!

The "Great International William Atwood Lobster Crate Race" is open to anyone brave enough to risk falling into the chilly ocean with thousands of people watching your every move.

Check out the video so you can perfect your lobster crate race technique:

The Maine Lobster Festival helps bring in nearly $1 million of "outside" money into the regional economy. The proceeds from the festival go back into planning for the next year as well as to charities, scholarships, etc. So how do they pay the planners and staffers? They don't. Every one is a volunteer. Cool, huh?

Now do you love ME?

Sources:

Maine Lobster Festival

Atwood Lobster Company