The Giant Days Committee bills the event as the “Biggest and Best Party in Town,” and by golly, this year I think they were correct.

I don’t know if you were around Blue Earth for any of the events, but if you were not, you were one of the few who didn’t make it to at least one thing that was going on.

I mean, there were a lot of people in Blue Earth for Giant Days. And I can’t blame them, because there was just a whole lot going on.

And the weather was absolutely ideal, at least on Saturday. There was that little whoops thing about a storm on Friday night. That caused the fireworks to be set off early, and that was a good deal, because the fireworks got over just as the storm hit. In fact, the lightening of the storm was some fireworks too.

Despite that Friday weather there was still a dandy crowd downtown, probably because there were two (sort of) local bands playing that night – Blue Dirt Road and Steele Prairie. Both feature local folks as some of the band members.

Plus, both are pretty darn good.

Then on Saturday, could the weather have been any better? I think not. It was just about perfect. And that translated into a whole lot of people going to the car show, the parade, all the events downtown, and of course, several more bands, including may favorite – Burnt Toast. And you know what? They were even better and more entertaining with one new member and another guest visit by Celie Ray Holland.

So, all in all, I think you could safely say that a good time was had by all.

And, that includes the Register staff. Reporters Kevin Mertens and Katie Samek and also myself were out taking a whole lot of pictures. In fact, we shot literally hundreds and hundreds of photos.

You can see a good selection of our efforts on various pages of this week’s Faribault County Register. We are running a lot of them, and, as usual, I wish we had room to run a whole lot more. There were some dandy ones that just didn’t make the cut.

This is the time of year that we keep plenty busy taking a whole lot of photos. You can see the results of our work on page 2 for the new exhibit at the Giant Museum.

Hopefully, you have been to the museum before and seen what a terrific place it is. But, now you have a reason to return and see this amazing collection of artwork.

It truly was something to see so many of artist Don Herold’s family show up in Blue Earth to be part of the celebration.

The Register staff also went to Minnesota Lake for photos at Festag.

It has always truly amazed me how this very small community puts on such a spectacular town celebration.

I mean, they have a huge parade, carnival, events, free Johnny Holm Band concert and more. It is just amazing what that small town accomplishes.

The organizers of both Giant Days and Festag deserve a big round of thanks for all the efforts they put in. That goes for all the towns in Faribault county that have people willing and able to put in the hard work to put on a good show.

That includes Elmore, where the Register staff was headed to on Saturday of this week (July 19).

And, of course, next week is the four-day long Faribault County Fair, which is jam-packed full of things going on every day – and night – of the fair. Don’t believe me? Don’t think there is stuff going on at the fair? Well, I suggest that you take a good, long gander at the Registers’ Fairbook Magazine, that had 54 pages chock full of information about everything that is going on at this years’ fair. It includes a story about something really new – a dinosaur experience. From what the fair board members say, this could really be something you want to see.

During the fair you will see members of the Register wandering around taking photos every single day of the fair. Basically from morning til night.

Again, we will take hundreds of photos of as many things as we can, and we will share many of them with you in the next couple week’s editions of the Register.

And, of course, that next weekend after the fair is Frost Fest, and they have a great big deal called the BBQ Cookoff. I get hungry just thinking about it!

The next week is August and time for the Relay for Life and Wells Kernel Day in Wells – both are also really big events. Yes, we will be there, too.

I really hope you get to some of these events that happen all summer long in Faribault County. All of them are worth checking out. And it sure beats sitting at home watching TV on a beautiful summer day.

Get out and go have some fun!