The weekend before Thanksgiving, our western Maine home town of Bridgton, Maine has an event called Ladies' Weekend Out.   The small downtown area has special sales in the various shops, food trucks, craft sales, 'train' rides through town, and, this year, a juggler.  When I was invited to perform at a Ladies' weekend out, I had images of a bachelorette party, although I had a pretty good idea this would not be the case.  

It turned out to be a beautiful late autumn afternoon, and I set up in a parking lot that also included a few food trucks and a craft sale sponsored by St. Peter's Episcopal Church.   I was doing 'walk around' juggling rather than an actual show, which worked well in a venue where there was a lot of foot traffic.   I was positioned across the street from where the train - a motorized trolley - picked up and dropped off, so there was always a turnover of new people to juggle for.

One of the pleasures of doing outdoor juggling is I can juggle fire , and I made sure I did a lot of fire juggling at this event. I would mix in diabolo, three and five balls, clubs, and machetes.  At one point I had a little boy in a stroller hold a spinning plate on a dowel.  When a dad and son were sitting at one of the tables eating, I took the opportunity to do a comedy card prediction and reveal.  Additionally, the shrinking / growing head optical illusion got its share of work..

After two hours of doing walk around and interacting with fellow Bridgtonians, I began to pack up, but not without talking to the folks from St. Peter's.  They had me do the shrinking / growing head for them multiple times, and chatted about our various ministries.

All in all, it was just pure small town fun, and the wasn't event the kick off to the holiday season.  That is this weekend, when I will be juggling at Bridgton's tree lighting event!