This weekend I was up in a wealthy Walnut Creek suburb. I'm guessing this is there the WC business owners live - because there isn't jack shit in the town. They do have this art festival.
I wasn't really feeling like going very much. It was suppose to rain here on Sunday and I was loving the idea of that. Still, the festival is known for people dressing their pets up. Since it is so close to Halloween. I'd been in 2008 and I got some good shots of dogs. I have to get my "dog on" sometimes. Mr S. is allergic.
We drove up, and the whole effing town was over capacity. Really. It is a small suburb with meter only parking. The only other place to park was at the BART and take a shuttle. Which was impossible.
This of course made me want to do the punching windmill. There are 20 BART stations between here and there. I could have taken BART from the town next to me.
I just don't really know how this benefits a town. If there was some way to know you couldn't park - you could have paid a buck and parked in any number of BART parking lots and taken the shuttle in. The city could welcome you by saying - look, if you want to be crammed in like sardines we welcome your business. But, there is nowhere to park. At all. Instead, people are just driving around for no good reason. And since you can't park - you can't give money to the other businesses.
It also has to piss off the people who live in the town. I was so pissed I didn't even take a shot of a granny driving an Aston Martin. She looked like a not well preserved 70 year old. The car was this year or lasts model.
This also happened last weekend.
After the Tea party, we decided we would rush over the the Capitol Air Show. The only thing I wanted to see was Robosaurus. A 20 foot fire breathing car destroying animatronic beast.
Of course, by the comments on the facebook page for the show - this made purists incensed. "This isn't a monster truck rally - it's an airshow". Whatever. I can get into planes sometimes. But fire... now you've found your audience.
At any rate, we got there right about 3:00. We figured most people would be leaving by then.
We drove up to the parking area and was told the lot was full. We'd need to go a lot that was generally in the direction of the left. We get turned around and start trying to go that way. The police however were only directing people to the right.
After a little bit of this we stopped and told one of the attendants we weren't trying to leave - only get to the lot we were directed to go to. He suggested we go down to the next block and turn left. It was at that point that I'd asked the guy if they were just full. He didn't know. The only place he knew to park though was back in the direction we'd been told initially. We do what he tells us to do. The police still were only directing traffic to the right. And people were starting to be really pissed about it.
One guy who was trying to get into the lot - got out of his truck and yelled at the cop - I work here! He clearly had a badge around his neck. The police of course responded - I don't care who you are. You are going right.
A little more of this. We stopped at another attendant who told us - they are only directly traffic out bound now. It was only 3:30. The airshow closed at 5:00.
In Sacramento there is dead real estate everywhere. This airshow would have actually pulled in some revenue. But, no one knew where to let you park if the main lot was full. No one had walkies. Tons and tons of empty parking lots. Which made me think there must have been some rule about businesses charging for parking. Someone could have made a bundle.
Now both of these events were dirt cheap. But they were both overcapacity. By a lot. So, it is hard to look at business headlines and figure out what is going on. Are people spending - or are they not spending?
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