impressions of raw spirit festival

[Guest guest]

I decided to go to the raw spirit festival in Arizona last weekend. I must

admit I was somewhat disappointed overall with the whole affair.

 

First off, Sedona is a beautiful place. And they had a very good natural

foods store with a good variety of fresh produce, a raw food restaurant, and

a vegan place that had raw food on the menu. The sunsets were awesome to

watch, as well as seeing the full moon rise over the mountains.

 

I waited for over 2 and a half hours at a designated stop near my hotel for

a shuttle to take me there on Saturday - the shuttles were supposed to run

every half hour. I missed 2 speaker talks that prompted me to go to the

festival in the first place. I realize they had volunteers from out of town

driving the shuttles, but these folks were just overwhelmed with the task -

there just were not enough shuttles. Part of the issue was the construction

going on in Sedona on the highway, as traffic backed for 1/2 a mile on

Saturday with the mess going on. But there simply was not adequate

transportation for the people that stayed in hotels away from the site, and

there was absolutely no parking available at the site, or anywhere nearby,

so one could not drive as well. Walking was hardly an option either, as

there was no shoulder or sidewalk going on the road there due to the

construction.

 

If one likes to eat a lot of crackers and chocolate, then I guess one could

enjoy the vendor booths, but there wasn't a lot of real raw food to be had

there, unfortunately, and this is supposed to be a raw food festival. There

was only one vendor booth that was devoted to selling just fruit. Although

the festival offered one raw meal a day, I had a hard time even getting one,

as the I could not stand the stench of vinegar used in the meal to even

stand in line in the food area. I did finally get some greens without

vinegar, after some insistence.

 

The folks at the registration booths were friendly, but not very helpful

with answering questions - they seemed to not know anything about what was

going on, like when shuttles would run, etc.

 

I really hope the festival in Santa Barbara next year is organized a bit

better than this one, and they encourage some more food vendors to show up,

amisdt all the water alkalizer's, supplements, etc. I will go back to Sedona

to visit, as a small town, hosting a raw food restuarant, is encouraging,

and it was such a beautfil place.

 

--

David