Farley Fest, Milbank, SD

My home town, Milbank, has a festival every year named for the local lake, Lake Farley.  My husband laughs at the name Farley Fest because he says it sounds too much like Fart-ley Fest!  Which, of course, conjurs up some pretty hilarious images of tooting contests, "fragrant" clouds hanging over the festival, etc.

This year, I ran the Farley Fest 5K which starts on the track at the high school and then heads out onto the nature trail before finishing up on the track again.  I had never been to the nature trail before, but it was really lovely to run through a typical prairie grass setting with tons of flowering plants and grasses up to 5' tall.  If you get a chance, you should definitely take the 1.5 mile walk.  I even managed to get 2nd place in my age group!  (not bad for 1 week after a 30k :-))

Also, as part of Farley Fest, the Hollands Grist Mill was actually running during the day on Saturday, grinding corn for keepsake bags.  The English-style Mill has been the symbol of Milbank for decades and reconstruction was recently completed at a cost of over $1 million.  This is the first time the Mill has run in a very long time.  Visitors were even allowed to ascend to the upper stories to see the Mill's mechanisms at work.  Very cool!