FeStIvAl of CoLoRs!

Today was the long-awaited Festival of Colors at the Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple in Spanish Fork. If you remember, Jess and I had attended India Fest with Shauntelle and Angela back in the fall, but we all have REALLY been looking forward to this celebration for a LONG time. This event has grown so much in the past few years, been attended by so many people, that they had to do 2 different times for throwing the colors! They had over 10,000 people confirm on Facebook that they would go, and the temple projected over 15,000 would attend. My observation- there were 15,000+ at the four o'clock festival alone! I'll show you in a minute.
We all met at our place and carpooled down to Spanish Fork. Don't worry, Jess and I were prepared with blankets to cover up the car seats, directions to the temple, and directions to the parking. Yeah, we were ready! We parked at a local school and shuttled over to the temple. For most of us, it was the first time riding a school bus in 10+ years. Yeah, we got into the ride. We were the "bad" kids at the back of the bus!
The festival is devoted to welcoming in the Spring season, and so they normally dance, sing, eat, and pelt each other with colored chalk. This year was the first year I could go, so I had no idea that people wold be throwing colors early. We would learn soon enough. Joe, Karaleigh, and I were walking to the tent to buy colors, and were walking by a random group of guys when we all got chalk to the face. Here are the results. -------------------->
We ran into Vanessa, Curt's fiance, at the festival, too! Out of all the people there, we kept running into her, go figure! We had already started throwing chalk on each other, so we were getting a little colorful, and while we were taking the picture together, someone turned around and threw a bag in our faces, hence the crazy picture! I love it, though. It really captures the fun we had today.
We headed to the middle of the crowd, and started dancing and throwing colors on each other. I got several mouthfuls of powder, and gagged a few times because they were rose-scented! Gross. I also was spiting green and purple powder for hours.
4 bags of powder later, they started the countdown for everyone to throw their colors and welcome in Spring. I knew that with so many people around me I wouldn't be able to breathe, so a few of us went to the side of the crowd so we wouldn't get caught in the main cloud and not be able to breathe (the cloud gets so bad that people were actually selling masks, & wearing bandannas over their faces!). That turned out to be a good decision because the cloud of powder completely blocked out the sun! There were reports that the cloud of colors was seen 15 miles away! This video is of our group (4 pm) getting our colors on! Check out all the people!


Oh, and I was on the other side of the field, so the dust cloud came STRAIGHT at us! Karaleigh and I took off toward the fence, looking for fresh air. You couldn't even see the people standing two feet away from you! Insane.
We had so much dust on us, that our faces were black by the time we were done! I have colors in places that I never thought- one ear was green, one ear was pink,when I blow my nose it is straight purple powder, I have a purple streak running down my back, and even though I was wearing tennis shoes, my pinky toes are stained- one pink, one green.
A trip to McDonalds for dinner capped off the afternoon, and it was hilarious having so many people look at us and wonder what the heck we had done to be so colorful! We weren't the only ones who were covered, though, so we weren't so out of place.
I had to throw away a tank top, my shirt, my underwear, and one of the sheets I used to cover the back seat of my car. The colors brush off for the most part, but sometimes they stain. It was totally worth it, though! I will definitely be attending next year as well.