We attended the 30th annual Woolly Worm Festival in Banner Elk, NC on Saturday. Woolly Worms (I've always called them "fuzzy caterpillars") are raced in more than 60 heats all day long. In each heat these caterpillars race up a string with 20 or so other contenders. The winner at the end of the day receives $1,000.
Why Woolly races you say? Well, they are official prognosticators (weather predictors) just like Punxatony Phil (sp), the famous groundhog who predicts the ending of winter. Well this caterpillar predicts the severity of the upcoming winter season. Each of it's 13 stripes of brown and black represents the 13 weeks of winter. The colors of the stripes of the winner Woolly Worm predicts the year's winter weather. The first race, in 1978, only drew a crowd of approximately 150 people. Today thousands of people come from far and wide just to race their worms and enjoy the live music, fabulous food and many arts/crafts booths.
Who knew?
The race board. Everyone is clapping or blowing to get their caterpillar to move faster.
We caught this shot before we entered the festival. We cheered this little boy on and his caterpillar ended up winning this heat. It enticed us to go ahead and pay the $5 entrance fee.
Analee, David and Eliza Hirschi trying to teach these Woolly Worms to climb UP and not down. (it's difficult to tell which end the head is on)
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