I meant to stay for a while and then come home to blog about the Cinco de Mayo conjunto festival and encourage others to attend. That isn’t the way it happened. I started taking pictures at first and then became too caught up enjoying the music and the food and the strolling and more, so plans changed. I created a conjunto festival group at Flickr for the few pictures that I did take.

The annual conjunto festival began at Parque Zaragoza in July all those years ago and was successful from the beginning, despite the small venue, biting insects, the heat of the height of summer, and the unshaded dance floor. These days, there’s more comfort at Fiesta Gardens than could ever have been imagined way back then. I’ve never missed a single one, even though it hasn’t always been possible to be there from start to finish.

I was afraid that the scantness of publicity, the weather forecast, and fears of the H1N1 influenza might keep people away, but they just kept on arriving. As always, this was a wonderful event for those of all ages. A great crowd favorite that most of us were hearing for the first time was the group Leti y El Conjunto Central, from Corpus Christi. Leti has charisma and a rich alto voice. I’m sorry that I forgot to ask where any unsold posters or t-shirts will be available, although it did appear that they were going fast. Many thanks go out to organizer Johnny Degollado and the sponsors of this wonderful event.