The TOUR de COOPS was an AMAZING event. Thank you to all of the folks involved! Believe it or not, over 500 people registered at Broad Ripple Park for this tour! Jason & I can't wait to do this again next year.
I guess that I didn't have a firmly-fashioned vision of how the Tour would unfold, but I never dreamed we would be as busy as we were. We didn't keep count, but my guess is that we saw a few hundred tourists that afternoon. Especially since Rocky Ripple is a bit farther west than most of the other stops on the tour, I had no idea that we would have such a crowd. In fact, since we were #9 on the suggested route everyone received upon registering, we figured that we would have to wait a while for our first tourists to show up.
Um, nope. At precisely 2:01PM, while I was dashing to print signs to help direct the traffic flow in and out of the backyard, the first car pulled up. I had thought that I would still change clothes/make sure my hair wasn't a completely crazed mess, etc., and at the very least I had intended to set up some water and cups for thirsty bikers.
Instead, I jumped right in to talking about all-things-chicken, while walking people around the backyard, the outdoor run, the coop inside the garage...and I didn't stop until 6PM. I saw Jason out of the corner of my eye doing the same--he was almost hoarse by the end of the afternoon. It doesn't help, of course that both of us are talkers, yet honestly every time I finished and said goodbye to one person or group, I would turn and run directly into someone new.
I know that a few of the people who were hosting other stops along the way had to field all of the tourists on their own--in this I was extremely fortunate to have not only the Red Rooster himself--my darlin' Jason, but also my younger sister Christiana, her boyfriend Josh, and my older sisters Marti and Julie here as witnesses, tour guides, and general helpers.
The best part of the whole day, though, were all of the great people that we met, most of whom had very thoughtful questions and were obviously having a fantastic afternoon. We heard, several times, someone say something along the lines of, "This is great--we have so many good ideas now. We can do this ourselves!" And, really, isn't that the point of the whole thing? We are so proud and happy to be a part of spreading the word: backyard chickens are something that anyone can do!
Here are a few more of our favorite pictures:
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