Cherry Blossom Festival - DC

Riddle this one.

What do foot racers from Bedrock, blush flapjacks and a lawn mower with a V-twin engine have in common?

Here's a hint: Dogs on a catwalk.

Easy, right?

Of course. These attractions, other ones and thousands of visitors - all poured into a big ol' pink pot, in essence - made up the first Saturday of the 2008 Cherry Blossom Festival, Macon's baby.

The 26th annual f�te, which came to be in 1983 in honor of the local Yoshino cherry tree, emerged this weekend in trademark fashion.

From morning to night, Third Street Park to Macon Downtown Airport in east Macon, kids and grownups displayed their city pride in one unified way. Embracing the color pink.

It started at the breakfast table.

For hundreds of people Saturday morning at Central City Park, the smells of sausage, buttery pancakes and maple syrup filled the air.

"When I told my grandson that it was Cherry Blossom time, he said, 'Oh goody, let's go have pink pancakes,' " Sandy McDonell of Macon said.

Inside a tent at the park, Macon-Bibb County firefighters hosted the Pink Pancake Breakfast, a festival favorite featuring, well, pink pancakes - all you could eat for $5.

The rare food item drew in McDonell, her daughter Jennie Floyd, and her two grandsons Hayden, 5, and Bryce, 7, all of Forsyth.

Randall and Linda Rozier of Warner Robins also brought their grandson, Trent Brown, who celebrated his second birthday Saturday starting with the event.

"We've been coming to Cherry Blossom for about 25 years and for 10 of those to the breakfast. We wouldn't miss it," Randall Rozier said.

Interim Fire Chief Marvin Riggins said he expected to feed at least 1,000 people at the breakfast. Firefighters will be back next Saturday for a second serving. All proceeds will be donated to the American Cancer Society.

"It's a great event for a good cause and we have many volunteers from both the department as well as our corporate sponsor, Kroger." Riggins said.

All around Central City Park, children soaked up Kids Cherry Dazzle events that included face painting, magic acts and poodle coloring. (Think festival mascot Petals.)

If one followed the sound of "tap-tap-tap," it led to dozens of apprentice carpenters building bird houses, sports racks or sailboats. Home Depot sponsored the set-up, and all the kids received an orange apron and a building kit of their choice.

Seven-year-old Brent Rice was building a birdhouse with his father, Michael Rice of Duluth.

The elder Rice said it was the first time they made the 100-mile trip to attend the Cherry Blossom Festival events.

"It's a great time for families" he said.

The FURever Friends Humane Society Pet Fashion show, also at Central City Park, truly was something.

Fashion-forward pets from all over Middle Georgia competed for nods in the "Best Dressed," "Prettiest in Pink," "Pet/Owner Look Alike," "Most Unusual" and "Best Trick" categories.

And strut their stuff, these pets did.

There were dogs, lots of dogs. There was a duck, a goat and a lobster, which turned out to be a wiener dog in a lobster costume.

One dachshund wore a hula skirt and another had on a pink boa. Poodles in panties and bassets in britches and skirts.

To be expected, there was lots of pink, but also red and plaids that coordinated with colored legs, backs, toenails and hoofs.

Saturday afternoon near Cherry, Poplar and Third streets, screaming fans, teams of racers and two makeshift tracks transformed the downtown quad into Macon's very own Indy 500.

Cheering on competitors in the festival's annual Bed Race, Miss Cherry Blossom Emily Alston said this year's bed designs were some of the best she'd seen since she started participating in the festival at age 5.

"Very original," Alston, 18, a senior at Mount de Sales Academy, said. "I loved that Flintstones bed that just came in."

Now, the beds weren't really beds, or at least not the kind you sleep in.

The beds were more like mobile crates, designed with a theme and powered by runners, who from the rear, pushed the vessels down about a block.

The goal? Get to the finish line fast.

Of the 10 teams, a group called the Bud Light Bandits placed first with a time of 21 seconds. The average time was about 30 seconds.

The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation sponsored a bed that resembled a pink Cadillac. The Children's Hospital had one that looked like a race car and honored Kristina Venable, a teenage cystic fibrosis patient. Those two beds were the judge's favorites.

Elberta Health Care in Warner Robins took home a prize for having the most original bed, which team members modeled after an old covered wagon.

"I thought the choices were awesome, and I really like that people were racing for a cause this year, which was new," said Stacey Campbell, the festival's marketing director.

Lindy Clay of Macon said she finally rounded up co-workers and friends from the gym to form her team of five, the Bedrock Racers.

"Every year, we'd been wanting to get in the bed and every year we'd failed to do so," she said. "Our bed took about three weeks to make, and it's made of tables, pallets, just about anything from wood, you name it."

Judges thought the Bedrock Racers, who jetted down Cherry Street in faux animal hides a la Barney Rubble, the funniest of all the groups.

"How's that for a first try?" Clay said.

An hour later, onlookers cheered on sportsmen competing in a lawn mower race around Third Street Park. The event is new to the Cherry Blossom Festival. It features lawn mowers that have been jazzed up by stronger engines and other upgrades.

Eight racers, most from the Dixie Lawn Mowers Racing Association from Cochran, rode the machines at about 60 mph, competing for a $500 prize that, in the end, was donated to the nonprofit group.

Drivers included Mark Bratcher, who once was fifth in nation in his class of lawn mower racers.

Gil LeGuin, the association's president, said racers usually compete on dirt tracks and drive as fast as 100 mph.

"But racing on the street is less forgiving," he said. "You do a lot more sliding and spinning in the dirt, but it hurts a lot less if you fall."

Mowers malfunctioned Saturday and a minor collision happened. None of the athletes got hurt, however.

There were airplanes all over the Macon Downtown Airport on Saturday.

An Edge 540, a DayJet Eclipse and several other aircraft whizzed through the sky with pilots who demonstrated unique hand motioning and coordinated precise diamond formations. Two skydivers twirled hundreds of feet to the ground, landing smoothly on both feet, no problem.

Manish Patel and his family recently moved to Warner Robins from Atlanta.

"My son and I love watching airshows on TV," Patel said. "He wants to be in the Army or the Air Force. This is our first time seeing one live."

Patel came Saturday with his 11-year-old son Archid, his father and his uncle, both from England.

"Yes, they came only for the Cherry Blossom Festival," he said. "They wanted to see what it was all about."

Because of rain and winds Saturday evening, some events were canceled, including a picnic and concert on Coleman Hill and the hot air balloon lift at the airfield

The highlight of today's events is the festival parade at 3 p.m. on Mulberry and Cherry streets.

Richard Cupri, of western Kentucky, will feature his model F117 Stealth bomber in the parade. Actually, Braxton Wise, the 7-year-old grandson of a festival employee, will drive the version - which is a third of the size of the original 63-foot bomber plane - through downtown.

"Here's my theory," Cupri said jokingly. "If a 24-year-old could fly into Germany in World War II, a 7-year-old can drive an airplane at 5 miles an hour in a parade."

Telegraph correspondent Jackie Docauer contributed information to this report.

To contact writer Ashley Tusan Joyner, call 744-4347.

Source: http://www.macon.com/198/story/308186.html