Don't say it. Okay, say it. I went to Garibaldi, and all I got was some lousy crabs. Warned you.
This past weekend, a group from OregonBeers.com and their friends decided to attend an annual event out on a quiet stretch of the Oregon coast. The 19th Annual Garibaldi Crab Races. As attendees, we were guaranteed three things: cheap beer, good chowder, and a load of fun.
The two-day event spanned the weekend of March 13-14, 2004. We arrived on Saturday around noon, and found ourselves in the packed town shuffleboard hall with several hundred crab racing "fans".
Having come in from the Portland area the night before, I can't deny we stood out in that group of locals, but you can't say we didn't try. One of us, a dude by the name of Jubal Ince, even donned his "authentic" Texas cowboy hat for the day -- but that didn't help us blend in among the crowd of Budweiser baseball caps and mullets. Oh well, better luck next time.
So, what exactly is crab racing? Simply put, a chance to scare the hell out of a bunch of crabs, and get a good laugh out of it. A special "racing table" is set up with six lanes. The table is sloped downward, which helps the crabs find their way to the bottom of the table, at which point they fall into large safety nets. First crab to fall wins. Racers stand behind the top of the table, and pound on the lane behind the crabs to scare the crabs into moving down the length of the racing lane.
Sounds simple enough, at least until the crabs fight back! Just take a look at the picture of Erin and her crab. The blasted thing simply did not want to race, so she ended up losing, and even got called a "city slicker" by some guy standing to the left of her. At least she laughed it off.
Some people at this event took it way too seriously. The night before, our group was almost accosted by an expectorating drunken fool at the Garibaldi Pub & Eatery, who said in his red-faced drunken stupor that his crab had racing stripes, and it would beat any crab we raced against him. Wow. More power to him, I guess. He didn't show up though, so maybe our intellectualism scared him off.
In the end, we had a great time. Tasty chowder, salty peanuts, cheap beer (nothing with an Oregon label on it, but oh well), and even more laughs and pictures to take away with us.
We highly recommend that everyone consider attending the Garibaldi Crab Races next year. If nothing more, it will refresh your familiarity of some of Oregon's fine local culture just waiting to be discovered, and at best, will serve as a reminder why you can be thankful you don't take such an event as seriously as the locals there do.
Happy beering,
OregonBeers.com Staff
