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Bethel Woods Harvest Festival on the grounds of the original Woodstock music festival in Sullivan County, N.Y., offers six weeks of themed programming on topics ranging from sustainable energy to alpacas. There are also corn mazes, hayrides, pumpkin painting and more on Sundays through October.

And Columbus Day weekend celebrate all things pumpkin at the Half Moon Bay Art and Pumpkin Festival, one of the largest and oldest local festivals in California. There are pie-eating contests, the world's largest pumpkin sculpture and for the grown-ups, pumpkin-infused ales and cocktails.

Like in Vermont, it seems there are festivals most weekends in Colorado’s mountain towns, a spectacular time to visit with foliage bursting in color and celebrating everything from apples to local art, even sheep and wool in Tunbridge, Vermont.

In Crested Butte, Festival Day couldn't have been better -- warm and sunny. Some people have been competing since the festival started 20 years ago; others, like Hasley Rolph, were newbies.

"It's a fun day," said Rolph, who was born, raised and lives in Crested Butte and was competing for the first time in the red chili category, her table next to ours. "All the local input makes it the most fun. You know everyone who comes."

"You get to see everyone you have been too busy to see all summer," said Amber St. Vincent, who works locally in human resources.

There are families with kids in cowboy boots dancing to the blue grass music as their parents sit on the grass listening; grown kids visiting parents who have retired here and all the local twenty- and thirtysomethings. Mountain bikers stop by with their helmets in their arms.

Lines were long for the craft brews and cider -- and the chili -- red, green, vegetarian and specialty varieties, like the Hawaiian version cooked up by local restaurant manager Code Sexe with pork, mangos and pineapple and served up with toasted Hawaiian sweet bread. Attendees pay one price ($30 in this case) for all the brews they can drink and chili they can eat until it runs out.

Our huge pot lasted less than two hours. "It's not about winning or losing," Mel kept saying all day. "It's about having fun outside."

"It brings everyone together around the common denominator of chili," added Adam Scheller, whose three-man team of friends from Gunnison, Colorado, had won the last two years.

Their Gunni Green chili won again. My daughter and my husband didn't. They were sanguine about their loss.

"Such a fun weekend, I'm so glad you came," Mel said, giving us both a big hug.

And in the end, that matters more than winning. Besides, there is always next year.

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(For more Taking the Kids, visit www.takingthekids.com and also follow "taking the kids" on www.twitter.com, Facebook and Instagram where Eileen Ogintz welcomes your questions and comments.)

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