Houby Days :: Cedar Rapids, Iowa Photographer

  For those of you who don't know, my mom's side of the family is full Czech, making me half Czech. Here in Cedar Rapids, there is a whole community of Czechs. Last weekend was the annual Houby Days down in Czech Village.
"Houby" means mushroom.

  On Saturday it drizzled all day long. Because of that, not many people showed up. They missed the Maypole dance, a parade with all the "royalty", a modeling of Kroj (the Czech folk costumes), folk dancers, and lots more.

  Sunday was "Kid's Day", the sun decided to come out, and the day turned out to be gorgeous! The folk dance group, Svetlusky, which my brother and I participate in, performed in the afternoon, along with another kid's folk dance group, and Sokol gymnastics. There were carnival rides, a cabbage roll, kolaches at Sykora Bakery, and music all along 16th Avenue.

One of the several sidewalk chalk drawings.

The buzz around Houby Days was the moving of the Czech Museum. Not just the stuff inside the museum, but the whole museum is being moved across the street and up 11 feet. Every since the flood of 2008, the Czech Museum has sat empty, waiting for some TLC. Now, the museum has the honor of being the largest museum ever to be moved. Pretty impressive. The move is being recorded via webcam and can be seen on the NCSML website.