My sister in law and her family were visiting us last year during Da Vinci Days festival (kinetic sculpture races). She took a picture of the very full, very large valet bike parking lot to show her friends in TN. It seemed perfectly normal for a big event to me. I didn't get what was wrong with the socks and sandals guy either. The local schools in our area borrow their 4-H students' goats to clear blackberries (why work more than you have to?).
We do live in a bubble here, a big rainy mossy bubble. I love that I live somewhere that I fit in (as I pull the twigs out of my dreds).
Edited to add: we are at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival this weekend. Took in MacBeth last night and Don Quixote tonight, we just might be typecasting ourselves. DS saw some people in big rainjackets earlier, getting out of their cars and commented "They must be from CA, geesh, it's not even cold or raining". I was about to chide him for stereotyping when I looked at their plates. We are all in shorts, it's 60 and cloudy. They must think we're nuts.