Middle Tennessee
Mule Day
The country's best-known mule celebration: a parade, a liar's contest, and a livestock show.
Columbia has held Mule Day, in one form or another, since the 1840s. The modern version fills a long weekend with a mule parade down the square, pulling contests, a liar's contest, and a street fair. It is one of the few Middle Tennessee festivals that is genuinely about the town rather than a touring act.
With children
The Saturday parade is the piece to plan around. Livestock barns smell like livestock barns.