Today is the first day of the Chilton County Peach Festival. That means lots of good cooking, music, laughter and traffic jams.

Traffic jams will be one part of the festival that people don’t like. For this annual weeklong event, being patient through the roadblocks will help everyone enjoy the celebrations.

One such roadblock will be taking place today starting around 4 p.m. The Peach Fashion Show is set to take place in front of the Clanton Court House on Second Avenue North at 6:30 p.m. In order to set up the stage, lights, music and seating, the crew will need to start early. The road in front of the courthouse will be closed to traffic from both side entrances.

Each pageant night will also set traffic behind while the contestants and crowds arrive and depart from Chilton County High School. The pageants are scheduled to take place on Saturday, June 21; Monday, June 23; Tuesday, June 24 and Friday, June 26. It would be a good idea to add extra time to your travel clock if going through Clanton on one of these nights.

Another big event that will have streets blocked will be the annual Peach Jam, which is set to take place on Friday, June 27. This event takes most of the night so anyone needing to get through should research an alternate route to and from his or her destination. The roads being closed for the Peach Jam are Second Avenue North and Sixth Avenue North.

Saturday, June 28 will be the last day of the festival with many events going on including the Peach Parade. This will have the updated parade route closed off from 9 a.m. until 10 to 10:30 a.m.

Patrons wanting to watch the parade should arrive early and be prepared to sit through the backed up traffic at the end of the parade.

We all want this year’s Peach Festival to be a success, and that will take help from everyone.