Only in the Northwest is there an entire weekend where people actually dress up like slugs. Year 25 of the annual Eatonville SlugFest attracts families with human slug races, the slug anthem, and all the different ways slime can be used as a verb. In case you were wondering, slug races, which Northwest Trek’s Cherilyn Williams calls “the centerpiece of the event,” do involve crawling around on your stomach—just like those moisture-loving, mobile, mucus-spewing members of the Veronicellidae family. (In case you were also wondering what you accidentally stepped on this morning in your yard while going out barefoot to get the paper, it was probably a Limax maximus.) And yes, there really is a slug anthem. Weekend festivities (beginning Saturday) are intended to champion the Northwest’s own banana slug (Ariolimax columbianus) in the face of evil marigold-eating European interlopers (e.g., the dreaded Arion lusitanicus). Let’s just hope no one tells the Morton Salt people about this shindig, or things could get ugly. Northwest Trek Wildlife Park (Eatonville), 11610 Trek Dr. E., 360-832-6117, www.nwtrek.org. $7–$15. 9:30 a.m.–5 p.m. EMMA BREYSSE

Sun., June 22, 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m., 2008