Santiam SummerFest Car Show

As promised yesterday, today's post is of the car show at the Santiam SummerFest street fair held Saturday here in town.

The car show was held in Neitling Park, and there were a ton of cars. I couldn't even begin to get to all of them, but I did get shot of about 40 cars. And as an added bonus, I actually have most them accurately labeled, with year, manufacturer, and model! Thank goodness for the ID cards in the windows of the cars.

In case you were wondering, the car in the photo above is a 1965 Ford Cobra. I love Cobras.

Check out the Flickr photoset of the event for several more car show photos.

Tomorrow I'll be posting some photos from Cartwright's Music Shop, which will (unfortunately) be closing in a few weeks.

Santiam SummerFest

Yesterday, I attended the annual Santiam SummerFest in historic downtown Stayton.

There were a lot of people, a lot of interesting booths, a lot of awesome food, and other great stuff. I've created a Flickr photoset of the event showcasing some of the sights. Visit, view, be entertained.

In related news, the photos from the Santiam Gallery of Photography photo contest were on display in the YMCA lobby. There were some great entries, and I enjoyed viewing the various photos. And thank you to the judges for choosing some of mine as winners. I very much appreciate it.

Below are photos of my photos (how very meta) on display at the YMCA. Thanks to StaytonEvents.com for sponsoring the contest, and to Dave (creator of Stayton Events) for dropping off my photos and ribbons after the SummerFest was over. You rock, Dave.

   
Tomorrow I'll post photos from the car show at the SummerFest, and the day after I'll have a few photos from Cartwright's Music, which will be going out of business next month.

Joni Harms In Concert

Last night I attended the first concert in the brand new Mill Creek Concert Series, a series of free concerts put together by Ken Cartwright.

Last night's performer was renowned western music singer Joni Harms from Canby, Oregon. She put on a great show, and was very kind and accommodating to her fans (including a certain someone with a camera - thanks for putting up with me, Ms. Harms. :) ).

There was a great turn out for the event, and the local Moose lodge provided hot dogs and hamburgers. It was a fun time.

You can view photos from the concert via my Flickr photoset of the event (including Ms. Harms' talented and absolutely adorable children, Olivia and Luke), can read more about the concert series at StaytonEvents.com, and can visit Ms. Harms' web site at joniharms.com.

Thanks to Ken Cartwright and the sponsors of the event. I look forward to attending more concerts this year, and in future years.

A note about the photos: I kinda had my camera set to 800 ISO without realizing it, so forgive the noise reduction (a.k.a smoothing) I had to do on the images. And I need a better telephoto lens. And I'm whining, so I'll shut up now. ;)

Another Stro's Wednesday Nite Cruse-In

As I threat... um, promised yesterday, here are some shots I took at the latest Stro's Wednesday Nite Cruise-In.

The car in the above photo is a 1959 Edsel convertible. The car at right is something else entirely. What that something else is, I haven't a clue. As usual. I only knew the first one because there was a helpful sign in the window of the car.

I've uploaded more photos to my Flickr photoset of the event, though I still have more to process. I'll add them to the set tomorrow, and possibly the next day.

Stro's Wednesday Nite Cruise-In

I attended another classic car cruise-in (see the event's web site) last night at the A&W. I haven't processed most of the photos yet, but I did get a photo of the ring leader, Russ Strohmeyer (left -- didn't get the name of his assistant). He emcees each event, and raffles off donated prizes to raise money for the Brent Strohmeyer Memorial Foundation, which gives college scholarships to area students.

I had a bit of a winning streak during the raffle. I bought six tickets, and ended up winning three times. I gave two of the winning tickets to a couple of kids, as did other multiple winners.

As a point of interest, Russ is also an extremely talented professional portrait photographer.

Tomorrow I'll post more photos of the cars at the show, but for now, please visit the handful I have up in a Flickr photoset.

Stayton Public Library Expansion Birthday Party

Yesterday was the first birthday party of the expansion to the Stayton Public Library. They had cake (yum), ice cream (more yum), face painting, and a bouncy castle thing for the kids.

Visit my Flickr photoset of the event for pictures of some of the Library Foundation members, Dave from StaytonEvents.com, various party-goers, balloons, face painting of adorable children, and more.

Note to Greg: the photos of your incredibly cute grandkids are available in original size on Flickr, if you want to download them. :)

Stayton Public Library

Today between 2 and 4pm, the Stayton Public Library Foundation is hosting a 1st birthday party of the expansion which was completed last year. The photo above was used on a postcard the Foundation sent out to folks to promote the party.

I'll be at the party for at least a few minutes (gotta take some photos, of course), if the heat doesn't kill me off first. Hope to see you there.

Fireworks On The 4th Of July

(See more fireworks photos!)

As promised yesterday, today I'm posting the fireworks photos I took of the town fireworks display on the 4th of July. The display moved locations this year, from the high school to the middle school, which turned out to be a great place to view the fireworks. I was feet from where the fireworks were launched, and I'm pretty happy with how they came out.

The bumps at the bottom of the photo above are people's heads. There were a lot of said heads at the show, along with the rest of their bodies.

I also created a collage (click on the thumbnail at left to see it large) of several of the fireworks. It's part of the Flickr photoset I've created for the event.

Hugo over at My Left Nut has posted a great video of the fireworks, plus a video slideshow. He also posted a video slideshow of the town parade. Very cool stuff.

The Bird & Hat Inn

As promised yesterday, today I'm posting some photos I took at the Bird & Hat Inn, a beautiful bed & breakfast on 3rd Ave.

The Inn was part of the garden tour I attended on Sunday, so I took the opportunity to take some photos of both the inside and the outside of the house. The photos on the left in the mosaic above were taken inside. Since the house was built in 1907 and still retains the historic feel of that era, I thought digitally aging the photos to be appropriate. And I just felt like it. ;)

The photo on the right, of course, is the Bird & Hat Inn itself. I also posted a photo of the place last year.

You can see bigger versions of the photos above and a lot of flowers and various other things on my Flickr photoset of the garden tour, plus I've keyworded some of the photos I know were taken at the Inn. Several more were, but I'm having trouble remembering which flowers were taken where.

I didn't get to all the homes on the tour this year, unfortunately... maybe next year.

Thanks to all the folks who put on the tour who provided information and were so nice in general. If you're in the Stayton area, or just feel like supporting a good cause, check out the site for the Brown House, the restoration for which the tour was raising funds.

Scenes From A Garden Tour

Yesterday I attended part of the 8th annual garden tour held by the Santiam Heritage Foundation as a fund raising event for the Charles And Martha Brown House (see my post about the Brown House open house held last month).

As usual, I ended up focusing on the small things instead of the overall views of each garden I visited. It's not my fault there were so many pretty flowers. My macro lens wouldn't let me do anything else.

I've created a Flickr photoset with part of the photos I took. I'll be adding more later today.

Tomorrow's post will focus on some of the sights at one of the gardens at the Bird & Hat Inn on 3rd Ave... more flowers, photos from inside the historic house, and more.

More From The Cruise-In

Yesterday I posted a couple of photos from the Stro's Wednesday Nite Cruise-In which took place a couple of nights ago at the local A&W restaurant. Since there were so many pretty cars, I thought I'd post another photo or two for today's post.

I've also uploaded several more photos to my Flickr photoset of the event, so please give that a glance if you're interested in pretty cars, or parts of pretty cars.

Another Wednesday Night At The Cruise-In

I attended the Stro's Wednesday Nite Cruise-In again last night at the A&W restaurant on Washington St. The cruise-ins are held twice a month during the summer to raise money for the Brent Strohmeyer Memorial Foundation, which gives money for college scholarships.

I've posted part of the photos I took of the cars to a Flickr photoset, and will post more today or tomorrow.

More From The Stro's Wednesday Nite Cruise-In

Yesterday I posted some shots from a classic car cruise-in I attended a few nights ago. Today I thought I'd focus on some of the non-car things I spotted at the event, including the lively guy in the above photo. He was sitting in the passenger's seat of one of the cars. I wonder if he qualifies the driver to use the carpool lane?

Another car had three dogs in it, including the one at right (see the other dogs), who was curled up in the driver's seat.

My Flickr photoset of the event has more photos of both the car and non-car varieties, so be sure to give it a visit. I'm still in the process of uploading photos, so they'll be a lot more there over the coming days.

Stro's Wednesday Nite Cruise-In

Here are the promised photos from the Stro's Wednesday Nite Cruise-In at the A&W two nights ago. The photo above is of an awesome Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray I wanted to bring home so I can drool over it at will. I don't drive a car, so that's about all I could do with it, of course.

I've posted a few of the photos to a Flickr photoset, but I have many more to post to Flickr. I'll be doing that over the next week or so.

Tomorrow I'll be posting (here, that is) some non-car sights I found at the cruise-in of the critter and undead varieties. Stay tuned.

The Brown House Open House

Yesterday I posted a photo of a woman who was born at the historic Charles and Martha Brown House during its time as a hospital in the 1930's. Today I'm posting some shots of the house itself, which I took during an open house on Saturday.

I'll let the Brown House's official web site explain the history and purpose of the restoration currently underway at the house.

The photo above shows the current state of restoration on the outside of the house. It's really gone through some changes since they started renovating a handful of years back. I've taken a couple of photos of it in the past -- one in June, 2006 and another in September, 2007.

The photo at right is an old wheelchair I spotted sitting in one of the rooms on the main floor.

Click on the thumbnails below to see more photos of the house (plus captions), plus some of the volunteers who are working on the renovation. I kind of got creative with the processing of some of the shots to give them an aged feel. It seemed appropriate for the setting.

I want to thank everyone at the open house for being so kind to me. It is very much appreciated.

Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival II

As promised, I've posted several more photos from the tulip festival I attended on Saturday (see also yesterday's post) to my Flickr photoset.

If anyone is anywhere near the Woodburn area, be sure to check out this festival before it ends on the 27th. There's a kids' area, booths, food, not to mention acres and acres of gorgeous flowers. It was my first time attending the festival, but hopefully it won't be the last.

I am so glad I was able to borrow a macro lens that day... it just made it that much better.

Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival

On Saturday I attended the Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival outside of Woodburn, a town about 40 minutes from Stayton.

The festival (visit their site) is a beautiful display of over 40 acres of tulips, plus other flowers I didn't have the opportunity to go photograph. It's a big place. Mt. Hood (pictured above) sat serenely of the background, while helicopters and small airplanes took turns taking in the sights.

I was able to borrow a macro lens from the Canon/Pro Photo Supply booth for a few hours, which made me a very happy camper. One day I shall get a macro lens of my very own.

I've uploaded part of the photos I took to a Flickr photoset. I'll be uploading more later today, and will likely post another photo or two from the festival for tomorrow's post.

Thanks to my friend Steve for letting me tag along to the festival. You can view some of his shots from the festival on his Pbase.com site.

More From The Oregon Covered Bridge Festival

I attended the final day of the Oregon Covered Bridge Festival yesterday, and took a few more photos. The pony pictured above was pulling a little buggy which was giving folks rides around the festival.

For more photos from the event, please see my Flickr photoset. The newest photos are at the end of the set.

Oregon Covered Bridge Festival 2007

Yesterday I attended the first day of the two-day Oregon Covered Bridge Festival at Pioneer Park. The photos above show a pony which was pulling a buggy, Ty Curtis of the awesome Ty Curtis Band, some work gloves of an artificer (craftsperson), and a red-tailed hawk from the Birds of Prey exhibit.

Check out my Flickr photoset of the event for more photos.

As an aside, I was standing in line for food at the festival and a teenage girl asked if I was taking photos for the newspaper. I told her no, it was for a blog. "What's a blog?" she asked, and she seemed to truly not know. I forget not everyone knows what a blog is, especially a teenager.

Cruise-In At The A&W

Last night I attended another Stro's Wednesday Night Cruise-In at the A&W Restaurant (see my post from June for shots from a previous cruise-in).

There were lots of pretty cars, lots of people, and I even met Dave from StaytonEvents.com.

For more photos from the car show, please check out my Flickr photoset from the event. As of right now there are over twenty photos... I'll probably add to it later today as I finish going through my shots.

2007 Santiam SummerFest Car Show

Part of the Saturday's SummerFest (see yesterday's post) was a car show with well over 100 cars on display. I wasn't able to stay for more than a few minutes, but I did get some pictures of the automotive beauties. Check out my Flickr photoset of the event.

Also, be sure to look at the photos Dave of StaytonEvents.com took of the SummerFest.

2007 Santiam SummerFest

Yesterday was the annual Santiam SummerFest, a popular street fair held in downtown Stayton. The adorable girl above was having fun at the petting zoo.

I've posted a Flickr photoset of the event, where you'll find photos of babies, dogs, people, cows, a giant red key, cheerleaders, and random other things.

One of the photos is of Dave from StaytonEvents.com, who was standing in the back of a truck taking pictures of folks trying to dunk some cheerleaders. It's a tough job.

UPDATED: Dave has posted his photos from the SummerFest (including the cheerleaders). Check 'em out.

Waiting For Harry

I just got back from the midnight showing of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and thought I'd post a photo of the hearty souls waiting in line outside the theater. They were very kind to pose for me. :)

For the record, both my niece and I loved the movie. It was awesome.

Scenes From A Library

Check out my Flickr photoset for more photos from the event.

Last night was the official dedication of the newly expanded public library. A lot of people came to the ceremony so it was a bit tough to get photos of the folks doing the talking, so instead I focused on the quieter aspects of what was going on.

The boy pictured above was happily reading a book about Hawaii in a corner while the grownups did their thing. He didn't even seem to notice what was going on around him.

The other photos are from the children's section of the library, which is much larger than before and has all kinds of books, reading areas, stuffed animals, games, etc. The smaller picture at right is of a sign out in front of the library, showing how much money has been raised, all via private donations.

It's rather nifty to live in a town where people came together to make their library bigger and better than before.

Fireworks On Display

Stayton put on a beautiful fireworks display last night. I took several long exposure photos and put them in a Flickr photoset. Hope you like them.

Tomorrow I'll post some photos from the parade, but for now I'm going to go to sleep. I'm bushed.

A Little Reflection

Here's another photo I took at the "Saturday In The Park" concert over the weekend. The stage was set up on the back of a semi truck's trailer, and the wheels of the truck were too pretty to ignore.

What can I say, I like chrome.

If you look at the middle of the wheel, you can see some of the folks who attended the concert.

Oh, and congrats to the OSU Beavers for winning the College Word Series!

Saturday In The Park

Yesterday was the 2nd annual "Saturday In The Park" benefit concert, headlined by the local band, Centerline Tragedy.

The concert started with Centerline Tragedy's former incarnation, Drift, playing a set before Centerline took the stage. In between sets, a couple of folks sang karaoke and there was a coloring contest for the kids. And, perhaps most importantly, there was some good food to eat.

You can visit Centerline Tragedy's MySpace page to listen to some of their songs and find out more about the band.

I took approximately 98 bazillion overexposed photos (and a few which more or less aren't). I've posted some of the better photos as a Flickr photoset.

Stro's Wednesday Nite Cruise-In

Last night, I was surrounded by over one hundred beauties like the one above. I finally managed to go to one of the twice monthly cruise-in events held at A&W Restaurant.

I posted over 40 photos to a Flickr photoset if you'd like to see more of the cars. And a dog. 'Cause the dog was cute.

Visit Stros.biz for more information about the Stro's car shows.

1st Birthday!

Well, I actually did it. This here blog is officially a year old today. Technically, today's photo isn't of Stayton, but it was taken in Stayton, and I baked the cupcake in Stayton... and I'll eat it in Stayton, for that matter, so close enough. :)

Thank you to everyone who visits and comments, and the various guest photographers who've shared their images. I appreciate each and everyone one of you.

A huge thank you goes to the city daily photo community. You guys rock, and I'm proud to be a part of it.

I fully intend to keep posting each day, so who knows, we may see a 2nd birthday in another year. Stranger things have happened.

Used Book Sale

Yesterday was the semiannual Friends of the Library used book sale at the community center. That means it was time for my semiannual trek to the sale to buy entirely too many books I'll never have time to read. But I'll try, anyway.

The photo above is of some of the books at the sale. I had some trouble deciding which photo to post, so click on the thumbnail for my second choice.

That's a Big Elephant Ear

Another photo today from Saturday's Santiam SummerFest in Stayton. The guy in the photo just bought an elephant ear (it's made of fried dough, for those who aren't aware) and looks perplexed as to how he's going to keep it on the plate, let alone eat it all.

But that's part of what festivals and fairs are for, aren't they? You eat food you wouldn't otherwise eat, in quantities that would feed remote villages for days.

Don't forget to check out my Flickr photo gallery of the event.

I also created a Cars, Car, and More Cars photo gallery because I seem to have amassed a fair amount of photos of them. I can't identify them unless they explicitly say what they are, since I know virtually nothing about cars. If anyone can offer up info about the cars in the set, please post a comment on there to help me out. I'd really appreciate it.

Santiam SummerFest

Yesterday was this year's Santiam SummerFest in Stayton. I went with the express purpose of taking photos to share here. Okay, and to eat some curly fries. And to buy my mother a Buddha statue. And I had the best strawberry smoothie in the world.

But, really, it was all about the photos. To that end, I've created a Flickr gallery of the event for your viewing pleasure. There are classic cars, dogs, people more classic cars, more dogs, and various other things.

I'll probably post one or two more pictures from the event here on the blog over the next couple of days.

By the way, I want to send a big thank you to everyone (and there were many) who saw I was taking photos and kindly stopped before they walked into the shots. I really appreciate it.

View from a ferris wheel

The above was taken a few years ago at the Oregon State Fair in Salem, Oregon, while sitting atop a ferris wheel. It's looking towards the main entrance, which can be seen in the upper right-hand corner. It's located on Sunnyview Rd. NE.

The photo was taken from a moving ride, so please forgive the blurriness. I'm still waiting for my new digital camera to arrive, which should be here Monday (cross your fingers), so I'm going through my photo archives at present.

Parading about town

Yesterday was Stayton's rather nifty 4th of July parade. Once again I was dealing with an ailing camera, so I created mosaic out of the decent parts of the pictures. Click on it to see it full-size.

Be sure not to miss the giant cow and frog. You won't forgive yourself if you do. Or maybe you will. But, really, why risk it?

Charity concert

As I mentioned yesterday, I went to a concert in Stayton which benefited prostate cancer awareness. There were four very good artists/bands, and it was fun.

What wasn't fun was my digital camera, which decided to work only sporadically, and the pictures could be much better. I had to use the auto settings and then point and shoot as quickly as I could, so I could take pictures in between it shutting itself off and not turning back on.

Here are the bigger shots of the photos in the montage above (click on each thumbnail to see the full-sized versions):

Vin Thomas