Just a quick glimpse of rodeo royalty on their way to the start of the Rose Festival Grand Floral Parade

The morning of June 11, as I rode the bus to Sherwood to Cruisin' Sherwood, I figured I get to see lots of folks lining streets the bus would cross, waiting in their chairs and sitting on the sidewalk. The parade was to begin at at 10 a.m. I took these photos about 8:30 a.m. as the bus rolled alongside buildings close to Memorial Coliseum, the starting point.




Carnival of Roses, the parade's theme, decorates the banner beneath the flowers. I also think it says Vancouver Rodeo on it. I found this on the marching order for the parade: Miss Vancouver Rodeo Queen, Courtney Miskell. I don't know who the other girls are, but they certainly are riding beautifully decorated horses.


These are the St. Paul Rodeo Queen and Court. I found on the Internet that they won the award for Rodeo Queen and Court. I found there names on the St. Paul Rodeo Web site: Queen, the girl in front, is Ashley Fults. The princess on the left is Julie Drescher and the one on the right is Barbara Jayne Lerwick. The 76th annual rodeo is July 1-4, in St. Paul, Oregon.


Here's glimpse of those folks lining the streets and/or walking around looking for somewhere to sit. We crossed Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard as I snapped this photo--we're looking north. This is just before we went downhill and found the rodeo royalty!

The Willamette River runs high right now.

I took these photos on June 9 when I lucked out and got to ride with a friend on his boat during the arrival of the fleet, which happens every year during the Rose Festival.


We slowly passed beneath the Steel Bridge.


As the antenna touched first one cross piece, then another, it serenaded us with a rhythmic tlang-a-lang-a-tlang. An eerie sound.


Here's a better view of the cross pieces. Shining bright, the sun changed the color of much of what I photographed, depending upon which way I faced.


We've crossed to the other side of the bridge.


I like this perspective.


We're south of the bridge now, heading downriver. Here you can see the Steel Bridge in the foreground with its upper level for vehicles, MAX, pedestrians and bicyclists. The lower level is for trains. The orange bridge you can just see is the Broadway Bridge, while the barely visible one beyond it is the arch of the Fremont Bridge.

Exercising at lunch in Tom McCall Park, June 18, 2009

Please scroll down to see today's dahlia, Swan's Desert Storm, from Swan Island Dahlias.

Happy Birthday, Lamont!

On my lunch hour I hurried to the bus, then hurried from the bus to the sidewalk along the river. I wanted to be sure to get some photos of The World, docked on the west bank of the Willamette. More about The World soon.

Anyway, I'm walking along, gawking with lots of other folks when I hear an amplified voice and look around to my right. I see this row of people being led by a diminutive woman calling out their exercise routine. Naturally I swung the camera up to my eye and clicked!

The grass has been worn out by the Rose Festival's Waterfront Village. It closed up shop just four days before I took this photo.

Today's dahlia, Swan's Desert Storm. Facts from Swan Island Dahlias--Bloom: 10" Yellow and Rose Blend, Bush: 3'

The Rose Festival Fleet is in.

After work Thursday, I spent several hours watching this huge ship and one other come in, complete with the Portland Fire Bureau's fireboat honoring their arrival.

USS KIDD arrives. The dark strip across the top of the photo is the underneath of the Steel Bridge with both the lower and upper levels lifted. That's one of it's towers to the left. In the background the open bridge is the Broadway. And that slight arch you can see going from the Kidd upward to the left is part of the arch on the Fremont Bridge.


I stood in amazement as the tugs swiveled the Kidd right there in front of me, so that its bow pointed back towards the Steel Bridge, then pushed it up to dock beside the USS Lake Champlain which had come in earlier in the day.








The fire bureau boat continued upriver as the Kidd was turned. I realized that I needed to change from my zoom lens to the regular one and stepped to the other side of the walkway along the east side of the river, right at river level. Already I had put up the hood of my raincoat to keep the brisk, cool wind off my head. As I turned my back to the fire boat to make preparations to change lenses, I heard something coming towards me--the spray from a fireboat cannon! In seconds I was drenched as if I'd stepped into a waterfall, shoes full of water--not from the spray but from the stream of water. Thank goodness I had my hood up and my back to the boat! Thank goodness nothing happened to my camera or lenses! Not only had I been able to see the fire boats shooting water, I'd met that water up close and personal, an utterly unforgettable memory.


USS GARY arrives. You can see the entire Steel Bridge opening in this photo and that the Broadway Bridge has already closed.








You can see evidence of the wind that blew the entire evening in this shot of the Gary's flag. It says, "USS Gary FFG-51. Two guns. Back off varmint!" I took about a dozen shots but couldn't get a better one than this.


Left to right, USS Kidd, USS Lake Champlain, and behind them, right to left, are the USS Preble--you can see a portion of it--and the USS Gary, all you can see of it is the tower, antennas, etc. Those trees along the wall are the cherry trees in this post.


The fleet is in.


Monday is departure day.

Dragon Boat Race Practice on June 4, 2008

I won't pretend to know the ins-and-outs of dragon boat racing, but I will make educated guesses based on the movement, the body language, and the faces of these people, educated guesses as to what is going on.

These two teams appear to be taking advantage of one of their last chances for a hard practice before the actual races on Saturday. They are hot at it.



Once the boats got close to the west bank of the river, they eased around and headed back out into the river.

It appeared the people on this boat were practicing their response to some cue from one of the non-rowers on the boat. They held their paddles up at a certain angle, then dug deeply into the water, over and over and over.



Then they headed back out onto the river proper for more practice.

Depending on the weather, my chores at the apartment and timing of life in general, I plan to attend Saturday's races, and take more photos, of course!

By the way, about these photos, I don't have any photo-altering software other than iPhoto's enhance and/or lighten and darken slider thingeys, so please don't think I'm talented enough to outline those flowing-dragon-parts to make them stand out in front of the river. It's serendipity brought on by the angle, I suppose.

Photo Booth at the Waterfront Village

To me this looks like a great big bunch of candy corn. What do you think?

Here it is earlier in the evening. I believe the man in orange works at the booth.

One of these days I'm going to sit right down and get myself photographed in a booth like this, especially if I remember to have on fresh lipstick and eye make-up.

What caused these smiles and flying hair?

The Inverter, one of the carnival rides at the Waterfront Village. These three kind people recovered very well from their fun, and at my request, looked at the photo on my camera and said they did not mind if I posted the photo on my blog. I really appreciate that, getting their permission so that you could share in the sheer fun they had while spinning and turning and dropping and hanging in the Inverter.

Here's how calm it looks while folks are getting locked in.

Later on I came back to get some photos of the ride and its lights.

Ferris Wheel at Rose Festival

Here's what I found at rosefestival.org about the fun along the Willamette, only one of many, many activities during the festival's run, May 29-June 8.

The Rose Festival's WaMu Waterfront Village is where Portland celebrates its favorite family traditions, awesome new activities and diverse cultural influences. Located along the scenic Willamette River in Governor Tom McCall Waterfront Park, the WaMu Waterfront Village offers a park-load of whimsical and magnificent kid's adventures. Quite simply, the WaMu Waterfront Village is a great place for parents to bring their families. Come see why our village was honored from among IFEA's 2000 plus member festivals.

Along with this year's featured attraction, Dinosaur Jurassic Journey, the village features the Pacific Northwest's largest carnival, five stages packed with family entertainment, the BI-MART Kids Zone, WaMu Big Top Stage, zany strolling minstrels, two of the tallest thrill rides in the Western United States, three food courts, marching school bands and festive cultural music.
Dates & Hours
Dates
Thursday, May 29 - Sunday, June 8, 2008

Hours
11 AM to 11 PM* daily except May 29 when gates open at 5 PM

*Event hours & closing times are subject to change based on weather, attendance and park safety conditions.

Here's part of why I'm so late posting today ...

Portland's Rose Festival started last night, with the opening of the Waterfront Village, a sort of state fair/carnival. I got off the bus after work, intending to take a few photos and catch another bus home. When I saw Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s #88 and found out that admission was free, I decided to roam around, taking photos and waiting to get my photo taken beside the car.

Here I stand with a young member of the National Guard, right beside the car, still able to smell the exhaust fumes. Yes, friends, another man from Hendrix Racing started that baby and gunned the motor several times. Mighty fine loud sound! I loved it!

After about five hours, I got home, too tired to blog. I hope that some of the photos I took will be neat enough to share.

Second in a series, my homage to football halftime shows, thanks to Portland's Rose Festival, 2007

Performing second at the Concert in the Park, the Last Regiment of Syncopated Drummers. I first heard them last summer as they paraded up Division as part of the Clinton/Division Street Parade. I agree wholeheartedly with this quote I found online in the Oct. 11, 2005, Portland Tribune: Drummer Roger Pease described an e-mail he got from then-prospective tenor drum player Casey Scott. Scott lived in an apartment on the Starlight Parade route. She heard the band coming down the street and went to the window to see the source of the racket. Pease paraphrases her e-mail: “ ‘All of a sudden I hear way off in the distance, something like a sonic disturbance, and I knew then why all throughout history, militaries have used drums to signal their approach, because hearing that you realize that there is nothing--nothing--an enemy could do.’”



Here's a bit I found at www.lastregiment.com: The Last Regiment of Syncopated Drummers was founded in 1998 in Portland Oregon by acclaimed Long Beach drummer Greg Odell. From traditional syncopation to funky street beats, marching rhythms to military cadences, the Last Regiment moves feet and stops hearts at parades, races, awareness walks, sports venues and backyard barbeques.


If you've developed a hankering to hear syncopated drumming, go to www.lastregiment.com and partake of their mp3. If it doesn't get you at the very least bobbing and rocking in your chair, have someone take your pulse right away!