Under Covered

It is amazing that for such a small area, there seems to be a festival of some sort pretty much every week here during the summer. And yes, for the last two months I've been on the festival circuit. It is rare that a weekend goes by during the summer months when I'm not at a festival of some sort — Schwingfest, Tokeland Pow Wow, Finn festival, Dog Olympics, etc. The best ones are those that actually have something to do with the history and culture of the people in the area.
On Saturday I headed out to Grays River for the Covered Bridge Festival. The old covered bridge is over 100 years old and is a historical landmark. I knew going in that interesting pix may be tough, but I had an ace up my sleeve — the watermelon eating contest.



And while that was fine (and fun) I really wanted to get a pic that would incorporate the old bridge most of all — afterall, that is what the gathering was about. However, the scenery at the festival itself was a bit crowded, as there were many booths selling things, all kinda crammed into a small field next to the bridge. It was hard to make a pic that wasn't full of distracting elements. So I ventured away from the hustle and bustle and was immediately rewarded.
I had seen a couple boys down by the river throwing rocks in the water and made a few frames of them climbing up the side of the bridge. I followed them down to the other side where there are a couple rope swings for jumping into the water on hot days. Now this was far from a hot day, but one of the boys decided it would be fun to swing anyways.... hey, I liked that idea too! I spent a pretty long time shooting him doing this from a variety of angles and ended up0 liking this one best, which will be the lead on page one this week.
The girl in the hat kinda sealed this one for me.

Looking around at the old bridge I started noticing all the marks in the wood, you know like the kind you used to carve in your desk at school when you were dating a girl...

It was also cool to come across some of my favorite local people, the Burkhalters

I was very happy to hear that Austin and his friend Alan will be blogging once again for the Friday Night Sights blog each week after their football games.