Arts Fest fun

so, i was lucky enough to land in State College during the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts. check out the website for a basic idea. they already have next year's dates. when i was planning this trip, anyone from Pennsylvania mentioned the Arts Fest. Greenvillians, imagine the Pirate Fest on a much larger scale. i did my usual Internet time at Schlow and then set out walking through all the vendors.

[Allen Street]

total time: 10am-8pm. oh, i saw everybody. of course, i couldn't spend any money (because there was so much i liked), but i talked with a lot of people too. raises my hopes for my post-college artistic life. along the way i met a past student of Bob Ebendorf, one of ECUs metal design profs, who gave me a note for him and Victoria Sexton, an artist who often has pieces at the gallery i worked at in Greenville, Emerge. small world.

if you don't know about Penn State, campus runs alongside the Loop, the downtown area contained by two one-way streets, Beaver Street and College Avenue. Allen Street is a road that crosses the Loop directly in front of Old Main, the first major building. Allen is packed with activities between Beaver and College, expanding into food vendors in front of the library (Schlow) and artists past that. the rest of the artists extend the other direction into campus. when they say 'Arts' Fest, they mean ARTS. there are dance and music performances as well, with many different locations for all four days.

[the Allen St. stage with Fieldstone]

i had started with the booths by the library and then worked my way down Allen to the ones on campus with a break for lunch at a pizza joint. the whole area was packed all day. note the photos i have of a guy preaching on the Corner. he's not quite as vulgar as the guy who comes to ECU, though. =)

[crowd crossing College Ave.]

[the gate in front of Old Main and vendors]

it was definitely an experience. i collected a lot of business cards. don't know if i'll check all of them out online, but it's nice to see new stuff. you should check it out in person if you ever get the chance. the Arts Fest has been around since 1967 and it shows in all the planning and work that is exhibited.

Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts.

Pennsyl-tucky my ass

okay, here's the home stretch, love of my life and gem in my heart... Central PA. coming down from Buffalo, i opted for my path to go through the Allegheny National Forest. you know how i love mountains. well, after crossing I-80, those hills open up into lovely rolling farmland with a nice dash of trees and warm sunsets. US-322 plopped me down right off Atherton at my uncle Mike's house in State College. oh, it's nice to finally rest, and what better place?

the next day i went with my cousin Mike to help his girlfriend, Sarah, and her roommates move into a new apartment. it felt nice to do something for someone else. also, since i used to drive a Silverado with an 8ft bed, i'm quite accustomed to moving people's stuff. i liked the whole crew from the start and it was a very productive day. By afternoon i had gotten a tour of town and dinner from Big Mike. then me and my cousin hung out at the new apartment late into the night.

July 8th was an laid back birthday. i found a card on the table since the Mikes left before i woke up. i looked up a camera store in the phone book and made my way to Beaver St. to check out downtown on my own. the shop was just a hole in the wall with nothing i needed, so i walked the entire loop and bought myself a pair of sandals on sale at this neat shoe store on College Ave. it was my birthday. i deserved an easy day and a nice treat. i found a grocery store and stocked the fridge with a few things. i fixed a rice and veggie dinner for me and Little Mike, going out to a local brewery for a couple pints afterward. not a big shindig, but very satisfying. the next day was devoted to the task of replacing my car's headlights and finding a place to fix my laptop.

i started the day using my two hours on the public computers, trying to catch up on the blog. then i found a foreign parts store in the phone book and came home to tackle the task myself, only to find that the front end of a Bug is packaged so tightly that i would probably have to take off the fender. that is definitely more than i can chew. i called the dealership in the area and the soonest they could schedule was the following Thursday. understand, i have been without both headlights for most of this trip and am sick of using my brights the whole time. i called a place i had passed by a few times and they were like "oh, you have the parts? we'll do it for free." apparently they couldn't do it either and referred me down the street a ways. that shop was booked 'til Tuesday. after that, i just stopped at every auto shop i saw until i found someone that worked on Volkswagons. i ended up paying more than it would have cost at the dealership, but at least the job was done.

anywho, after getting all wound up and nixing the effort for looking up computer shops, i had to drive out of town. the nice thing about State College is that all you do is turn a corner and you're out in country. i guess the past two days put me in travel withdrawal. off on 26 towards Rothrock State Forest i went.

[outside McAlveys Fort]

tell me that's not one of the most pleasant looking landscapes. for about thirteen years, i spent my summers in PA with my grandparents and now i realize how long it was since my last time. most of what i remember is lots of driving through the countryside. that's probably why the act of driving is so comforting for me.

[familiar scene through my windshield]

i went past Whipple Dam and Greenwood Furnace 'til i ran into US-22 and took 45 back towards town. no photos in the hills. there's not really a place to pull off and i enjoy the winding roads too much. ;) along 45 i found an Amish barn that was in the process of taking down. don't know when i'll come across that situation again.

[Amish barn skeleton]

scattered in all the rural stuff, you'll find huge luxury homes too. my favorite find are old stone houses, though.

[somewhere around Graysville]

the drive helped me get my head on straight again. insert philosophies on the journey of life and the stress relief of not knowing the destination. =)

the antsy photographer

perhaps i went ahead too fast mentioning PA. the flight to Chicago got off to a late start and i amused myself by taking photos on the plane. there is only so much room to work with, but i popped out some compositions from the nothingness. slight glimpse back on my intro days. enjoy.



once i was in O'Hare, i still had a three hour layover. before having a few expensive airports pints, i roamed from concourse to concourse. note my earlier post: i love airport architecture.

[the O'Hare rush]

Independence Day at the Gateway to the West

i looove flying in to cities at night. this night, the horizon had a perfect blend of the entire color spectrum. i know you can't really see it, but the photo is enough that you can fill in the gap.

[the night sky over St. Louis from the plane]

Tim is lucky enough to have a loft downtown, so i just put on some earrings and out we went. Saint Louis is definitely more than i expected. it's cleaner (and less cold) than Chicago, but still has a lot going on. not even a stone's throw from the loft is an outdoor bar with two beach volleyball courts and has a weekly tournament. most of the attractions are free too!

Forest Park is apparently bigger than Central Park in New York City and houses a golf course, a zoo, a substantial art museum, giant turtle sculptures and tons of picnic/pavilion areas. it was beautiful just driving through it.

[the mall in front of the St. Louis Art Museum]

the art museum had a little blip of an Ansel Adams exhibit, but the prints are still impressive. i liked the variety of what they had. it is always great to see artwork in real life. i value all the stuff in my art history textbooks, but they really don't do the actual pieces justice. the colors are ten times more vivid and the textures are irreplaceable.

i was craving coffee, so we headed to the Loop shopping area to scope out cafés. along the way was a pretty nifty thrift store with sub-culture trendy threads, shoes, glasses and WIGS. there were some very awesome cowboy boots, but i couldn't bring myself to even check the sizes. no extra money for luxury spending. people-watching will have to do.

[drinking coffee on the Loop]

right between the Arch and the Mississippi, you can drive and park on the Riverfront. very neat. it's an easy hangout spot, though most of it was blocked off for the Independence Day celebrations. we walked down for the fireworks the night before, which ended up much better than the actual holiday. it rained most of the day and the left over clouds kept all the smoke from blowing away, so the fireworks got masked out. bummer. apparently there are usually fireworks the day after also, but those got canceled.

[parking at the Riverfront]

the Sunday after, Tim mentioned wanting to go up in the Arch before his project in St. Louis was over. it was an interesting experience. the tram up is like an enclosed ferriswheel and you're in these tiny Star Trek looking pods that hold up to five people. i guess it's only fitting. the Arch itself is an interesting thing. i've seen documentaries on how it was made and the history behind it. very very neat. i'm a huge fan of our frontier history and the Arch is like its own museum.

[St. Louis from the Arch]

the Arch also lent itself to very interesting photos. i dig the design and it is definitely something you can't find anywhere else. that helped me open up a bit, i think. in a lot of the other photos in the album i was feeling very impersonal and cutting people's heads out of the shots. down at the Arch, in all its originality, i got out of zombie mode and back to my everyone-is-an-individual mindset. the Riverfront did the same thing. you've got the most random assortment of cars parked down there and people are all doing their own thing.

poo on all the people who think the Arch is a gaudy eyesore and waste of money. i'm all about how strongly the arts are supported in the MidWest. so what if it's 'weird'? because it doesn't exactly have a label to be placed under, i got the impression that people all got their own thing from it without strings attached. there's a nice sense of peace about that and i got that vibe from everyone there too.

[my beautiful new friend]

[line of horse buggies between the Arch and the Riverfront]

[sparklers by the Mississippi River]

well, that's that. it was interesting to have a skip in my travels. i was so used to driving to all my destinations. still, an enjoyable tangent to the big loop i have going on. parking in Buffalo wasn't bad. i kind of left the city in an odd blur from just getting off a plane, but i got a little juiced up after a few counties since my next leg was straight into Central PA in all its beauty.

end of the motor tour

so, my dad used to live in Buffalo back in the 60s and told me about the original Buffalo wings, which were made at this place called Anchor Bar. i have also been lectured by a friend from Buffalo about the proper way to make them and how to judge them. i ended up parking close to downtown and walking ten-ish blocks to get to the bar. well worth the journey.

[good ol' New York hotdog stand]

Buffalo is pretty neat. it's got an old feel about it and lots of abandoned buildings like Detroit, but that's mainly on the outskirts. the subway runs underneath Main Street and pops up above ground in the downtown area so that there is no car traffic. i thought this was a rather clever way of manipulating the city via infrastructure. i also thought the highways were laid out nicely. reminded me of Dallas in that everything seemed to piece together well without having to do crazy things from intersection to intersection.

[Frank & Teressa's Anchor Bar, home of the ORIGINAL Buffalo wings]

i forgot to take one of the menus with me (they were printed on newsprint and had the story of the wings in the centerfold) and left without pictures of the motorcycles inside. maybe it was the delicious wings, beer and conversations at the bar.

back to the point of the trip to Frank & Teressa's: i can definitely see that these wings were the original. i mean, they were exactly as they should be; fried to crispiness, delicious sauce that's not ridiculously hot AND they were huge. i have been told that if you let the chickens get too old in order to obtain good sized wings and legs, you can crush the bones with your teeth and be a slight bit disgusted. nope, not here. straight, simple and to the T.

at the bar i met an older man who was really into photography, a marine that had lived in Jacksonville NC and a dude who had been snowboarding for 21 years. again, how can people not have things in common? got a bit distracted, though, and had to take a quick pace back to downtown. getting to the airport was cake. i didn't know anything about the price of parking, so i just went to the one farthest from the airport. there i had to depart with my buddy the Bug and put the road trip on hold for a while with some air time to visit Tim.

waterfalls are definitely wonderous

slowly, but surely. i only get two hours of time on the computers in Schlow Library. gotta get crackin' on fixing the laptop at least to the point of Internet use. =(

so, i had the joy of being at Niagara Falls for the Canada Day fireworks. sorry no photos of the pyrotechnics. i had no idea on the time of festivities and didn't have my camera ready. then i really just wanted to sit and watch the show. got to try out night shots of the falls, though. check out the album, for sure.

[both the American and Canadian falls]

there were a lot of international people, which i thought was really cool. couldn't find a bar close by (that wasn't an American chain), despite all efforts. festival-ish stuff was set up at the end of the Rainbow Bridge was all pretty G-rated. i could have wandered deeper into the bustle, i suppose, but i was exhausted. there's been lots of walking on this trip; sooo much cheaper AND i dig the slow pace to absorb everything.

[Canada from the Rainbow Bridge]

i've seen tons of bridges on this trip and am getting quite attached. they each definitely have a personality of their own, especially ones that cross borders. the checkpoints at the ends compare to airports and train stations in their design. i think it's the union of motion and structure that draws me to that sort of architecture. the building seems more like a mechanism and not just a stolid mass. where's Nick to back me up?

transportation is just another thing that defines a city. Sandman readers, Gaiman talks about the fear of cities waking. i say that buildings like airports and train stations are the arteries that keep moving even while a city sleeps.

[the American checkpoint]

anywho, the American checkpoint looks great, but charges 50cents. wtf? i only had a five dollar bill and nothing Canadian the change machine could convert for me (it only had one option which i, of course, did not have). needless to say, i ended up with a shit ton of quarters AFTER i had to get change to do my laundry. there are worse things in life.

the next day i didn't feel like paying $10 to park again and just walk the same path. i paid the same amount, but this time on Goat Island, which i have never been to before. i saved the Cave of the Winds for another time and just walked around the park to the point by Horseshoe Falls and the small islands on either side of Goat Island.

i have got to get a friend who flies helicopters.

[Maid of the Mist getting pushed away from the falls]

the Falls got me on a camera trip and i used the Garmin to find camera stores on the way to the airport. no satisfaction. oh well, more time to kill walking through Buffalo.

oh mountains, how i love thee

so... this is the view going up to the Adirondack Loj:

[the Meadow]

now this is more like camping than being in someone's yard. granted, i was still at a campsite. i know all these posts are going up late, but i'm in State College, PA right now and i'm definitely putting backpacking out in the Black Moshannon on my agenda.

yes, i stayed in a tent and not the lodge. i did get fed at the big house, though. cooking at a campsite by yourself is really depressing. i'd probably only have hotdogs anyway. the food was great, they served local brews and i got to talk with people. met a couple that had been hiking in Die Schweiz, a military man, Canadians from where i had just left in Ontario and a doctor who knew that the Tar River runs through Greenville. i'm telling you, how can people say they don't have anything in common with SOMEone!

put up my tent in the rain. expected hail, but got none. the next morning was bright and sunny, so i squeezed in a hike to Mount Jo before the 7hrs to Niagara Falls.

[overlooking Heart Lake from Mt. Jo]

the trail wasn't very established. i'd like to say that it was basically walking up a stream; just rocks and wetness. that's not exactly my bag of chips. i'm always a little worried for my noggin, especially when i'm alone. it also means lots of bugs. i need to take pictures of the front end of my car.

[going down from Jo]

so, i like winding mountain roads. well, out of nowhere it opens up to this lake (probably a reservoir) and i feel like i'm in Ireland. gorgeous. there was a little pull off point with a porta-john and different groups of people picnicing. there was also a dude with a sportbike, but he was napping.

i made due with my Bug instead. the curves in the Adirondacks must not be marked correctly because i was definitely going from 80 to 90 through '50mph' turns. maybe my speedometer is broke.

[the Cascade Lakes somewhere on the way to Keene Valley]

speaking of roads in New York, most are for shit. the ones that are actually marked as rough, just got paved and are smooth as glass (see above photo). the bridge i took back into the States the day before, Seaway International?, seriously looked like it was falling apart. there also weren't any other cars on it while i was, so i thought that maybe the bridge was closed and i wasn't supposed to be on it.

i made it to the falls that night for Canada Day fireworks, but i'll keep those shots together.

Canada's capital

[Parliment in Ottawa]

'welcome' to serious road trip time. the plan started with waking up at 7am to drive Katie and Eva (this time on Katie's birthday) to Toronto for their 11 o'clock flight. we were at the wedding reception until at least 4am. 'nuff said. when the alarm went off, nobody budged. i figured i'm the driver, i need to start moving. Eva tried to tell me something while i was in the shower, but i couldn't really hear the message. i-read-the-ticket-wrong-the-flight-is-at-10-omg-we-need-to-leave-now! i told Katie that her birthday luck better keep me from getting a speeding ticket and hauled ass to Toronto, cutting off a third of the expected time to get there. poor Steve was the only witness to our departure.

apparently the girls made it home alright. i wouldn't find that out 'til the end of the day. i just grabbed some Tim Horton coffee and headed out of town for about an hour, where i found a decent parking lot and crashed for a spell. bought a jug of apple juice, good to go.

i discovered that the camping site i had planned for was actually just a house that let people camp in the their yard. i wasn't ready for all that, and i figured that i hadn't gotten more than 4hrs of sleep and i'd be on hard ground the next two nights, so i opted to just get a hotel room. those beds were nothing like the king-size in the cabin and lacked three warm bodies as company. oh well, i pulled the curtains tight. it was raining anyway.

[Gatineau across the Ottawa River]

i had forgotten about Canada Day. here i was thinking 'woah, Canada is way more patriotic than the US.' silly me. actually, i was bummed to not be able to spend the holiday in the capital.

[the locks below the Chateau Laurier]

i really wish i had time to check out all the museums and landmarks, but the riverfront behind Parliment will have to do. i don't know much about the layout of Ottawa, but i found it easy to navigate. the public areas were gorgeous (i couldn't expect less from a nation's capital) and i would definitely go back. there are lots of parks around the city and i didn't even cross into Québec.

[chipmunks playing by the Canadian 'Tomb of the Unknown Soldier']

by the way, seeing chipmunks in the city is pretty cool to me. i wish i had photos of the black squirrels too. damn gray ones have taken over the States. anywho, on to New York.

Robbie & Stu

so, from the story in Guelph, i left before the rest of the party to pick up Eva and Katie from Toronto. unfortunately, Eva had just flown back from visiting her family in Ireland on Thursday, slept Friday away with minimal time to spend with her dogs and was now flying to Canada on her birthday. luckily her dad is a dear and gave her coupons for free beer on the plane.

we missed a tour of local wineries and barely had time to put on swimsuits and splash about in Lake Ontario at the bed-n-breakfast before the crew returned to go to the ghost tour at Fort George. like i said, it was a very busy week.

back at the BnB, it was party time. there were tons of bottles of wine and a good sized bottle of Southern Comfort. we were just chilling on the back porch, but we stayed up late into the night. the bride may have gone to bed at one-ish, Eva held on 'til two, the groom popped us popcorn at three, Katie crashed shortly after and i found myself babbling politics with Stu's friend Steve long after that. i tried going to bed (me, Katie and Eva had a cabin separate from the house with a king-size bed and let Steve-O take the futon), but i was too wound up from all the activities and no time to myself. i mean, weddings are a big deal, Robin is close to my heart and i think about stuff too much as it is. i'm guessing i didn't really go to sleep until 5am.

breakfast was fantastic and at 8 o'clock. i milled around almost to noon, caught up in getting know all the new faces, before Eva and i jumped in the lake to wake up. Katie joined us after a bit of coaxing (and her calling me the baby for hating the cold). note: Eva is laughing at both of us the whole time because she is from Ireland and swims in their frigid ocean quite often. Carmen gets most of this on tape and i get out to take a shower and start on my responsibilities as photographer.

[Stu and 'groomsman' Carmen]

[Eva and Jessica helping with the lacing of the dress]

the ceremony took place at Balls Falls in a little church from the 1800s, with the reception in a barn across the street. my favourtie photos are right before the wedding where the bride and her dad are prepping for their entrance. as excited as i was, i cannot fathom where Mr. Angell's mind was.

[beautiful Robin]

there was an accordion player with a 3,000 song repertoire for the initial reception and while i did the formal photos. that ordeal was quick an painless, complete with the usual quirks. insert all sorts of inside jokes that are beyond what i can explain in this blog. =)

[the Weeks and the Angells]

[Stu and Robin with her sister Glynnis]

i promptly laid down my camera after finishing the formal shindig and dug into dinner wholeheartedly. i scooted Robin and Stu out for more photos by themselves before the craziness of toasts and first dances started. maybe it was a bit selfish, but i made it the end of my duties and lost myself in all the happiness.

cheers to Robbie and Stu! i love you with all my heart.

old friends, new faces

sorry about the gap, but there is no way to avoid being immersed in your best friend's wedding. i even slacked on taking pictures. the drive from Pittsburgh to Guelph was cake. the dude at the booth on the Peace Bridge didn't ask for any ID, everyone speeds like a demon and i arrived right as Robin got off work. she ran out of her beautiful Bluebell Cottage with a huge hug and i was immediately turned around to get her wedding dress altered. that was the last i drove my car for several days, but those days were more jam packed than everything on this road trip so far!

after returning from the seamtress, Robin showed me around the house and the remodeling (recontruction) she and Stu were doing. we then went on to staple up plastic covering for the bare insulation in the room i was to be sleeping in. screw all you that don't think this was a ton of fun. i am heavily considering going back up to Guelph at the end of this summer and spending some time helping Stu while Robbie's at work.

[the upstairs room for me, Jessica, Kevin, Amy and Sam]

the next day was Robin's birthday and everyone had their own errands to do at the beginning of the day, so i got directions to the nearest grocery store to get the fixin's for a birthday cookout. i also spent a lot of time on this blog. =) sweet tea and pasta salad was done, burgers ready for the grill, just in time for Jessica and Kevin arriving that evening.

keep inserting pre-wedding errands for the following two days, and tons of them. after the bday celebration we all worked on clearing space for a party and prepping the pets for their sitter. in between clean up of the aminals, i played with them and took some photos. worse than little kids, i say! quick lowdown: Ludo the German boxer, Pig the Boston terrier, Petie the cockatiel, Guy the Guinea pig, two turkeys, two roosters, ten or so hens and three chicks.

[the main rooster]

after all that the girls went back to attacking the reception's playlist. we all chilled in the upstairs room listening to music. the boys were tuckered out from moving wood and scaffolding, but Robin, Jessica and i must have still been running on high octane after squeezing in a half hour of Latin dance aerobics at the Y. we proceeded to ditch them and have a girls-only night in downtown Guelph.

[Jessica and Robin working on the playlist]

we still popped out of bed bright and early in the morning. i think this time the energy came from being the last day in Guelph. there was to be a party with family and friends that night, plus all the stuff that didn't get done in the past few days. all was well with lots of outside help, though, and decorating was pretty much our only responsibility. i wish i had photos of our hanging fish lights!

Amy and her fiancé came in from the Toronto airport promptly as festivities began. i got to meet most of Robin's friends and Stu's family that i had heard so many stories of and it was wonderful to see Robin's family too. we chatted the night away catching up and telling new stories.

it is such a joy to share this experience with Robin and Stu. those few days i spent in Guelph were amazing. i'm still debating how much of the wedding photography i want to show. not having an editing platform is proving to be more unproductive than i anticipated.