Lumber Day

Went to Black Moshannon State Park yesterday for the first time to photograph the summer festival. There were an assortment of free activities throughout the afternoon with amateur lumber contests.

Log rolling, where a team of two rolled the log to two posts, turned it around and roll it back. The rolling part didn't look too difficult, but the turning and directing part did.

Old wooden stilts as part of the school yard games.

Log cross cutting competition where each team was timed.

Nail pounding competition where you were timed how fast you could hammer 5 nails into a log.

I met a group of guys who were intense on their hammering abilities. Things were going well for this participant till he missed this nail!

Another guy from the group only hit each nail once and it went right in, and he was so fast that every frame I have doesn't have the hammer in it, it's just a nail disappearing.

After I had things from the festival, and was jealous of all the visitors swimming in the lake, and canoeing, I ventured down to the bog trail. The trail is being featured next month in our good life section, and since I was already there I stopped to get the photo. The quarter mile boardwalk goes through the bog area with informational signs about the plants and animals that live in the swampy area. It was so peaceful and quiet and had some great views of the lake and surrounding mountains.

Black Mo state park has been added to my list of places I need to go to when I'm not working to enjoy.

Spikes

With record temperatures here in State College today few spectators came out to cheer on the State College Spikes. They could have used that cheering section, since I'm blaming the heat and lack of support for their terrible playing, as the score was 15-2 in the bottom of the fifth inning.

Despite the heat, and the teams numerous errors, I had a good night of photographing.

Tomorrows temperatures will be worse, but hopefully the baseball will be better!

Hot Hot Hot

Summer heat is here, with temperatures in the upper 90s, and real feels in the 100s. As much as I hoped to hide from being out in the heat today, I knew that wasn't possible. Headed to Welch pool to take some photos of people finding ways to cool off and enjoy the weather. I was very jealous I was in work clothes and not able to jump in and join them!

Fest 2

More things to share from fest week. Spent my afternoon on Saturday at People's Choice.

This year the festival had a chinese auction stand called Artists Helping Artists. All the artists in the show donated a piece of work, and the proceeds will go towards an artist who just lost her husband, and another artist who is battling cancer.

Ashburn's animals on a mission set up a petting zoo area for the kids. This little was baaa-ing with a goat.

I ended the week by covering Arts Fest's last few hours.

The crowds have headed out of town, the vendors have packed up and left, fest week is over.

Festing

This week in Centre county is Fest week. There are three arts festivals, all in our coverage area.

I first visited the Heritage Days festival in Philipsburg. This is the smallest of the festivals, and is more of a local event then an art show.

Delicious watermelon eating contest for the kids.

The Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts is the biggest show going on and it has hundreds of artists from all over the country. The festival spans through downtown State College and around the Penn State campus.

This artist only creates his works while he is at festivals. When I stopped to photograph him at around 4 in the afternoon he had already completed 26 mobiles that day.

"Arts fest is the best tradition of the summer," this woman from Pittsburgh told me.

Adorable little girl dancing to the jazz group Slide Zone in the parklet.

People's Choice Festival of Pennsylvania Arts and Crafts is the last festival we cover that takes place on the military museum grounds in Boalsburg.

This gentleman has been carving for about 30 years and free carves everything.

There are two more days of festing to go, so more photos to come!

Happy 4th!

4th of July in Centre County is a big deal. The day is full of events, that are all organized and run by volunteers from the community. I've been covering preparation for the big day for about three weeks, and each time I learned about more and more of the things that go on.

The day kicks off with the 4th Fest 4k race, which had over a 1,000 participants this year. All the registration money goes towards the fireworks show.

These firefighters ran the race in all of their gear, that weighs about 25 pounds, to promote firefighter fitness. The fireman on the right, who started the non-profit, had ran a triathlon the day before.

Starting in the afternoon there is a carnival, with rides and games. Over to the side of the carnival there are educational tents including one with pyrotechnic demonstrations, and another with animals from Shaver's Creek. There is also a free crafts tent.

Eleven year old Brayden was enjoying the afternoon with his patriotic mohawk as he made a red, white and blue star bracelet.

Team Fastrax skydiving flew through the air with three 100 foot red, white and blue streamers...

...and one 7800 sq foot flag. There was a little bit of a wind that twisted the flag but the crowd still cheered as he landed.

Then when it finally got dark the fireworks show! I hadn't photographed fireworks before, so this was a new experience. I wasn't as pleased with the photos as I was hoping, but next year will be better.

The Joe Paterno statue enjoys the show .

Happy 4th of July!