Jubilee and Portland and a lot of Dry Creek wine

Pretty slow weekend compared to recent weeks. My friend Joe headed up here Friday so I had some much needed company on all the driving I did this weekend. Having someone else in the car with me made me realize how much driving I do for work. Not too much happening this weekend at The Chronicle. Spent Sunday at Tolmie State Park up near Olympia playing in the tide pools/mud flats picking up tiny, feisty crabs. Played lots of cards and ate a lot of really good food. Hung out all day today in Portland. Bought Inferno and Girl Culture at Powell's and ate too much sushi at Sushi Land. Fun weekend but now it's back to work...

Went to the fairgrounds today to make a picture of the set-up. Fair this week!! I can't wait.. I love the fair! I missed the Alameda County Fair (P-town pride), so I'm really excited for this one. I wish I had my Minolta.

This goat was totally smiling for the camera. And making really, really strange noises.

Another photo of dogs that I wanted to steal while on assignment. And my six dollar shoes.

I had never heard of elephant ears. Fry bread is still better!

This kid put some Bisquick mix on a stick and cooked it over the fire. I need to remember that for camping.

An exhilarating assignment.. a house being moved across I-5. I was waiting around for an hour and half before they even got the truck rolling. I was up the hill in front of it pulled off in someone's driveway waiting for it to come up and then cruise past me, but it didn't really make that great of a picture. So i got up on the overpass and got a shot of it going up the hill with the traffic backing up behind it.

A shot from a story on real estate prices in the area. This guy's asking price is $297,000. I looked at him like "OH MAN, that's a bargain!" Then I realized that I was in Washington and not the Bay Area. There is hope yet that I can one day afford to buy a house in an area that I love.. it may just mean not living in California.

This is Adam chimping! I always take photos of the reporters when they are on assignment with me and so at the jubilee I snapped some pictures of Adam and Nick while they were shooting. But a photog chimping.. what's better than that?

I really needed to be at this jubilee for two days to make some good photos. I was trying so hard to keep up with the events and figure out what was going on that it was hard to make decent pictures. After the first heats of all the events, I was able to figure out where I could stand for a better shot and also the stronger athletes to hang out by.

Wade Stewart was the guy to watch at the jubilee. He's world-famous and a tremendous athlete. Makes you confident enough to stand in the direction of the axe throwing competition.

Adam has a picture of me in front of this tree. It was HUGE! It was so fun to watch the guy driving the machine that came over and picked up these logs to move them. He made it look so easy. Anyways, this is Adam having enough of the sun and finding some shade in between events at the jubilee.

I'd love to learn how to climb a tree like these guys can. They scrambled up there so fast. This is Wade Stewart again. In a later event, the speed climb, Stewart came down a little too fast on the decent and ended up wrecking his knee. It was terrible. Anyways, I liked this because the sun was bouncing off his saw and catching on his face. Would have been better without the rope cutting his face in half...

Morton has the most beautiful setting for this event. It's in a valley surrounded by beautiful mountains, not all of which are logged.. which is the case in most parts of the area.

Competitors came from all over.. this guy is from New Zealand.