My setup at 2011 Cider Days.

Nonetheless, I had a good time! I got to spend some time with friends and did manage to sell a few pics, so the weekend was certainly not a total loss. Though as I look out the window and see that it’s currently 72 degrees and sunny and has been all day… I can’t help but feel the weather is mocking me!

I am particularly excited about this event because I am very proud of some of my ‘never before seen’ work. I have some great new fall themed photos as well as my “Images of Ireland” that have not been to a show before. It’s a lot of work (and $$) getting ready for a show, but it’s also a lot of fun because it gives me an excuse to make prints of my photos. For many of my newer photos, this is the first time I’ve seen them printed!

The festival is next weekend, Sep 17-18 along historic Walnut Street in Springfield, MO. The festival is open from 10am – 5pm both Saturday and Sunday. I haven’t looked at the forecast yet, but considering how the first year it rained the whole time, and last year it was scorching hot… maybe this year we’ll have beautiful fall weather!

Hope to see you there!

Bridget and I in front of our tents.

This time around we made some significant improvements over Cider Days. The 3 biggest being that we each had own own space, new tents (with sides to protect our stuff from rain!), and I made some display panels from which I could hang some larger sized framed prints. I also brought more (and better) framed prints. I am still learning but this year was infinitely smoother than Cider Days. I was also excited to have won the “Best of Show 2D Category”. Personally I saw lots of other artists with stuff that I felt was far superior to mine, but nevertheless it was exciting and encourages me to keep doing it.

At any rate, Artsfest was a success and lots of fun in the process!!

It’s supposed to be nice out tomorrow, so this will be a great excuse to get out and enjoy it. I am not sure what the official hours are but I would guess roughly 6 – 8pm.

Lindsay, me, and Kim

I had a great time just mingling among friends, family, and random people who were out enjoying the evening and checking out some art in the process. Definitely a fun thing, and I hope to be able to do it again in the future!! The only problem was that in all the excitement I forgot to take any photos once the event got rolling. Luckily this one was snapped when Lindsay and Kim stopped by right before things started.

Downtown Joplin in all it's splendor.

I will be sharing a space with Jason Shelfer at 515 S. Main and I think his wife may do some light catering of the event. So I have been very busy the last few days getting my stuff ready for my first official ‘show’ here in Joplin. I think i’ll have about 15 of my favs nicely framed and on display. It’s totally last minute so our gallery may not be as fancy as some of the others, but I am sure our works will not disappoint!

Anyways, I hope everyone comes out and stops by!

Mom is an über-cool biker.

Here are a few reasons I think you should do it:

• Riding bikes is fun!
• Proceeds go to the construction of new area trails!
• Those are really the main two reasons I can think of.

There are routes for riders of all abilities… anywhere from 15mi for the casual rider up to 100 miles for the people with legs of steel and $6000 bikes. Mom and dad did the 35mile route and thoroughly enjoyed it. I like the 70-80ish mile routes. Regardless of which route you choose, it’s lots of fun to get out and support area trail projects!

Here is the website with all the info and online registration:
http://www.carthagemapleleafride.com/

Here is Bridget’s mother helping us put the finishing touches on our booth saturday morning. We managed to cram a lot of stuff into a small area.

The festival opened at 10:00am, at approximately 9:57 it started raining. Initially the forecast did not call for rain and our tent did not have sides…so saying we were ill-prepared would be an understatement. Our booth, and some of my photos were basically ruined before the show even started.

I estimate that it rained for appoximately 5 of the 7 hours of Cider Days on Saturday, but thanks to some quick help by Bridget’s mom we improvised some tarp sides, keeping most of our stuff fairly dry for the remainder of the show.

Things took a turn for the better when we were awarded the “best regional artist”. We were pretty stoked to display our award. All in all it was a lot of fun spending the day showing off and occasionally selling my work. And most of all just spending time with good friends.

Jason Shelfer and Ryan McCoy before the Gorilla Ride

It was a nice 68 mile ride and went past such landmarks as Big Brutus and the mined land conservation areas and we passed through the Kansas towns of Weir, Scammon, West Mineral, McCune, and of course Pittsburg. My only real complaint about this ride compared to others I have done was that the rest stops seemed really far apart. Aside from that I thought it was great and I really enjoyed myself. My ‘rents also participated on the shorter route.

So that only leaves the Maple Leaf ride next month and my season of biking will be more or less over until next year!

Getting ready for the TA110 bike ride

Items of note include the fact that I was apparently in much better condition this year. I made it up every single hill, including the wall of death in Seneca and the never ending stairway to hell on OK-10 north of Grove (last year I had to push up at least 5 or 6 of the hills). Also I shaved an hour and 20 minutes off my previous ride time!

I figure the real reason I was so much faster this year was just that I was wearing spandex shorts. At first I was a bit nervous and awkward about sporting the banana hammock but once I was going I just enjoyed the fact that I didn’t have shorts bunching up everywhere. I kept feeling that people were staring at my junk but in retrospect they were probably just staring at the fact that I was doing the hardest bike ride around on a hybrid trek 7100 retrofitted with race tires.

All in all it was a great ride and I had a lot of fun. These bike events are a blast and I’m very much addicted to them…now I’m looking forward to the Gorilla Century in a couple months. I’m still not quite ready for a full century route, but I can feel it getting closer within reach!