Thursday, August 13, 2009

Theme Thursday - Festivals

Festivals are erupting all over the island, and Nanaimo is in the middle of it all. This is the one that I'm really looking forward to.

Blues, Blues, and more Blues.

Meanwhile, we went out yesterday afternoon to have an early dinner at the Lighthouse Bistro and wait for the beginning of the Snowbirds' flyover. I thought perhaps this was part of one of the festivals, but it seems not. It was a fundraiser for a group working to combat Crohn's Disease.

Whatever the reason for the flyover, the atmosphere downtown was certainly festive. I took this shot of the top of the bistro, just after we went outside (at five minutes to six - perfect timing). Within a minute, we heard the planes approaching. I tried in vain to take some film of the show. My camera isn't really up to following planes across the sky - or I'm not - so the result was less than satisfactory, and I settled for still photos.

These guys were the warm-up act. I photographed them after they finished their flyover.

I realized as I uploaded the photos to my computer just now that I had taken 54 shots. It's a wonder I saw any of the show at all.
A few minutes into the performance, I glanced back up at the bistro's cupola, and this is what I saw:
Apparently somebody has friends in high places.

The performance went on for, maybe, twenty minutes. I could see people lined up along the rail, all the way around the harbour. I did take some photos, but it occured to me that folks might object to having their photos blogged without their permission (and I have no idea who they are, so permission is out of the question.) Thus, you'll have to take my word for it. The walkway around the harbour was full of people. It was really quite summery and fun. I remarked to Robin that it was great to see folks out walking around, all with one happy purpose - to see this lovely and impressive show. There was lots going on in the sky, but in between passes, I took one shot of the water below the bistro, because it was shiny and I love shiny stuff.

When it was all over, we made our way through crowds of pedestrians to our car, then through more crowds of both pedestrians and crawling vehicles to get home. It's probably just as well we don't have festivals every day. Nobody would ever get anywhere.

As I couldn't film the Snowbirds, I found a You Tube film to demonstrate their performance. Very exciting stuff. I'll make that the finale of this post. Happy Festival Season, everybody.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey, that's a fun looking festival! I'll be bringing a bit of old acoustic blues to our local music festival this weekend (it's mostly country & bluegrass)--Council Mountain Music Festival opens tomorrow--I play Saturday afternoon.

Great pix--I especially like the one of the geese. Those are my kind of snowbirds!

Sandra Leigh said...

I was so annoyed. When we went off to Wyoming and Manitoba, bluegrass, reggae, folk festivals happened all over the island. One I would particularly like to have attended was going on in Comox (up island) on the day we were driving toward Vancouver. So near, and yet so far. Blues will be good, though. I plan to haunt the venues.

Leah said...

I'm crazy about formation flyovers--they can be thrilling to watch!

I would love to go to that festival.

Anonymous said...

Sandra, all-in-all, looks like a fun time. Love air shows! And that is one swell lookin' light-house! Great pics all round :)

Kris McCracken said...

The blues in that setting strikes me as odd, for some reason.

Totalfeckineejit said...

Boy ,I'd love to go to that blues festival,I'd also love to have a meal in that lighthouse bistro- what a beautiful looking building.Thanks for all your good wishes too :)

Debo Hobo said...

Awesome shots thanks for sharing them. Isn't it amazing how many photos we take in one event, digital is so wonderful!

Baino said...

I love flyovers and air shows. We used to have them fairly regularly at the RAAF base near us but I guess they're busy elsewhere. I like shiny things too!We also have a 'Blues and Roots' festival but I've never been. Hey your pics turned out just fine. Not easy catching a formation at speed!

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