Your Sunday Squirrel

This guy is from a few weeks ago.  He didn't mind standing in the light.  Most squirrels do, because it means that predators can see them.  But this one was a performer.  At least as much as a squirrel can perform squirrel things.

Your Sunday Squirrel

Here's a fellow from a week or two ago.  Ain't he sweet?

Belltown Block Party

We got home from Longview and guess what?  It was the Belltown block party.  And my block was the party block.  What that meant is it was loud.  But hey, it's for one day a year and it was pretty fun.  There were a bunch of bands, but all of them seemed very angry about something.  But they ran the gamut from punk to death metal.  I didn't take any pictures of them, because they were all kind of not very good.

There was "professional" wrestling, which was really the best thing.  Very entertaining, very fake.

There were skate ramps.  Lots of wipeouts!

And people made art in the meantime.

This is the second year for this format.  Last year, I was up at my folks' place, so I missed it.  But this time around, it was really fun - especially the wrestling.  And it only lasted till around 1am.

Squirrel Fest 2018!

OK, so we had a great time at Squirrel Fest last year and had to revisit wonderful Longview for this year's festivities.  I gotta say that it was certainly bigger and had more events than last year.  In case you're new to Squirrel Fest, it's an annual celebration of town's many squirrel bridges.  They're all built with different themes and designs.  And there's a parade.  This year, if it hadn't been for people running for local office, it would have lasted about three minutes.  Instead, it was about seven minutes.  And it went around twice.  So fifteen minutes worth of parade.

The parade begins...for the second time.

A guy in a squirrel suit.  Not a real squirrel.

Unenthusiastic pirates...

A band...

These are bed racers.  It was a new event this year.  The guys with the acorn bed didn't win. 

 

Sweet Becko doing archery at the Boy Scouts tent.

And there she is standing in front of the lie-berry.  That bust is the founder of Longview, Robert Long. 

Here's the squirrel statue in the middle of town.

Here's the Monticello Hotel.  It's definitely seen better days.  The sign's paint is all chipped off and the restaurant on the corner calls itself The Pizzaria.  I wonder if they know it's misspelled.  The lobby is a dark-paneled mixture of garish paintings of celebrities and murals of the good old days.  One in particular is called "The Departure of the Red Man," and it shows Native Americans leaving the land to the white man. 

Anyhow, in all this festivalizing, I forgot to take any pictures of the squirrel bridges.  Last year, we hopped on this very fast, very rickety trolley and took a tour of all the bridges.  This year, we were told that the trolley was out of commission.  It's too bad, because is was a great way to see everything.  Hopefully, next year it will return.  Oh, and I also saw no squirrels.  No real squirrels.  People in squirrel costumes, yes, but no genuine tree rodents. 

Your Sunday Squirrel

Just a squirrel hanging upside down in Denny Park.  This guy was pretty super-skittish, but he held still long enough for this shot to happen.

Mural Outrage

OK, so I featured the mural in the back parking lot a few weeks ago.  Yeah, it's still really cool and I hope it stays there forever, just like the one on the Cinerama.  But they've been painting one across the street on the Jupiter.  This is what it looks like:

It continues on past the the tree.  Uh, I don't think it's done, but they seem to have stopped work on it.  I can sort of see what they're trying for, but it's not quite there yet.  So the question is: are they planning to finish it?  Or are they going in a different direction?  As it is now, it doesn't, y'know, look good.  I hope it does end up looking better, because it's a big part of my view. 

Chalk Walk

Well, they had a chalk art-thing on Bell Street this weekend.  OK, so you don't get a lot of that kind of thing in a city where it rains often, but this weekend was pretty much guaranteed to be without precip, right?  Well, wrong.  But still, there was some interesting stuff.

..and the obligatory Hendrix.  This is just a sampling.  You might want to go there tonight, because tomorrow everything will be lost to the elements.