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Carnival!
at Riverside Park Welcome to Grants Pass, Oregon, and wow, did you ever show up anywhere at a more opportune time?!? Besides being the Best River Town in America, not to mention one of the five best places in the World to live (according to both Forbes and Time magazines) but on Memorial Day weekend we have three times as much fun as any four cities five times our size! Follow the links above to check out our famous whitewater hydroplane races (this year to be held on Monday, May 26) or to find information about our downtown parade including photographic highlights from parades past. For more specific information--including event schedules, parade line-ups, and jetboat race participants & sponsors--go to www.boatnik.com. Scroll down to check out some of the action from last years Boatnik Carnival held in Riverside Park! The carnival opens Friday night, and for the following three days the Park is really hopping! It starts a little slow on Saturday as most of the crowd is downtown watching the parade, but soon things begin to happen and people flock to Riverside Park from all directions. Below we see the pathway being beaten from the park's southwest corner, near the intersection of Park and Rogue River Highway / 7th Street.
Here are a few panaramas of all the classic carnival rides, plus a few I don't remember from when I was a kid—but that was a long time ago and maybe it's the memory that isn't what it used to be... The food doesn't seem to have changed a lot, at least not since the Grants Pass Cavemen first invented fire, but the vendor booths are another story, peddling all sorts of nouveau knick-knackery and wares. Alas, the art of souvenirs, trinkets and t-shirts continues to expand at a phenomenal pace! By
the way, if something or someone special catches your eye, you can usually click on
the photo to see it super-sized in a new browser window—at least in
the
smaller photos.
Yikes!
What is that banded orb high in the sky above the ride below? Is it the
planet JUPITER?!?
And of course no carnival would be complete without the gaming booths, but like the kids above I'd just as soon spend my money on the rides! What?!? You've already run out of money! The weekend is young, so maybe it's time to visit the ATM, conveniently located near the restrooms for those who have spent their entire wad in the beer garden.
©2008
www.johngranacki.com |
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If you're still around town for the first
Friday in June, be sure to join us downtown from 6 to 9 pm for Grants Pass' First Friday Art Walk & Roving Gallery Artist's Party,
co-sponsored by the Artists and Merchants of Grants Pass, Oregon! |
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