Harvest Moon Festival, Ely

Last Day!
Well, our last day was fairly uneventful, but relaxing. We drove the long, scenic drive to Ely for the Harvest Moon Festival, which had lots of arts, crafts, food vendors and a lumberjack competition. We spent the chilly morning wandering up and down the festival, bought Mum a book of photography from an awesome local, self-taught photographer who blew everyone else there away. His work was fantastic, and he even does his own matting and framing. He camps out to get photos of wildlife, so he’s got some of the most incredible shots I’ve ever seen. He was interesting to talk to, very humble. You can tell that his photography is intuitive, I love that. Whenever I stop worrying about getting it “right” and simply let the photo show itself to me, that’s when great shots happen. The technical stuff is only a tool to help a person, but to really get the perfect photos, you have to kind of let go of the controls and coast. At least, that’s what works for me, anyway.

We had more slow-cooked meat sammies for lunch that were delicious, but once the lumberjack competition started up, we made a beeline for the car. As much as I wanted to go back to the Wolf Center to get this cool ring they had and see the wolves again, we were both pretty fried. So much driving is trance-inducing, so we both just felt like heading back to the cabin to veg our for our last day. The drive was absolutely gorgeous, though. Back at the cabin, we grilled the last of our brats and veggie medley (brussell sprouts, bell peppers and mushrooms), and were just getting them off the heat with it started raining. We ate inside and watched the raindrops plop over the lake. We were really bummed that we couldn’t have a fire in the pit, that was one of the main things I wanted to do, but oh well. Another time, I guess. We were so pooped we were ready for bed at 7:30! We held out, reading until about 9 and then crashed. I finally slept a good nights sleep, and we were up, packed and checking out at 8am the next morning. I was so anxious to get home to our little lonely Vesta! So we’re back, and Vesta snubbed us a bit before finally allowing her gratefulness to shine through as I sat out on the balcony with her, fawning over her like an old, crazy cat lady. Home. My favorite place in the world :)
Love to all, thanks for reading!
R&J