Oaktoberfest

Our new town of Oakham has an annual event called Oaktoberfest. It was on October 3rd this year and was supposed to feature a beer garden. Apparently, it was apparently so cold and damp that the brewery that was supposed to stage the beer garden cancelled out.

In the morning, Kristen and I walked up to the open house at the fire department. It's a volunteer fire department and we met several more of our immediate neighbors who volunteer at the department (one is the chief). The firemen were demonstrating how to put out dryer fires, gas bar-b-q fires, and stove top grease fires. They seemed to get great joy out of lighting the fires for a change.

Oaktoberfest also featured a 1 mile kids race and a 5k adult race, both of which passed the front of the house.

We invited Briar, Gus and the kids to join us and they showed up at about noon.

Our first stop was the hayride. Briar took this picture. My camera was in my coat pocket and, when the wagon started with a jerk, when flying out of my pocket and out onto the road. I recovered it but the display was dead. I've ordered a new display and hope to fix it myself.

The hayride passed the front of the house so I tested the broken camera with this shot.

Another of Briar's pictures. Maya was asked to inspect The Stupendous Mr. Magichead's hat.

Another broken camera shot. If it isn't obvious, the kids really enjoyed the magic act.

Another Briar picture. Niko and Maya petting The Stupendous Mr. Magichead's rabbit Lulu.

 With the magic show over, the kids played a dozen or so carnival type games. They were the usual impossible to win type games but $5 let them play and unlimited number of times and the kids running the games were very generous with consolation prize tokens. The kids really cleaned up at the prize counter.

After warming up at home for a while, we walked back up the street to watch the ball roll. This is a library fundraiser that occurs every couple of years. You buy a numbered ball for $5 (we had 4). When they raise the gate on the dump truck, the 2000 or so balls, roll down the chute. First one to the bottom wins $1000. There are 40 prizes in all. Our balls did not win.

Briar took these photos, looking uphill at the approaching balls on the left and looking downhill at the finish line funnel on the right.

 Niko and Maya still had their wristbands for the carnival games so Gus and I took them back down to the ball field for some more games. Unfortunately, the games had shut down for this year. We decided to get some cocoa and hot cider to warm up.

Walking back to the house, we found that they were announcing the ball roll results. Kristen and Briar were listening to the results but decided to let Gus and I relieve them and take the kids on home to warm up.

 

The kids were very comfortable with their hot chocolates and decided to let Kristen and Briar chill while they sat down and finished.

 We all had a great chili dinner and then Gus and Briar took off. The kids spent the night so they could go with us to the Oaktoberfest bonfire and the accompanying Otters concert.

Briar managed to get this shot of the bonfire on her way through town.

The fire was nice and warm but, with the cold damp weather, the turnout was low. Kristen and Maya danced up a storm in front of the Otters' stage. Maya would have probably danced all night but the lead singer decided to compliment her on her dancing and that was it. She immediately decided that it was time to go home.

All in all, it was a great day. We are really loving this little town.

I hope to get the camera fixed soon so I can share some images of the amazing fall colors.

-JC-