The Chelsea Community Fair took over town last week. It also took over my week, which is why this blog has been so quiet. But thanks to my six fair visits in four days, the blog silence is over: the flood of fair photos begins now.
On Tuesday I took in one of a number of horse shows the fair features throughout the week. This particular show featured Western Showmanship.
Thursday: Football
Chelsea brought the football preseason to an end with its annual preseason scrimmage at Jerry Niehaus Field. Like last year, it was a five-team scrimmage: Haslett, Grand Ledge, Monroe Jefferson and Pinckney joined the host Bulldogs to work out a few kinks before the start of the season.
Nick Hall was ready for the season, but apparently his collarbone wasn’t.
Chelsea’s new strategy: confuse the opponent with two quarterbacks and two footballs.
After three outstanding yard-gaining touchdown-making years, Chelsea’s illustrious running back Nick Hill faces high expectations for his senior season. Hill has committed to play football at Michigan State.
He’s running…
…And he’s stopping.
Hill saw limited action, but he did manage to score a couple touchdowns, including one on this play.
When A.T. wants you to hear something, you’ll hear it.
(Full gallery.)
Thursday: Football
Thursday marked the first day of full-contact practice, which means Thursday was the first day football practice sounded like football. Wham! Crash! Thwack! Whump! Or something like that.
In early July, I stowed away with my parents as they traveled to Idaho to visit Strong Family West — and this time, instead of flying, we made it a road trip. Naturally, I took pictures.
Day 4 didn’t include anything that prompted me to pull out my camera, so you’ll never know what we did. Ha! Take that!
On Thursday we decided to enjoy a uniquely western feature: an Idaho ghost town named Silver City. Like most ghost towns, Silver City is as close to a main road as the Detroit Lions are to winning a Super Bowl, so the last 20 miles of our trip took 45 minutes because they were on a winding road that provided somewhat disconcerting views like this:
As a further reminder that we were nowhere near the laziness of suburbia, farther down the road we were confronted with this, a most comforting sign:
Despite the magically disappearing roads and sternly-worded warning signs, we did manage to traverse the mountain and make it to Silver City. Though it’s classified as a ghost town, Silver City isn’t devoid of life: it actually has a number of summer residents who live alongside the ghosts. It’s a well-known fact that ghosts are terrible at structural maintenance; however, since the summer residents aren’t ghosts, many of the buildings are properly maintained, so the town gives a persisting glimpse into history.
This building houses a small store whose profits support Silver City Fire & Rescue. Yes, even a ghost town has its own fire & rescue squad, and for good reason: in addition to the regular summer residents and their eminently flammable 150-year-old houses, Silver City sees a regular stream of tourists atop ATVs and dirt bikes during the summer. As we all know, where there are people, there can be injuries…and where there are people on ATVs and dirt bikes, there can be more injuries. SCF&R isn’t constantly busy, but when there’s a problem, its presence can make all the difference.
While I was browsing the SCF&R store, I was startled to see a familiar name on the wall:
She’s missing an L on the end of her name, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s close enough.
Hey, look! Another picture of my dad being a tourist!
On the left side of that picture you can see a rusty old car baking in the sun; that sort of scene can make for nice pictures, so I walked over to get a closer look.
It turned out to be an old Packard that’s seen better days; as you can see in the picture, the car — which I just now decided to name Percy, because everybody knows alliteration makes life better — is missing its front end. It’s obvious Percy Packard has been retired for a long, long time…but wait. What’s that bright blue spot on the back end?
Yes, that’s right: a rusted car that’s long been baking in the Idaho sun has a spotless license plate that expired in 1985. Somehow, that sort of bizarre time warp makes sense in a ghost town.
The large brown building in this picture is the Idaho Hotel. The hotel was established in 1863 and closed in 1942; however, it reopened thirty years later, and to this day it’s still a functioning hotel (though parts of it are still being restored). Staying in the Idaho Hotel is a bit like going back in time; there are showers and flush toilets, but since Silver City has no power, that’s the extent of the amenities the hotel offers. (If you’re curious, the hotel site has pictures of the rooms.)
See that tall skinny structure jutting out of the ground to the right of the house? That’s a two-story outhouse.
As the license plate shows, residents are proud to call Silver City home for a season. Many of the homes have been owned by the same family for multiple generations; we talked to one resident whose Silver City home has been in her family for six generations.
Silver City’s old cemetery is just outside town, and we decided to make a stop there before we headed back to Mountain Home.
Come back later for Day 7, when we go to prison. Seriously!
The sports-barren summer seems nigh eternal, but the end never fails to arrive. And, of course, the end brings with it the reawakening of that establishment of esoteric popularity: This Week in Chelsea Sports Photography.
Wednesday: WOOOOO FOOTBALL!
Yes, that’s right: football is back! The first game is still two weeks away, but there’s plenty of work that has to happen before that first game, and all that work starts early in August.
Don’t make the A.T. angry. You won’t like him when he’s angry.
(Full gallery.)
One month ago, I stowed away with my parents as they traveled to Idaho to visit Strong Family West — and this time, instead of flying, we made it a road trip. Naturally, I took pictures.
First: yes, I know you don’t remember seeing a Day 1 post; that’s because there wasn’t a Day 1 post. We spent the first day driving from Michigan to Nebraska, and I didn’t take a single picture because AHHHH HOW CAN THERE POSSIBLY BE SO MUCH CORN IN THE WORLD MAKE IT STOP!
So, on to Day 2. It started in Nebraska, a state that lives in constant fear of a blistering heat wave that would result in acres and acres of popcorn covering the landscape. I know, I know: everybody makes jokes about Nebraska, so why am I joining the crowd? Well, because I was egged on by this message over the door of a Nebraska gas station:
Further down the road we stopped at another gas station, and we were thrilled to encounter Nebraska football coaching legend Tom Osborne!
Oh, come on: as a Michigan fan, I’m obligated to make Nebraska football jokes, and I couldn’t pass on that option.
While doz…uh, driving through Nebraska, we were surprised to discover a non-traditional crop growing among the acres of corn. It seems somebody buried a whole bunch of box fans and covered them with Miracle-Gro, and this was the result:
There’s no word yet on whether or not the fields of giant fans have succeeded in making the state any cooler.
After we escaped the ponderous clutches of Nebraska, we drove across southern Wyoming — travel tip: there are maybe three gas stations on I-80 in Wyoming — and ended up in Salt Lake City. We didn’t have much time to see the SLC sights, so we chose to see the most famous sight in the city: Temple Square, featuring the LDS Temple.
The temple is very tall and very white, but I’m pretty sure that’s all it has in common with Conan O’Brien. (Well, I guess it’s not actually white. But I really wanted to use that joke, and it does look sort of white in the first photo.)
Hey, look! Here’s a picture of my dad being a tourist!
Among the other buildings in Temple Square is Assembly Hall, a building that has absolutely nothing to do with the home of Indiana University basketball. And if you stand in the right place, you get a strange view of that 132-year-old building with a decidedly not 132-year-old building looming over it.
Finally, as we were driving through downtown SLC, we spotted a sign that sends chills down the spines of the Woodward Dream Cruise organizers:
I understand the idea, but I’m confused about something: the top of the sign says “traffic congested area,” but the bottom of the sign specifies a time period that is typically associated with minimal traffic. Is this sign schizophrenic, or do the residents of SLC really clog the streets between 11 P.M. and 4 A.M.?
Come back soon — or, you know, sometime — for Day 5, where I explain why there is no Day 4. Oh, and some other stuff happened, too.
Last Friday, I visited La Jolla Fine Jewelry in downtown Chelsea to get a few pictures of their jewelry-making process for an upcoming feature in the Standard.
No, La Jolla doesn’t sell strange blue rings. These are the wax forms used to design the rings and cast the molds.
Owner Curtis Gough looks over some of the molds he’s accumulated over the years.
“…And then I put the marshmallow in there and heat it until it’s ready for a tasty s’more.” (Seriously: he uses the torch to melt the metal of choice in the Gravy Boat of Doom — well, maybe I can’t remember its real name, okay? — and then he spins the whole thing around like a playground merry-go-round to force the metal into the mold to create the jewelry. Hooray, physics!)
Stephen Kolokithas isn’t mixing a drink; he’s mixing the mold material. You don’t want to drink that material unless you want a mold of your esophagus. (You don’t want that. You really, really don’t.)
That’s DEFINITELY not pancake batter.
Do they ever take off those magnifying visors? My sources say no. In fact, I suspect the best jewelers are born with magnifying visors on their heads.
When his employees get hungry, Curtis bakes a batch of tasty cookies in La Jolla’s oven. (Actually, he’s putting a mold into the oven; about an hour later, he’ll take it out, and it’ll be baked solid, but not tasty. Then he can pair it with the Gravy Boat of Doom.)
Curtis still works with his mother, Gloria; however, Gloria doesn’t enjoy being in front of a camera, so I had to settle for getting a photo of a photo.
Okay, so this is just plain cool: Curtis has a laser welder to help him with his very precise work. He told us the welding beam is thinner than a human hair, which makes it somewhere around the width of the average supermodel. I know it’s hard to imagine, but it’s true! (The part about the beam, not the part about the average supermodel. Science still has no way to measure the thickness of the average supermodel.)
Though the laser welder is cool, the craft of a jeweler still requires low-tech hands-on work; here, Curtis is grinding down the prongs before he mounts the jewel.
A jeweler’s workbench, Curtis told us, should always be a bit of a mess; that means he’s busy. (Does that mean my messy desk is a good sign, too? No, probably not.) Here, Curtis is busy forming the prongs around the jewel.
When I showed Curtis one of the pictures I’d taken, he glanced at the screen, decided the image was too small, and flipped down his magnifying visor to get a better look. (That’s not what he’s doing here; he’s still seating the jewel in the mount. This just happened to be the best opportunity to tell that story.)
This is a glimpse inside the outrageously cool laser welder. The jewel is now mounted on the ring, and Curtis is using the welder to secure the diamond to the prongs.
What, you think it’s just automatically shiny and pretty when it comes out of the mold? Of course not! Stephen would never let a piece of jewelry go out the door without the proper finishing work.
First, an historical note: this marks the 200th photo feature here on the blog, a milestone that comes nearly three years and two name changes — one of the feature, and one of the blog itself — after the first photo post on 31 August 2006.
After sharing an evening with Sounds & Sights, Chelsea’s Summerfest had Friday night all to itself. The evening was highlighted by a car show on Middle Street.
Melvin, the proud owner of this 1927 Chrysler, was happy to spend his time answering questions about his car.
He tried calling the engine of the Aston Martin, but oddly enough, it didn’t answer.
Upon noticing that I was taking his picture, Doug pedaled over to me and told me he follows this blog. So: Hi, Doug, and thanks for reading!
They say face and arm paintings are just gateway art to more serious adornments like tattoos. Don’t they?
Chelsea’s Sounds & Sights continued, this time coinciding with the beginning of Summerfest. (Yes, Chelsea has innumerable summer festivals. Deal with it.)
Eric the Juggler, having neglected to eat dinner, found time to snack on an apple while juggling swords.
After the usual S&S hubbub, Summerfest flexed its muscles with a concert in the parking lot behind Common Grill. First up was the opener, the Howling Diablos.
When the Howling Diablos were done, it was time for the headliner: Rare Earth, the band well known for the ubiquitous song “I Just Want to Celebrate.”
The city of Chelsea added a new feature to its downtown this year: the Sculpture Walk. It consists of ten installations of art by nine different Michigan artists, and it stretches from the Chelsea Center for the Arts on the southern edge of downtown to the Clocktower complex at the north end of downtown. I photographed the initial work on one of the sites, but I hadn’t revisited the Walk since its competion; to remedy that oversight, I put together a set of ten photos, each highlighting a detail of a sculpture.
Libby (Louis Marinaro, Ann Arbor)
Sentinel (Ray Katz, Pontiac)
Blue Square Back (Gary Kulak, Birmingham)
Soft Descent (Jack Hillman, Ada)
Sentinel (Brian Ferriby, Farmington Hills)
The Gift (Steve Olszewski, Pinckney)
Spiral the Gate (Ray Katz, Pontiac)
Untitled (Andrew Brewster, Royal Oak)
Folk (Open D) (Michael T. Jones, Gregory)
Nicole’s Garden Spire (Robert Sestok, Detroit)