Sunday, September 23, 2007

Autumn Fair

Oh to live on, Sugar Mountain.



The Belchertown Fair was going on this past weekend. We went up to take a look.

The town holds their Fair on the town common in the center of town, which sits on top of a hill.



This is their 150th fair, and by all appearances it couldn't be more popular.

The common was completely packed with people, rides and games of all type, new and traditional 'hill town' attractions.

Most of the bigger rides were squeezed onto the paved end of the common. Ferris wheel, The Rotor, The Pirate Ship, and other high speed nausea machines. There were also many children's' rides. A very impressive number of rides for a town fair, I was surprised at how many.





There was also the long fairway of games, including many of the usual suspects.


The biggest attraction was easily the Oxen Pull.


These mighty beasts were pulling 10,000 lbs and more of concrete blocks.



That's like dragging five cars. Without wheels on them.



Nearby some kids were communing with some calves.



There was a line formed to try reaching into this bubble. You try to grab prizes blowing about inside.


This funhouse had a lot of people going in and out of it.







On closer inspection I noticed the paintings on the outside of it were pretty bizarre.


This was an interesting old music machine.

It was originally built in 1905. It sounded like a full band, percussion, wind instruments, brass, chimes, everything. It really sounded good.


In the back you can see some of the machinery that runs it, and you can see where you can insert different music rolls for different songs.





I don't know if it had been modified, but it looked like it was electrically powered.


Speaking of electrically powered, as we left we passed this interesting municipal vehicle.




Golfers in this town had better straighten up and fly right.



4 comments:

Tom said...

That music machine was a good excuse to use video. Don't tell us how it sounds, let us listen.

Anonymous said...

you know, i didnt appreciate your liberal use of my youtube account.
you have one so why did you use mine???? for a 7 second video of fish chasing fish? and i cant delete it because itt make a broken link on your blog! sheesh

Tony said...

True enough, but my camera doesn't record sound. It's a cheapo I won in a raffle at work.I'm stuck in the silent ara until this camera craps out and I have to buy a new one.

Tony said...

I know Kid, I didn't even know I had a You Tube account, I just used yours for expedience sake. Ex-pe-di-ence.... Na-go-sti-ca.