Christmas Lights

Last night we went to River Forks Park, outside Roseburg, to drive through the Winter Wonderland Christmas display of lights.  It was really cool, though it turned out to be a crystal-clear night, so no eerie mist effects.  Figures.  It's always misty in the valley.  Oh well, it was fun, and as it was Monday night, there were hardly any people there and we could drive very slow and take our time.  I managed to get some photos; pretty amazing as it was pitch dark.

You followed the path down one side of the park, then along the other side, with some twists and turns here and there, and in fact, you drove without your headlights on.  You would think, with all the display lights, etc., that you could navigate easily.  Not so, as we found out at one juncture when Alan drove over a curb and onto the flaming grass!!  That conversation went as follows:

"What the hell are you doing?" I shriek as we jolt over the curb and start towards Lady Liberty.

"What?" says Alan, thankfully braking.

"You're on the grass!!"

"No I'm not.  I'm following the arrows."  Huffy.

"The arrows are going to the left, not straight ahead!  You're half on the grass.  Back up."

"I'm not on the grass."

"@&$)&^_(*?@++$*%!!!!!"

Alan rolls down his window.  Realizes we are over the curb and driving into the Statue of Liberty, sighs, and as we jolt back onto the pavement, mutters, "Sorry."

Since we're stopped, and there's no one behind us (thank goodness), I say, "Well, as long as we're here, let me get a photo."  Being so close, it turned out pretty good.

It's never dull in my world.

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Here's the entrance to the park.  It was really pretty, much better than my photo, though you can imagine how bright and Christmasy it was to drive through.

Umpqua Valley display, with deer, mountains, waterfalls, trees.

Roseburg's train, and station.  (Which I have to say was odd as the train station in town is now a restaurant).

Even with the "Night" feature on my camera, I had to hold very still when taking each shot.  In this case, the Jack-in-the-box changed very quickly when he popped out of his box, and I got two versions of him before he dropped out of sight.  I like this one.

There were several scenes from The Nutcracker.  The horse actually rocked, though far slower than Jack, so in this photo it looks stationary.

This carousel was really cool.  The lights for the horses made it look like they were actually going around.  When I snapped this, I only managed to get these two.

Ah.  And, here we are, all up close and personal with Lady Liberty.

I was surprised to see that the tree given to the White House for the Holiday Tree came from here in 2002.  Though I suppose I shouldn't be.  This is Big Tree Country, after all.

I think this is my favorite one.  It came out just right, and was very beautiful as the fireworks went off all around the flag.  I took this when all the fireworks had burst, though it took me a few tries to get the timing right.

This isn't a great shot, but I wanted to show one side of the main road.  At the Statue of Liberty, we turned left (Yes, Alan, left!!) for the second part of the drive.

 

On this next half of the tour, there were all kinds of strange things, not particularly related to Christmas, but still great light displays, like this one of Neptune.  There were three seahorses, but they lit up very slowly in their sequence so I was only able to get one in the photo at a time.

As always, you can't go anywhere in the world without some reference to Scotland: Nessie made an appearance.

At the end of the drive, there was this great side trip through snowflakes and angels and candy canes.

The snowflakes twinkled and were really pretty in the dark.  I also loved the candy canes.

As we made the turn out of the park, Alan said, "Look up in that tree."  Way, way up in a gigantic Fir tree...the Christmas Angel...

We had a good time--even with the attempt to take down Lady Liberty with our car.  It was a perfect night to hang out the window and take pictures.  We were most impressed with the lavish displays, and the time and effort involved to assemble this whole Winter Wonderland.  It was a great way to kick off the Holiday Season.