da Vinci Days

If you asked our friends or family, they would probably say that we are pretty "mainstream" type of people. In fact, I would like to think we are quite normal, if there is such a thing. On Sunday however we stepped out of the box (and in to the rain I might add), and attended da Vinci Days in Corvallis. What is this event you ask??? According to their website, "da Vinci Days is Oregon's premier arts and science festival". The three day festival includes film screenings, music, art, science and tech exhibits and races (more to follow on those a little later). A friend told us about it and said it's a must see, in his words "at least once in your lifetime".

We started the morning on the OSU campus. There were different sections set up and we of course went to the kids zone. Weston had fun playing with bubbles, trying to juggle, looking at bugs and frogs, making paper airplanes, etc. Danny and I did a lot of people watching....thinking we looked out of place. Most everyone around us seemed "earthy, greenie or hippie" like. Tyge....assuming his regular position. Then we found the real interesting stuff, when we headed downtown and to the riverbanks. Remember when I mentioned races earlier? One of those is the Graand Kinetic Challenge, where racers ride 10 miles of city streets, over a man-made sand dune, across 3000 feet of sun-dried, clay pasture, through 200 feet of deep, thick, sticky mud, and down 2 miles of the Willamette River...all under pedal power. We barely missed seeing the mud bog, but arrived just in time to watch the contraptions enter the river. Weston was a little freaked out by it all.
I think these people may have been using fungi for some alternative purposes when they came up with this one....
There were a few that didn't make it into the river, including one that resembled a taco shop, another that Weston said was a rocket ship, and some others that were well, just undescribable. It was a very interesting day of interesting people....not sure if we'll make it back to da Vinci days next year, it may be a little too wacky for us.