Some new photos from Fort Wayne

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The Ring Of Fire Ride at the 2016 Turtle Days Festival in the small town of Churubusco, Indiana.​

Turtle Days is an annual festival that commemorates the legend of the giant turtle that a farmer near the town claimed to have seen living in his pond.​

The Ring of Fire is a staple of traveling carnival companies. I have photographed them in a number of different carnivals across the United States.​
 
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The Ball-Toss game at the 2016 Turtle Days Festival in the small town of Churubusco, Indiana.​

The end of the trailer housing the game says, "Trust Jesus. John 3:16." I have photographed this same carnival game trailer at other festivals in northeast Indiana over the years. Interestingly, none of the other carnival games belonging to this company have religious messages painted on them.​

Turtle Days is an annual festival that commemorates the legend of the giant turtle that a farmer near the town claimed to have seen living in his pond.​
 
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Another photo of the Ball-Toss game at the 2016 Turtle Days Festival in the small town of Churubusco, Indiana.

The tiny dog siting on the front counter belongs to another worker, who left it in the care of the woman running this game for a few minutes. The dog sat quietly and watched people while she waited for her owner to return.​
 
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This is one of the windows on the east side of my garage. Tiger lilies grow all along the sides of the garage.​

This used to be my grandparents' house. They planted the flowers decades ago, when I was a child. I photographed them yesterday.
​
 
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This woman was making balloon animals for children at the 2016 Turtle Days Festival in the small town of Churubusco, Indiana. In between customers, her young son played with her hand-operated balloon pump.​

The woman's t-shirt was funny: "In Cash We Trust. Everyday Is Payday." The picture on her shirt is the pyramid and all-seeing eye from the back of the One Dollar bill. The button on her shirt says: "I work for tips, thanks."​
 
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Here's the last of the photographs that I made a little over a week ago at the
Turtle Days carnival in Churubusco, Indiana. This young man and his son were eating cotton candy.

The inflatable super heroes hanging on the back of the little boy's stroller were prizes they won at the carnival games. They won Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk, and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.
 
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This old storage shed belonged to Mr. Lawson, my grandparents' (Charles and Rosa Crawford) neighbor. It stood beside the fence dividing the two properties.​

Mr. Lawson's house was on Ellison Road, south of US-24, in rural Allen County, Indiana. My grandparents' land was behind Mr. Lawson's land, and was connected to the road by a gravel lane that ran along the edge of Mr. Lawson's land.​

The shed, which looks like it was originally a chicken coop, had a big hand-painted "No Trespassing" sign hanging on the side facing grandpa's yard when I was a child.

I photographed it nearly 20 years ago, when I was in college.
​
 
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This house with a huge American flag painted on the garage door is on the south side of County Road 400N, between County Road 300E and County Road 350E, in rural Huntington County, Indiana.​

Although surrounded by farmland, this stretch of road has a number of new houses, including this one, belonging to city people who have decided to "move out to the country."​
 
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Went to the fireworks in downtown Fort Wayne last night. The fireworks here are fired from the top of the 27 story Indiana-Michigan Power Center (formerly One Summit Square), Fort Wayne's tallest building.

I also photographed the people in attendance before the fireworks began, and those are my favorite photos from the Fourth of July. I'll post them soon.
 
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Before I photographed the fireworks on the Fourth of July, I photographed the people gathered in downtown Fort Wayne while they waited for the pyrotechnics to begin.

This woman and her friend were launching a sky lantern in front of the Allen County Courthouse in downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana. The Courthouse Green on the east side of the courthouse was crowded with people, as it was one of the best locations to see the fireworks.
​

A sky lantern is paper or plastic bag with a bowl of flammable material suspended below it. When ignited, the heated air inside the bag acts like a miniature hot-air balloon, causing it to soar into the sky.​
 
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Yesterday was the first day of the annual Three Rivers Festival in downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana. I was there in the evening, photographing the people and the rides. Here's one of the ferris wheel in motion.
 
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This man was holding a "Hillary For Prison" sign while he walked through the crowd on the Courthouse Green before the Fourth of July fireworks in downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana.​

His sign has a bumper sticker on it that has photos of Bill and Hillary Clinton. It says, "Buy one CRIMINAL, get one free. Coupon Expires 11/8/16." The 2016 presidential election is held on November 8.​
 
thanks a lot Chris for posting these photos, helping many with your valuable advice and for showing me a part of my country that is very foreign to me.

cheers, michael
 
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This is the swing carousel ride in motion at the 2016 Three Rivers Festival.​

This ride has seats suspended from chains that hang from the brightly lit, elaborately decorated top of the ride. When it spins, the riders in their seats fly through the air!​

The Three Rivers Festival takes place for 10 days in July at Headwaters Park in downtown Fort Wayne, Indiana.​
 
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This is the swing carousel ride in motion at the 2016 Three Rivers Festival.​

This ride has seats suspended from chains that hang from the brightly lit, elaborately decorated top of the ride. When it spins, the riders in their seats fly through the air!​
 
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Two kids walk across a suspension bridge to the top of a slide on the first evening of the 2016 Three Rivers Festival. This slide was a series of stairs and bridges leading to the enclosed slide that took the kids back to the ground level.
 
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The "Spamerican Tour" trailer was giving out free food made with SPAM, the canned pork mystery-meat product, at the 2016 Three Rivers Festival. They even had "Sir Can-A-Lot" the SPAM Knight to attract visitors to the free SPAM.
 
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Another photo of the spinning ferris wheel at the Three Rivers Festival. This was made a couple days after the first one I posted. The lights on it constantly change color; I love this pattern best, like a rainbow explosion!
 
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This is the front of the fourth of four tiny old log cabins that sit next to each other on the north side of US-33, just south of the small town of Benton, in rural Elkhart County, Indiana.​

The hand-painted sign says: "This Is God's Country."​

A severely rusted old revolver and an equally corroded Crescent Wrench hang above the sign. The owner told me that he had found the gun and wrench buried in the yard behind the house!​

These houses sat abandoned for a time, but the current owner is restoring them.

Here's a crop showing the gun:​

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