McCall Winter Festival 2008

Every year McCall, Idaho has the McCall Winter Festival. The biggest highlight of the festivities are the snow sculptures that people spend literally hours upon hours on. It was actually really neat to be there the week prior to the festival because we were able to see the sculptures come to life over time. On the way to Brundage we would see the same ones over and over again. There was this one that we wondered if it would ever get a head. Friday we were finally able to see the head of the man (sorry I was not able to get a picture). There were many times we would be out at night and see the artist carving away with flood lights illuminating the way. They are absolutely amazing. There were about 40 of them, but we were really only able to see about 10. They are spread all over the town. Some are within walking distance, most you would need to drive to. I decided to take pictures Saturday and Sunday. Bad idea becuase the weather was aweful, so the pictures really did not turn out. I really wish I did it Thursday when it was clear.

The theme this year was "Wild Wild West".

This one is a couple in a covered wagon with two oxen. It is really tall.

This one is of a bull and the clown in the barrel. It also had an outhouse next to it. The detail is amazing (right down to making sure that we knew that this was indeed a bull)!

I loved this one. It was in front of the Payette Forest Service office. It has this really BIG train on railroad tracks. Across the walk way were these two guys. One was plugging his ears and the other was getting ready to set off the dynamite next to the tracks.

This sculpture was my absolute favorite. It was a herd of horses in front of this hotel. The way that the artists were able to manipulate the snow for their manes and the snow that they were running in was just amazing.
This sculpture was HUGE. I could walk under the archway easily. It is of a cattle drive with a cowboy coming down a mountain with cattle. Across the walkway was another cowboy on a horse. The really neat part of this one was that there were two indians inside of that tunnel. I did not even know that they were there until I walked in to take pictures.

A lot of the sculptures are built out of snow that had been compacted between plywood for some time. This next sculpture was built out of the snowbank that the snow plows created. It was just so perfect and peaceful...and HUGE! I now wish that I had Jeff stand next to it so you could see its size.

Another part of the festival is a Children's Neon Light Parade. It was exactly that. All of the towns children walked down the street in a parade. Kind of funny, because really we had no idea what to expect. We knew that they had a larger one at noon the next day (we ended up not going because we were snowboarding) but really this was quite funny. Afterwards they had a live band (which I actually really liked-and don't know the name of) and a fireworks show over Payette Lake. It was the best show I have ever been to. Let me explain. We were all really close to where they were lighting them off. The show started out well and then the fireworks starting exploding low in the sky. They were low enough that the firework flames were practically landing on people. They were showering in the road, on and under nearby cars. It was crazy and awesome at the same time. People were trying to dodge them everywhere. Great fun. I was able to get a couple great shots.

This picture is so cool looking. A red firework went off over head when I pressed the button.

These bears are pretty neat and Gunnar liked to ride them. The hazy part of the picture is actually the three of us breathing. Crazy! The best part of this night was being able to walk around all dressed up in your snow gear (thermal long johns and everything) and see people pulling their kids around on sleds instead of pushing them in strollers.