Trip to the Oregon Country Fair
Hi All,
Demaris and I went to the Oregon Country Fair (OCF) this
weekend. For those of you who haven't heard of the OCF it's a festival that has
been going on for 31 years now just west of Eugene on a large plot of land.
In its inception the OCF was a revival of hippie life and culture,
marijuana was prevalent, clothing was optional and some pretty large hippie
band (Phish and the Dead) played concerts and mingled with their fans. Needless
to say this attracted a lot of attendees on the order of 50,000. As is wont to
happen things change and in 1986 the OCF became much more structured and
organized. Vendors (non-corporate) were allowed on site to sell food and
crafts, a serious attempt was made to provide facilities and regulate camping,
bands were scheduled etc.
Still, the fair was all about sex, drugs and rock & roll. Then in
1998 the curtain came down, in the form of the Lane County District Attorney.
He wrote a letter to the OCF informing them that they would have undercover
agents patrolling the fair and would search and arrest fair-goers and even shut
down the fair if OCF security didn't police drug use. OCF has complied with
this request (the fair management now being ex-hippies and upper middle class)
and drug use was relatively hidden (it was more visible at the UofO
musicfest.)
Now, the "true fair" is only for the "fair family" - those people who
work for the fair (and are the only people who are allowed to sleep on-site)
and the surrounding campers who know someone in the fair family. This is
a rather large group as there are over 1000 members of the fair family
and I couldn't even speculate on the number of associated campers. From my
understandings by talking to people who are in the family after the fair
visitors leave (the fair closes at PM and doesn't open till noon) the old fair
happens and everyone who should be there is and they celebrate/have the "true"
OCF.
But, Demaris and I aren't part of this happy group, so we can only see
(and thus pass on to you) the face of the OCF as is seen by the visitors. So
with out more ado, I present the OCF.
We drove to the OCF (there was a free bus shuttle from Eugene but I
wanted more flexibility than the bus schedule allowed. The above impressively
decorated postal vehicle was in the parking lot. The parking lot was huge
bigger than Six Flags, it reminded me of Disney. They used numbers for the rows
- I think they missed their chance by not naming rows: Jerry, Phil...
The above mobile living center is also used to promote the "Free
Corky" movement. http://www.angelfire.com/oh3/Chedderfishy/corky.html
Apparently Corky is a whale at Sea World.
Bike Parking and the main gate to the OCF.
The OCF (for visitors) resembles nothing so much as a Renaissance
Festival with a hippie theme. The OCF however is MUCH bigger than a RenFest.
The walking loop around the perimeter took Demaris and myself about 2 hours.
There are "streets" in the Fair. The above shot is one of the streets.
Thought you might want a map. Its from 1998 but the fair has a
permanent site. The site isn't used for anything except the 3 days of the OCF.
During winter the fair site is a flood plain and it is mostly under water
(although they have a year round on site staff.)
This is a street with a vendor looking very RenFest like.
All the streets have Turnouts and rest areas with gardens and little
exhibits.