Each year, a group known as The Habitants du Theatiki organizes a reenactment of life around the time of The French and Indian War called The Gathering on the Theatiki. It’s quite an extraordinary event to visit. I just happen to be lucky enough to have The Theatiki (also known as the Kankakee River) run nearby where I live.

This year, I went on the woods walk for the first time. We were quickly ambushed by the French and their allies and had to flee from the ensuing battle between while guarded by our British and Scottish escorts.

I took a few photos of this event so you can see some of the highlights of the tip. If you live anywhere close to the Kankakee, IL area, I would highly recommend taking part of your weekend during the summer to visit the Gathering on the Theatiki. While you are there be sure to get some sassafras root beer and kettle corn, they sure to be some of the highlights of your trip.

I finally took the time to stitch my photos into a panograph using Hugin. Hugin automates the whole panograph making process by using external tools to find control points, adjust the images and then stitches them together.

Due to prodding by local MacWarrior Chad Weider I’ve also created a QuickTime VR of the mountains, enjoy.

(Note to self, do not edit posts in Newt’s Cape.)

On the whole it was a fun trip, a lot of walking up hills and down hills, but the scenery was great, once you got out of the tourist traps. I took some photos of the better sights, and of my family. A lot of these were taken with making a panograph in mind, but I haven’t stitched them together yet.

I found this trailer while walking to pick up my car from the shop. Sadly the website it refers to, http://www.fun-balloon.com/, seems to be down now. But when I went to the site earlier it had information and forms on how to purchase a ride.

I also found BAGI, the Balloon Association of Greater Illinois. It appears that there are a few other commercial balloons in the Champaign-Urbana area, so I’ll have to look into them.

For those of you who don’t know, the title of this is that of the song Up-Up And Away by The 5th Dimension, or such fame as Aquarius. And no, these aren’t referral links so I don’t get a fraction of a cent if you click them.

As for why I’m posting this, my Mom always wanted to go on a balloon ride, so when I saw this trailer I had to take a picture so I could check it out later.

Today I scaled Krannert, why? We had Physics 436 on the Amphitheater there today. Afterwards I took some nice pictures.