Yesterday was the Kern County Highland Games (at Stramler Park, in Bakersfield). I brought my camera with all sorts of good intentions (Massed Bands would make for some excellent photos, although it is a bit difficult to snap pictures and play the pipes at the same time) but all I ended up having time for were these not particularly Scottish pictures of the jousting. I had volunteered to help the stewards at the piping competition which, as things turned out, involved several trips off the premises to visit a copy machine. I was returning from one of these jaunts when a friend pointed out that a jousting match was about to start. I had never seen the like so I was quite eager to watch, but when we came to the sidelines, the crowd was already pretty thick. I snapped a few hurried pictures thanks to a soft-spoken young fellow who offered me his place temporarily, "'Cause y'all have a camera."

A knight with a microphone. . .and palm tree, and a baseball field in the background. You don't see that every day, do you?

Not one of my better photos, to be sure. I wish I'd had an opportunity to ask the jousters what sort of horses they were riding. They were enormous! (The horses, I mean.) I had to get back to the piping area so I didn't stick around for the actual tournament, but I believe the rules are a bit different than they were 700 years ago; they are no longer allowed to knock each other off the horses, but they get points for touching each other with their lances, similar to fencing.

And sadly, yes, that is it for photos from the Bakersfield Games--one of the best photo opportunities for the year! This gives a pretty skewed view of things as, although, there are various reinactors, like these, the main side I see of the Games, and that which I would most like to show other folks, is the piping. Then again, you can all be thankful that I overcame the temptation I had to stop and take pictures of a swarm of bees which were crawling in and out through a crack in a telephone pole.