Category Archives: To Dos

Things to do in the Coulee area

Entertainment, Events, Soon, To Dos, Uncategorized

Harvest Festival Sept. 20-21 2019

Fall is fast approaching, and rather than be plagued by the summertime blues, why not celebrate autumn with the upcoming Harvest Festival?

Life-size fun with human foosball.

There will be food and fun aplenty for adults and kids alike with helicopter rides, arts and crafts, games, barbecues, beers, live music. 

The Harvest Festival, put on by the Grand Coulee Dam Area Chamber of Commerce, will take place from Friday to Sunday, Sept. 20-22, at North Dam Park. 

Helicopter rides will be available from Inland Helicopters from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday, offering those who take the ride a scenic bird’s-eye view of the coulee’s unique landscape, a great opportunity to take photos for the photographer in all of us. 

And when you need to calm down from the adrenaline rush of flying in a helicopter, the Harvest Festival beer garden will have a variety of ales that are good for what ails ya, and some live music to boot.

The beer garden will be open on Friday from 6-10 p.m., Saturday from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. and on Sunday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.

The Hometown Hooligans, a rock ’n’ roll band hailing from Coulee City, will perform live music on Saturday night, from 8-11 p.m. 

And bring your bib! A barbecue competition will take place on Saturday and Sunday, with samples available on Sunday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. when $10 will buy you four samples. Categories include ribs, brisket, pork, and chicken. 

The competition is sanctioned by the Pacific Northwest BBQ Association and awards cash prizes totaling $6,500. 

On Saturday from 10-3 kids can enjoy a number of free activities: finger painting, rock art, slime making, popsicle stick art, pumpkin decorating, water balloons, and a “magnificent bubble station.” 

Also on Saturday, from 10 a.m .to 1 p.m., teams of six will compete in a lifesize human foosball tournament. 

The Run The Dam race will offer 5k, 10k, and half-marathon lengths to run, starting at 9 a.m. Saturday.

And if motorcycles and poker are your thing, a motorcycle “poker run” will start on Saturday at 9 a.m. Riders will take a 210-mile journey around the coulee and surrounding areas, gathering cards to try to get the best hand of poker.

And as always, there will be vendor booths, on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and on Sunday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

More information on all of these activities, such as registration info for the bbq contest, information for vendors, and more, can be found on the chamber’s website at http://www.grandcouleedam.org or by calling 509-633-3074.

Entertainment, To Dos

Grand Coulee Dam Virtual Tour

The Grand Coulee Dam was built during the Great Depression and is now entering the future via interactive, 360-degree virtual reality tours becoming available this weekend.

Seattle-based virtual reality company Pixvana partnered with Big Power Project, a content production studio in Seattle, to create the five-minute experience now available at the Grand Coulee Dam Visitors Center.

An overhead view of workers inside G-23, one of the generators in the largest hydropower facility in North America, Grand Coulee Dam. It’s a view not available in physical tours, but is in a new virtual reality tour offered at the dam’s Visitor Center. – photo courtesy of Pixvana

Up to four users at one time can wear Oculus Go headsets that allow them to experience the Grand Coulee Dam from top to bottom as the audio tells facts about the dam.

The 360-degree technology allows the user to look up, down, and around at their “surroundings.”

Filming involved using 360-degree cameras and air and water craft.

“We filmed over the course of two full days during the summer of 2018,” said Ted Youngs, the founder of Big Power Project. “The [Bureau of Reclamation] gave us amazing access. We were the first crew to take drone footage from the dam, and they also allowed us to push the envelope by shooting from an inflatable dinghy from below the 350 foot-plus tall dam face and by attaching our gear to a bridge crane that traversed the almost quarter-mile long Third Power Plant.”

The 360-degree video “brings viewers inside the Dam’s Third Power Plant, showcasing the impressive infrastructure and teaching visitors the inner workings of how hydroelectricity works,” a May 21 press release from Pixvana states.

The company calls the Third Power Plant “one of the largest and most complicated power-generating facilities on the planet,” which can produce enough electricity to power approximately 3 million homes.

Their “fully immersive experience” includes never-before-seen footage that “spans from the top of the dam, inside the water-fed generators, all the way down the 5,000-foot-long face – and everywhere in between,” the release said.

“The Grand Coulee Dam is one of the most fascinating facilities in the country, but high security, the extremely loud volume of operation, and other physical barriers make it difficult to experience live,” said Rachel Lanham, Chief Operating Officer for Pixvana. “[VR helps] viewers learn in an exciting new way that increases retention, memory, and empathy. An immersive VR tour … allows the facility to engage its visitors, in a fun, low-cost, impactful way.”

A video available at https://spinxr.com/VGRFFQDRX allows people to watch the video on their computer, and click and drag to look around 360 degrees.

Pixvana, founded in 2015, has been involved in virtual reality videos for training waitstaff on a cruise ship, virtual reality therapy, and entertainment projects for NBC Universal.

Big Power Project, founded in 2018, does work ranging from virtual reality to documentaries to large scale installations, according to their website.