Georgetown Fair Queen: 2014 Holiday Pictures with Queen Desiree Bainbridge

As the official photographers of the Georgetown Fair Queen we get to do lots of great pictures with Miss Georgetown Fair 2014 Desiree Bainbridge. This year we were excited to do a set of holiday pictures that Queen Desiree could use in Christmas cards for friends and sponsors of the Georgetown Fair Queen Pageant. We had a lot of ideas for these pictures so we hope you love them as much as we loved shooting them with Queen Desiree. And we were especially glad we went with a role of white seamless instead of a cloth background with Karen pulled out the fake snow! With the new year approaching fast, Happy Holidays from your friends at Josh and Joe Travels!

Georgetown Fair Queen: 2014 Queen Desiree Bainbridge at Festival of Trees in Danville

The Georgetown Fair Queen is one of the busiest fair queens in Illinois, and this year we were thrilled to be with 2014 Desiree Bainbridge the weekend she visited Festival of Trees at Palmer Arena in Danville, Illinois. We'd seen some pictures, but as the Georgetown Fair Queen's official photographers we had yet to experience the annual event for ourselves. So this year we cooked up a plan with directors Karen and Jill to start the day bright and early for a photoshoot at the fairgrounds, and then spend the day with Queen Desiree at the Festival of Trees and be with her that night in Danville to get a few shots of her in the night parade.  Queen Desiree worked the ticket table at the festival, but we were most excited about her appearance at the book tree for story hour.  It was pretty incredible how the entire floor of Palmer Arena was transformed into a winter wonderland, and it sure is the right place to get your fill of Christmas trees and gingerbread houses.  Festival of Trees is just one of many appearances Desiree Bainbridge will make during her year as Miss Georgetown Fair 2014 so keep checking back to follow her adventures with Josh and Joe Travels!

Kansas Road Trip 2014: Kansas City Sauer Castle

Sauer Castle in Kansas City is on the historic registry and some even say its haunted, so we couldn't pass up the chance to go look for ourselves. And looking is about all you can do since the property is closed to the public and there are no tours. The "castle" was built in the 19th century and still looks pretty cool today even though it has fallen into serious disrepair. We read online about some recent thefts and even a few efforts to restore the castle, but when we drove by it appeared completely vacant. There are a lot of ghost stories online but most of them seem to be more local legend than fact. As far as we can find online no credible ghost investigators have been allowed inside so there is mainly a lot of speculation. Joe found out about Sauer Castle doing online research about haunted places in Kansas City so don't be surprised if you see it pop up in your searches. Sauer Castle is located in a pretty isolated little area near Rosedale between interstate 35 and the Kansas River, and the hills and winding roads added a lot of anticipation to an adventure that ended with Sauer Castle behind a tall fence full of no trespassing signs, so we took a couple pictures from the street with astonishingly the same view as most of the other pictures you'll find online. We had a lot of fun exploring it though, which is something we like to do a lot at Josh and Joe Travels!