Roy G. Holland Park is circular, spacious ... and key resource in Fishers, Ind.

In the mid- to late 1980s, my early years living in Indianapolis, a teammate on a company softball league we played for would often invite my family over to his home after games to dine and relax while the kids amused themselves on the swings and other playground-type equipment.

George, the work colleague and teammate, lived in the town of Fishers on the northeast side of Indianapolis. Their home was in one of the town's earliest major developments. One summer in the 1980s, he and his wife invited my family to Fishers to enjoy the town's annual Freedom Festival and parade held in celebration of the Fourth of July.

Remember, this goes back almost 30 years, a time when Fishers was just beginning to blossom into a community. It was nowhere near the size and development it is today. One thing has stayed constant through the years, though: The Freedom Festival -- an amalgam of food and beverage vendors, games for all ages and music -- was then and is still anchored at Roy G. Holland Park, an amenity in the heart of Sunblest residential development.

Details of that day 30 years ago are vague today, but I do remember being struck by the circular configuration of the park. I could be wrong about this, but I don't remember the park being very developed at that time. Certainly not to the degree it is today.

This year, I made several trips to the park, the first time I've had an occasion to explore it closely. Lee Ann's daughter, Mindy, and Mindy's family live in that same development. I was there for the Freedom Festival in the summer (which I wrote about in a separate blog post), and I was there again last month while taking walks for exercise through the neighborhood during a return visit to Indiana.

While on my walks, I made a point to periodically stop and pull out my iPhone to make photographs of the park, thinking the images might make a good subject for a future post here. So that's what this is about. The photos were taken on separate visits, Oct. 18-19, of this year. A full gallery can be found at my site at Smugmug.com.

I was particularly struck by how this park has plenty of space for soccer and baseball fields, a couple of basketball courts and even two sand volleyball courts. You can see the latter through the trees -- some of whose leaves were starting to turn colors -- in the photo leading off the post. I didn't devote any photos this time to the playground area because I think I covered that pretty well in my post this summer from the Freedom Festival.

For those of you looking for a pleasant course to tackle some day, Holland Park's paved path along the circumference is just about a mile long.

Roy G. Holland Park has ample space to accommodate soccer (above), pickup basketball (below), baseball (second below) and sand volleyball (third below). If you pull up a larger version of the photo of the volleyball courts, you can see an adult seated in the shade on the far left ... and two small children romping through the sand just right of center at the far end of the courts.

Above and below: A small section of the park's north end is heavily wooded, and strikingly so in a back-lighting situation, which is what I came upon on both visits. I paused a while to appreciate how it was in this area -- where there was good shade and cover from the hot sun -- where the vast majority of Freedom Festival food, beverage and arts and craft vendors set up just a few months earlier. 

A paved path (above) that is part of the circumference trail, and another (below) that winds through the park's interior. 

Above: Another autumn colors photo.

Above: A drainage pipe I found of interest.

Above: Walking back in the neighborhood after leaving the par, I came across this low-hanging branch on a tree whose leaves were changing colors ... and highlighted in dappled sunlight.  

A return to Fishers Freedom Festival

Three years ago, I photographed the parade portion of the annual Fishers Freedom Festival. I made it back to the festival last weekend, and this time I spent time photographing the vendor, crafts and playground portions -- all centered in Holland Park.

The park is notable for the fact that it is circular. I recall making a short stop at the festival grounds in the 1980s or early 1900s, and I didn't remember it being nearly the beehive of activity that I saw there Sunday.

Hopefully, these images -- taken entirely with my iPhone 6 -- can attest to that. The photo leading off the post incorporates a kind of plaza in the middle of the park and vendor booths in the background.

For a full gallery of images from both the 2014 parade and 2017 festival grounds, follow the links in this sentence.

Above: My favorite shot of the day -- a happy worker at the Ruth's Chris sliders booth.

Fishers Freedom Festival Parade, 2014

Many communities throughout the country have Fourth of July observances, and many of those include parades, fireworks and festivals. The annual observance in Fishers, Ind., is called the Freedom Festival, a two-day affair that begins on a Saturday with a 5K run/walk and includes various activities at the circular Roy G. Holland Park, which is in one of the community's mainstay subdivisions, Sunblest.

This year's Fishers Freedom Fest was last weekend. A mid-afternoon parade on Sunday helped set up the fireworks, which launch after dark. I had an itch to photograph people and variety, so the parade fell right into my bailiwick.

There was concern at the beginning; as spectators lined up along the parade route just minutes before the scheduled 3 p.m. start, light sprinkles passed over. Fortunately, the shower was light and fleeting; it had dissipated by the time the lead-off entry reached the intersection of 116th Street and Holland Drive, where I was stationed. Skies remained mostly cloudy for about three-quarters of the event before the sun broke out and cast some dramatic lighting on the final floats and entries.

One of the most interesting entries was the giant red inflated tiger enveloping a U-Haul truck trailing the Fishers High School football team. I had time to pull off only one shot of the tiger, featured in the lead-off photo. My attention had been distracted for a moment, so I didn't notice it was upon me until it was almost too late. I was shooting with just one camera -- my Canon 6D equipped with a Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS lens -- so the shot would have been out of my range if I hadn't gotten it when I did.

Among my favorite shots are the two creative spectator-and-parade-participant "selfies" I was fortunate to notice and quickly capture.

These photos are from that shoot. A full gallery of images from the parade can be found at my SmugMug site.

Above and next two below: In the minutes before the parade's start, the primary concern was the rainfall, and umbrellas were out in an array of colors and styles. 

Above and next two below: The Hamilton Southeastern High School Royal Command & Guard. 

Above and next three below: The Fishers High School Tiger Band.

Zoe Parker, Fort Wayne, Miss Indiana Teen (above) and Audra Casterline (below), the first Fishers resident crowned Miss Indiana. She won the title just last month and will compete in the Miss America pageant in September.

Above: Representatives of The Twilights at Wishes Dance Club.

Above: Moments before I grabbed the above image, the Wishes Dance Club mascot posed for one of two spectator-parade float interactive selfies I grabbed (below). Several parade entries later, the same youngster and an accomplice pigeon-holed another animated character for yet another selfie (second below).

Above and below: A couple more "stuffed" animals, who had to be a tad uncomfortable in the heat and humidity, although the one below caught a slight break under cover of the cart. I don't know if the "selfie" boy scored with these two, but at least one youth (above) was fortunate to slap skin with this one.

Above: Not sure what entry this combo was performing for, but I do recall that it was religious and/or faith based.

Above: A smile from a girl riding on the float of Primrose School of West Fishers.

Above and next two below: Classic cars and racing cars are popular entries in parades everywhere.

Above: The national and state colors.

Above: Pet Pals TV's Patti Spitler, a former longtime news reporter and anchor at WISH-TV (Channel 8) in Indianapolis.

Above: A member of the Title Boxing Club in Fishers.

Above and next five below: A favorite past time at parades is recording the spectators and their reaction to the goings-on, which I hope these images adequately convey.