The 23rd annual Ohio Bigfoot conference hosted by Don Keating has come and gone. I didn’t expect the turn out to be as good as last year when Bob Gimlin showed up but alas, about 600-645 people were in attendance for this years event. I wasn’t too impressed with this years event mostly because of the speakers. The speakers that kept my interest the best was Ron Morehead as he explained what happened during the course of time that the Sierra Sounds were being recorded, some of Dr. Esteban Sarmiento’s presentation and last but not least, Eric Altman, director of the PA Bigfoot Society.

I found myself falling asleep a couple of times during some of the other presentations throughout the day mostly because I didn’t have a clue as to what the speaker was talking about. Lack of knowledge on my part but the dry speaking and lack of humor killed my attention span. Out of all the presentations, Eric Altman’s was the most interesting because it dealt with sighting reports that his group was either currently investigating or has investigated over the past 2 years. I wouldn’t mind if somehow, an entire hour or two was dedicated just for folks to get up and tell their story of their eyewitness account or could at least get a few more investigators to speak on what they have discovered via their own research. Although I doubt very many people would be willing to share their sighting reports to an audience of 600 people.

Unfortunately, Don Keating didn’t present on his investigations into the Ohio Bigfoot over the course of the year which is disappointing because I’m unable to make it to the Monthly meetings that he holds. It would have given everyone a heads up as to what’s been going on in Ohio Bigfoot wise. There was also some technical difficulties that at times, made it very annoying to be part of the audience thanks to the interference projected from the microphone. During one of the sessions, there was a loud audible clicking noise that we had to listen to for the duration of his presentation. It was easy to drown out after a while but still, made it hard to focus on the information he was giving out.

Number 24 for Don is up in the air but if he decides to go through with it, I hope the speakers are geared towards more sharing of either personal sightings or accounts, sharing of information via their investigations or just a sampling of recent investigations that person or group has been on.

One of the reasons why I enjoy the Bigfoot conferences so much is because of the substantial discounted rates that the Salt Fork State Park lodge offers. For Friday and Saturday the rates were only $79.00 while staying Sunday was only $29.00. While I look forward to the Bigfoot conference every year, I’m equally content with enjoying a mini vacation in a beautiful park for a few days with my lady friend. Unfortunately, we were not able to hike our usual spots because of the miserable rainy weather over the course of the weekend. In fact, it’s been so wet that a lot of the plants that normally have giant flowers this time of year have yet to bloom or were just starting to. However, we were able to hike close to the lake before the start of the conference and before a heavy thunderstorm came rolling in.

Overall, I enjoyed my time at Salt Fork State Park despite the miserable weather. After all, I beat my fiancée 5 times in a row in air hockey (I don’t think she enjoyed that part of the vacation). I also won four incredible pieces of Bigfoot artwork for my office wall for $40.00 in an auction during intermission. I’ll be showing those pictures in a follow-up post. The event itself was free to attend and I got to meet up with a couple of old friends. Hope to see news soon of a 24th conference.