JUNCTION CITY — Regular visitors to the Daffodil Festival this weekend will notice the changes: shuttle buses to get people to the event, and the absence of horsedrawn wagon rides.

But a popular feature will return to the 42nd annual event at the Long Tom Grange: cinnamon rolls.

After a year’s hiatus, the gooey, baked pastries once again will be for sale.

“And they will be bigger than they were before,” said Danuta Pfeiffer, a festival organizer. “They will be the size of dinner plates.”

The festival on Saturday and Sunday features a six-mile drive along Ferguson Road to the Grange northwest of Junction City. Thousands of daffodils are blooming along the route.

“The daffodils look amazing this year,” Pfeiffer said.

Junction City residents also have joined in, planting daffodils that are blooming in various parts of town, said Mayor David Brunscheon.

The festival is “a celebration of the beginning for spring for all of us,” he said.

Pfeiffer said recent weather has been good for daffodils.

“This is the best weather we have had in the past decade,” she said. “In the past, we have had windstorms and blizzards, and hail.”

“This weekend, the weatherman is calling for sunny and warm weather, and we expect to have record crowds,” Pfeiffer said.

The event, which raises money for a variety of community causes, also will include a quilt show, a kids art display, a raffle, coffee and hot food.

The cinnamon rolls may be bigger than before, but the festival will be smaller than previous years.

The owners of a field north of the Grange that had let the festival use their property for parking for several years aren’t allowing that this year, Pfeiffer said.

The field held about 500 cars, she said.

Cars will be parked on grange property, but to make up for the lost parking, visitors will be transported to the grange on free shuttle buses from Conser Quarry on Ferguson Road, about half way between Junction City and the Grange.

Guaranty Chevrolet in Junction City donated a seven passenger van for one of the shuttles, but the festival had to rent a school bus and pay for the two drivers. That will cost $1,000 for the weekend.

Without as much land to use than before, the festival this year had to drop horsedrawn wagon rides, Pfeiffer said.

After selling cinnamon rolls for years, the festival last year chose a new baker, New Day Bakery in Eugene.

Festival organizers and the bakery last year agreed to sell blueberry coffee cake as the festival pastry. But that disappointed festival goers who had their stomachs set on cinnamon rolls.

“It wasn’t what people are used to out there, so we are going back to cinnamon rolls,” said bakery owner William Mahoney,

Festival organizers said “they want us to add extra goo, including sugar and butter, on the cinnamon rolls,” he said.

The sticky buns are about five-to-six inches in diameter, and weigh about four-to-five ounces apiece, Mahoney said.

He and his employees expect to make 5,000 cinnamon rolls over the weekend, but they have enough ingredients to make 7,000 if there’s demand.

The baking will start at 2 a.m. Saturday in the bakery on Blair Boulevard in the Whiteaker neighborhood west of downtown Eugene.

“At least six employees will be here,” he said. “I like to think of it as a small army.”