Once at the convention, we made camp on a little rise near the woods.  Thanks to three tents, one canopy, the suggested "to bring" items from Jill’s Festival Survival List and surprisingly good  weather we lacked for nothing in making our selves comfortable for our weekend of “rough” camping and oldtime music.

With our home-away-from-home set up, we headed down to an attractive, newly built, barn-like stage to immerse ourselves in the music.  We couldn’t tear ourselves away from the contests long enough to hike back to our campsite to cook, so we had our dinner at the café wagons.  Vegetarian fare was limited—but there were hot corn muffins!  We asked if the red beans were vegetarian and the vendor said, “Mostly—they’re cooked with just a little piece of streaky meat!”  Not exactly veggie but scrumptious all the same for those that indulged.

The contests on Friday night were great, but the highlight for us was the jam led by Alan Jabbour after the contests were finished.  Our Jill jumped right in to play but even  Rosemarie and Leslie, after listening a bit, pulled out their banjos to give festival jamming a try.

 Saturday dawned clear and hot.  We started the day with a delicious breakfast of mushrooms, herb and cheese omelets stirred up by Leslie and cooked to perfection on the camp stove by a sleepy Jill (see photo to right).  Veggie sausage and 3-grain bread & butter were also on the menu.  Rosemarie was crowned “The Queen” of our outing because, not only did she do the lion’s share of driving, she brewed up good, strong camp coffee each morning.   Fortified by our camp cuisine, we took the time to stroll down the lane to check out the river view and the local flea market at the other end of the festival grounds. 

We spent the rest of the day either jamming with our neighbors or playing under our canopy.  Jill found a compatible fiddler, two tents down, and the two of them made exceptional music.  We also did our best to stay cool during the heat of the day.  The canopy helped plus we brought enough water to float a boat.  Handiwipes were a favorite  keeping-cool-and-freshish device.

Throughout the festival grounds, small sessions spontaneously erupted as players practiced for the evening competitions or simply informally jammed with friends. There were lot's of tail-gate tunes  and we found Diane and the rest of the Reed Island Rounders, Betty Vornbrock and Billy Cornette, lounging at their camp site singing and playing.

 Leslie was happy to note that dogs were welcome at the festival.  She befriended two of them -- Bubba a gorgeous, large, male lab mix and  beautiful, brindle plott-houndish, Sweetie, who looks like a female version of Leslie's dog (Oh yeah, Sweetie is with her human pal, Donna).

The Saturday evening competitions started up just as the weather became tolerable.  After a yummy dinner of Jill’s homemade chili and fixins, we trooped down to the festival stage and stayed for every minute!   The audience was appreciative of each competitor and little children, budding flat-footers for sure, played Merry-Go-Round on the wooden dance floor below the stage as the bands played.

We especially enjoyed seeing Diane and Betty compete in the banjo/fiddle duet competition and their band, the Reed Island Rounders, compete in the old time string band competition with their tight version of Cherry River Line.  We also saw Mac Traynham perform and found out why Donna’s been a fan of his.  Although we didn’t get the name of her band, we were charmed at seeing a standup bass player who carried her baby on her back during her band's competition tune. You can click here to see the competition results.

Things at the stage broke up around 1a.m., and we were so tired we went back to camp and fell asleep despite the jams.  But we woke up again around 3:30am to find that the jammers were still at it.  The earlier evening clouds had blown away and the temperature had cooled to silky comfort.  String band music filled our little valley and the air was thick with the perfume of campfires smelling of juniper blended with the fragrance of the wild honeysuckle vines in full bloom at the wood’s edge.  The Big Dipper hung low in the sky amidst stars so bright and seemingly close that they appeared to merge with countless fireflies flickering in the meadow below, providing us with a beautiful, natural light show.  It was spectacular; a perfect moment in time.

Sunday morning we took our time breaking camp, with a meal of cereal and Rosemarie’s good coffee and, with our gear, our Henry Reed t-shirts, a little sunburn and a little less food, we headed back home up US-81 listening to the CD of the Giles Mountain String Band, the group that produces the festival.  As we reminisced about the weekend we commented on how friendly the organizers and attendees were.  The music, of course, was fine and we were touched by the fundraising effort that was going on during the festival to help pay for a liver transplant for a little boy that lived in the local community.  I think almost everyone eventually made their way up to the open banjo case on the stage edge to drop in a donation.  The grounds were well kept, and even the porta-johns were valiantly spot-cleaned during the weekend.  Amazingly there were very few mosquitoes and biting flies on this particular weekend.  All-in-all, this festival was a wonderful way to spend an early summer weekend in June.