Merlefest Update

Sorry for taking so long to finally let everyone know about Merlefest. For those of you who didn't know, this past weekend I (and the rest of the wives) went with The Farewell Drifters to Merlefest in Wilkesboro, NC. It was an amazing weekend packed full of activities. It was wonderful to spend time with family and friends who came (Deb, Lyn, Bob, Adam, Scottie P, Kasey and Melissa). I am going to try to hit the highlights or else this might be a novel.

Because all of the girls were planning on going, there was some transportation issues that needed to be ironed out. Two couples wanted to drive themselves, which left 6 of us to fit into the 6 seats that are in the van (one seat is taken out for the bass). We weren't sure if we could do it, but it seemed ridiculous to take another car. I am proud to say that we made it there and back without any problems arising. It helped that I am the largest person that was in the van.

Once we got to Merlefest, it was go, go, go. It seemed like the boys were either playing, eating, or getting ready to play again. And it was extremely hot!!! It was all sun and around 89 every day. There was a lot of sweating and me trying to avoid the sun which is not easy when there is a limited amount of shade for everyone (estimated around 80,000) there.

There was one rain storm on Friday afternoon which everyone said had to happen at some point during Merlefest. It just happens that the rain came when we were trying to leave one day. Because of the equipment, there were golf carts that would pick us up and take us to our car, etc. We happened to need to leave at a very busy time and so 9 of us had to get on a golf cart in the rain with instruments. As you can imagine, the golf cart had a little bit of trouble getting up the hill to the parking lot (there were really big hills on the college campus). I jumped off in hopes of it helping the golf cart to get up the hill. I was able to run and keep up the golf cart as it went up the hill.

The reason we had to head out was to get to a hotel where they were doing live feeds to a radio show in TN. This was fun to watch, but hard for me to be silent while we listened to the boys talk and sing and were only able to hear one side of the radio conversation.

Saturday was a packed day which resulted in us being at Merlefest for about 18 hours. The boys played several shows and we had a break around dinner where we were able to catch some other bands. The night ended at the midnight jam which was so much fun. The boys opened for other bands and then were able to jam with some of those bands as well. They really rocked (or bluegrassed) it. We finally headed to the hotel around 3 am.

And, very importantly, I picked up an amazing piece of artwork.