It's Sunday night and we just got home from one of the most fabulously fun Bluegrass Festivals of the season. It's always held the weekend after Mother's Day and is at the Lewis and Clark Resort in Kamiah, Idaho. This resort is just a perfect place for a festival and has such a good spirit to it that a person just can't be there and not feel it. We had perfect weather and it was so much fun for me to get to see all my friends again.
John and I were pretty busy because we're on the ISBA board and so we help to put this festival on each year. Kamiah is right on the Clearwater River and the elevation is low so the weather is always a little warmer there than most other areas of Idaho, except our White Bird area which is also of similar climate. I can remember when we lived in Missoula however and I would drive over to come to this festival. Then it was really obvious that the weather at this festival was a lot milder and about a month ahead of the Missoula area for Springtime flowers and such. Back then it was always a treat to be able to wear shorts earlier than the Missoula climate allowed.
Anyway I want to talk a little about this weekend and all the fun we had.
Our band Gravel Road is having to revamp a little bit due to us loosing Chris who was our mandolin player. He had to take a full time job which has caused him to have to work weekends and is not allowing him to play in our band anymore so Hannah who is one of my students and has been playing guitar with us is now going to try and learn more on her mandolin and take over as the mandolin player in the band. Chris is Will's son and Hannah is his grand daughter from another son. Anyway Hannah is going to start being our mandolin player now and so she'll be working on learning it better.
With this we had to take new band pictures and The Lewis and Clark resort where this festival his held was a perfect setting for them. It had an old wagon and some old buildings plus even an antique fire engine giving us lot's of great back drops. After we played our set that's when we went and took the pictures. I liked how several of them turned out but I needed a haircut so it's a little shaggy, plus I hate how my extra weight shows in my face. Other than that our pictures turned out really nice and I'm happy with them.
Anyway......
John and I arrived early Thursday morning and once again I had reason to be thankful to be retired to be able to go to such festivals early like this.
We had so much fun playing as bands and jamming with our friends and playing the open mics which has become such an icon of this festival, and then of course doing our stage shows too.
All I can say was it was a perfect festival in all ways. Greg Boyd complimented my daughter Gina on her fiddle playing and he even sang with us Foggy Mtn Girls for the open mic on a song called Canaan's Land. That's where he really heard her up close and her strong fiddle playing really came through. He was overcome with it and personally talked to her and complimented her on her playing. She's really gotten good this past few years and I'm very proud of her. I taught her to play when we were both learning and she's gone on to be really good. Now I'm brushing up on it to keep caught up. I'm glad to have her in our Foggy Mtn Girls band now.
One of the highlights for me was getting to play the Friday night open mic time with Will and his 3 grand daughters, Hannah, Callie, and Victoria. He asked me to play 3 tunes with them and when he introduced us he said that I'm one of his family too which made me feel really happy. Gail often comments and says that they feel like I'm a member of their family but Will rarely does so when he said this it made me really feel good. The girls all three played super great and I was grinning ear to ear with happiness that they're doing so well.
So this weekend, I got a little suntan and a lot of warm moments. Life is good!
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