Leg 3

Floyd Fest.  Wow.  That was easily the most amazing three days of my year. Above you see a photo of the festival grounds taken from our shuttle bus, as we rode away.  It was set up like a little village with stages of all kinds, all over the place and a main stage at the head.  Along the two sides are two rows of tents with shopping and food galore.

We arrived in Floyd on Thursday at around noon and had our tent (seen above) set up and the car parked in a remote lot and us, ready to festival it up by 2:00 p.m.  Thursday night was a mite difficult as the children settled in for the first night of camping. Lucy cried about the slant upon which our tent was pitched. Being in the Blue Ridge Mountains, we were basically down hill, all of us waking in the morning, scrunched at the bottom of the tent, due to gravity. Also, from 1-3 a.m. Tad and I were awakened (the children slept through all of this--a minor miracle in my opinion) by the worst Pink Floyd cover band I've ever heard in my life. This was followed by a drum circle from roughly 3-6 a.m. Tad and I got ourselves some ear plugs on Friday which made the experience all the better in our sleeping hours.

Friday, however, made our lack of sleep worthwhile.  We roamed free at the festival, dined on such wonderful foods as smoothies called the Solar Blast, a veggie noodle stir fry with the most delicious peanut sauce I've ever tasted, and a wonderful concoction called "The Veggie Thing" which someday I shall try to reproduce.  We also danced to a lovely bluegrass band who knew just how to jam during a thunderstorm, which lasted only two hours and made the experience all the more lovely.  Coen and Lucy loved playing in the hula hoop area.

Coen's favorite place to be was the Vaudeville tent (pictured below) where they had juggling and other circus type shows, and workshops for kids and adults on unicycling, juggling, hula-hooping and the flying trapeze.  Coen was enthralled.   Also below, is a photo of Lucy and I snuggling during Friday's rainstorm.  Lucy's butterfly face paint was just beginning to smear.

On Saturday, after a much better sleep, we enjoyed our breakfast next to the hula hoops and then I went to a Zumba class which was heavenly. Tad met me there after with the kids where we all participated in a drum circle.  It was exactly what church should be like for Tad and I and we both loved the drumming, the meditation, the message and I adored the meditative dance.  It was a moving experience for all four of us. 
In the afternoon, there was a parade followed by the most amazing marching band I have ever seen or heard. They are called March Fourth and are out of Portland (of course). They have stilt-dancers along with them and they are pictured here to the left.
Brandi Carlisle played that evening so we ate dinner on the grass and listened to her for a while. We ended our night at the Children's Universe, an area for families,  There they have a tent for scrapes and boo-boos, a place called "The Red Tent" for nursing mothers and women who just want to chat...also a place where you can get free juice boxes, granola bars or string cheese for crabby, hungry children. There was a Noah's Ark shaped play structure, a covered sand box, a tent full of dress-up clothes (Lucy and I are sporting our Fairy Wings to the left, there), a stage for kids music, face painting, and a balloon lady (see Lucy's flower balloon bracelet).  It was incredible--the children's universe and really the whole festival. 



This year's theme was Lover's Rock, which was quite fitting as Tad and I went to the first Floyd Fest when we were dating and falling in love.  And we took Coen in 2005.  This year our whole family got to go.  I was sad to leave on Sunday, but we promised ourselves we'd do it again.  And I think we will.