We had a great time at Lake Erie, despite the storm and daily showers. We visited a number of wineries and I brought home 13 bottles of wine. Check that, 12, since we drank one around the campfire. We had many ridiculous conversations, laughed our asses off and generally enjoyed ourselves. We're hoping to go back in the fall.
I took over 300 pictures, mostly of sunsets. The sunsets on Lake Erie are some of the most colorful I've ever seen. Ignore the crooked waterline. Click on any picture to be blown away.
We spent the soggy weekend at the Mountain Vista Bluegrass Festival on Blue Knob Mountain high in the Laurel Highlands. The weather was bad on Friday and Saturday but being sheltered by large tents, we weren't bothered much by it. The fog that rolled in and out on Saturday night obscured the stage from time to time and affected the tuning of the musicians instruments but didn't bother us much. It was a bit chilly though.
There were some familiar favorites at the festival and several new faces. One of the new ones was Julie Lee who was accompanied by the Maid Rite String Band (I know, corny.) Maid Rite is an up and coming bluegrass group from Tennessee and Julie Lee is a song writer/singer that has songs recorded by Alison Krauss. Ok, enough of the background. Here's the cool part.
Way back in 2003, my BFF and I somehow (some help here Misery) started geocaching. We hit it pretty strong those first few years and had a blast doing it (mostly.) Anyway, the first weekend we cached we were camping at the bluegrass festival at Blue Knob and the second cache we found was called, "The Lost Children of the Alleghenies." We were to find the monument dedicated to these lost boys. Here is the story of the geocache:
In April of 1856 seven year old Joseph Cox and five year old George
Cox wandered away from their parents home in Spruce Hollow,
Pennsylvania and perished due to exposure. A few nights later Jacob
Dybert, a farmer living on the other side of Blue Knob Mountain,
had the the first of three identical dreams. For three nights in a
row he dreamt that he was walking through an unfamiliar section of
forest and found the bodies of the boys at the foot of a tree.
Compelled by his dream Jacob and his brother in law retraced the
steps that Jacob had taken in his dream. Remarkably they found the
boy’s bodies where they lay huddled beneath a tree.
In 1901 local residents erected a memorial in the forest where the
children were found. Some people say they can sometimes hear the
sound of children playing in the woods near the Cox Monument in
Pavia.
Ok then. Scene is set. This is a song that Julie Lee sang this past weekend, recorded by Alison Krauss. This particular YouTube video has the back story.
Celebrating April 16th last night with my family and co-workers, I had 5 drinks and 3 shots. Ok, so I only had a few sips of the fifth drink, but still. And they were small drinks, but I'm pretty sure that they still each had a shot of gin in them. The shots were Drambuie and 2 Tequilas. First time drinking shots of Tequila, complete with salt and lemon. The first one was worse than the second.
I haven't had that much to drink for quite a while. It was weird that while I was slurring my words, I was quite aware that I was doing it. It was almost like I was stepping outside of myself and the sober me was watching the tipsy me. Very weird.
We all had a great time, laughing until we cried and it was a much needed release after the constant stress of the last hundred or so days. I thank the Lord that my job is seasonal and that I have friends that can help me see it through to the end each year.