Del Fest 2010

In lieu of a big vacation this year (thank you, campaign) I needed to plan something super cool to look forward to.  I picked going to an overnight camping music festival with the kids.  Jeremiah needs to go door-to-door and attend events on weekends from now on so he couldn't go with us. I was hoping that he'd check enough off the to-do list with us out of his hair for one weekend that he could spend some extra time with us later. I'm not sure that you can bank hours like that but we'll see. My greatest campaign contribution is to support real life for us all so that Jeremiah can campaign. Taking myself and the kids away for a weekend was my contribution. (if only campaign contributions were tax write-offs!)

Of course, I couldn't very well do that by myself. But who do I know who is fun to hang out with and likes my kids and would be into a camping music festival? Julie and Heather! So we got it all arranged and planned to drive out to Western MD first thing on Saturday morning (the festival started on Thursday but there was work and a certain preschooler's graduation that needed to be taken care of first). 

Then as you know, I broke my hand and arm 2 1/2 weeks ago. Some asked if I'd cancel but that would be a depression freight train.  Julie and Heather reasonably figured that the camping would be the hardest part and booked us a hotel room for Saturday night.  Ah, but they were not counting on the power of the mind to heal the body!!!! 

I went to a Friday morning Doctors visit and the xrays showed that the breaks were healing but not entirely done.  After a bit of pleading and promising, I walked away with a removable and washable (Thank God) hand brace.  3 days later I know what will hurt and what movements I can do. I take breaks from the brace for slow physical therapy and because it's so tight in a few places that the cure hurts more than the complaint! Now on day three I can type with that hand for a few minutes at a time. Plus give the kids a bath! And drive again! I'm making progress!

So we kept the hotel room until the last minute to see about the weather.  But the Saturday morning rain gave way to a bright and hot weekend so we canceled the room and decided to camp.  Back on track!

I could talk all day about the festival but I'm not ready to type that much yet. 

Highlights:

• 24 hour amazing live bluegrass. Usually several bands at a time in different places!  And all sorts of varieties of bluegrass (classic, country, funk, jam, rock, and even soul)
• Free Kids Center activities: facepainting, mask and necklace making, t-shirt printing etc.
• 1 ft deep stream for exploring and large river for tubing (or wading for folks like us without tubes. Next year!!!!)
• The hippiest hippies for my viewing pleasure and smiles and making instant but fleeting friendships.  Adorable hippy children that kept befriending my girls.  I felt a wonderful sense of peace and community and good times while I was there. Such a nice smell to the air...
• Camping surrounded by huge rocky cliffs and lush green meadows for dancing and picnicking
• Easy going atmosphere and amazing Heather and Julie allowing us to act on the kids' needs and keep everyone happy
• Bought hula hoops for the girls and they danced with them like the beautiful hippy chicks around us. They also cared for pet rocks all weekend and played with mud and leaves and each other. No toys needed!  It's all that I ever ask for!
• Perfect camping food already prepared. No cooking all weekend. Bought ice cream and italian ice as snacks bc it was super duper HOT!
• No mosquitos! But tons of sunshine. I feel like a super star that the kids came home without sunburn. I was really working hard against it! 
• No camping spots available by the time we arrived. We scavenged a tent spot between some cars and it turned out to be perfect! We were very close to all the action and also a nice big bathroom with showers.  The only drawback was that the noise kept the adults up all night (in the bad way).  And the kids stayed up until 10:30pm and woke at 6:30am as usual. Ugh.

We definitely want to do it again next year and hopefully we can bring Jeremiah along too! (We all missed him so much. Plus, someone needs to stay at the tent with the kids so I can go to the late-night jam shows!)