Camping and Folk Festival

March 27, 2007

Hey, we're freshly back from our first camping trip of 2007 and our first Folk Festival of the year. The girls and I headed up to Stephen Foster Cultural Center State Park on Wednesday morning. We spent the Spring Equinox out in the woods, in the Suwannee River, and generally just enjoying each other and our great Florida Spring. It was just the three of us until Thursday at lunch when Cynthia, Sadie and Eliot joined us. This was going to be their first time at Stephen Foster, and their first Folk Festival.

We set up camp on Wednesday, my big tent, a smaller 2 man for Jordan and Sadie, and a nice space waiting for the Eliot and Cynthia's tent. The sites are nice and large and it all fit nicely. Tents seem to be the minority, with lots of good big campsites the RVs seem to love this place.

We spent Wednesday setting up, riding our bikes - down to the river, around to the bat house, around the Bell tower and all over - cooking food, playing Battleship (Jordan trounced me, that girl is psychic I swear), making a fire and just generally chilling out. The girls got singing the Down By the Bay song while around the campfire and made up some silly verses.

"Down by the bay, where the watermelon grow,
back to my home, I dare not go.
For if I do, my mother will say......."
'Did you ever see a......' this is the rhyming, fill in the blank part.....

llama, wearing pajamas
fly, wearing a tie
snail, getting the mail
Rabbit, wearing a habit
Frog, taking a jog
Lizard, drinking a DQ Blizzard
Jellyfish, painting a pottery dish
fish, licking a dish
Sheep, driving a Jeep
Monkey, looking kind of funky
Zoombini, wearing a bikini, drinking a martini, and eating a pannini (jordan!)

"Down by the bay!" and then it all starts over again.

Ok, you get the idea, let's just say it was fun and collaborative and sweet all three of us singing together.

On Friday, Cynthia and I went to the Outfitters in White Springs - American Canoe Adventures - and Charlie there hooked us up with an awesome tandem ocean kayak, good for horsing around on and the water flows out and won't sink the kayak after a few rowdy kids, ahem, have been on it. She and I did the 3 miles down river from the bridge in White Springs to the canoe launch in SFoster. How great it was to be on the water and Charlie let us have the kayak for the day for no extra charge. Thanks Charlie!! The kids had to paddle up river, then they could paddle down river and get back to the launch. Teamwork. There was a canoe there waiting to be picked up from the same place and they had a chance to compare the two. The verdict: Canoeing is MUCH harder going up river.

The water on the Suwannee is full of tannins, so it's brown...technically. But, actually, when you have your feet in the water, and the sun is shining, there is a lovely shade of deep rose in the deeper water, changing to amber midway to the surface, ending with yellow at the surface. So, you can look at your feet (rose), ankle (amber), and calf (yellow) and have this gorgeous spectrum of colors. At first when I moved to Florida, water with tannins freaked me out. Black water, no thank you. This trip, I've fallen in love with it.

The landscape going down the river is so unique. This area floods every once in a while, so the trees close to the waters edge appear to be Cyprus, that has been washed out, and is dying, but kind of turning to a driftwood look. The swirls heading vertically are so interesting because trees are generally thought to have horizontal rings. These vertical swirls defy that thought. The various stages of decay also add interesting visual experience. Along the way, there are different levels of rock, sand, shale (possibly) on the banks of the river. Gators? yes. Charlie says they are gun shy, though...years of living in White Springs, I guess.

When we showed up on Wednesday afternoon at the canoe launch, there were 5 canoes, loaded up and heading down river with a group of folks going for a fishing/canoe day with plans of looking for a place to set up camp and stay the night. Bravery! But, it seems like that's the thing to do on the Suwannee, lots of free land and places to camp for the night. It's wild, but lovely and cool too.

Quick note: on Friday when we went to town for various things {ice, getting my van, water, etc.} we were at the little stoplight in town and on the corner was a brown dog and a goat. Uh huh, a goat and a dog, just hanging out at the corner. You gotta love White Springs!

Saturday we headed to the Suwannee Springfest for a full day of Folk Festival-ing. We saw the Avett Brothers (swoon) two times, the Biscuit Burners (loved them at Merlefest), the Everybodyfields (new band, never saw before, great surprise at how good), and another new band Scythian. The kids fell in love with Scythian, they are such a high energy group. The lead singer/guitarist got this happy, anticipatory look on his face every time it was time to get the crowd jumping and going. Scottish, Ukranian, Irish, Greek Folk singers. What fun.....it was the beginning of moshing for Eliot, I can just tell! So it was a great day there. We set up in the ampitheatre area, lots of trees, and hammocks in the back of the seating area. There are cool vendors for food and buyables, it's a very hippie like scene. Our favorite food of the entire day was the Veggie Thing, from the Sugar Shack stand. The come all the way from Vermont and make the best food. A Veggie thing is esssentially a tortilla done on the grill, layered with cheese, raw brocolli, spinach, garoc, drop some salsa down the middle, grill, fold up, hit it with hot sauce, and it's heaven in a tortilla shell. Yeah buddy. Also, they make this french toast with bananas and homemade maple syrup....ok, yup. We loved that, we loved playing Frisbee, ball, run around in the meadow. We loved the day. Grody, tired, sweaty, and happy....we drove home at 12 a.m. and crashed back in the tents.

Next day, pack it up day, Late Night Tacos is our tradition (taco shell, filled with scrambled eggs, fake bacon, avocado, jalapenos, salsa, sour cream, and cheddar. That will get your motor running and get you through breaking camp. We headed home at 1 after hitting the gift shop for a run through and were back in Mount Dora by 4. Tired Tired Tired, but happy.

We ran into trouble with the dogwatching situation, and luckily our kind kind NEW neighbors Dwight and Brenda (Spotty) offered, so generously, to watch Jack so Rich could join us on Saturday. We got home, unloaded, and turned around to go see the Avett Brothers in Deland at the Cafe Davinci. This concert blew our minds. It was in this small outdoors patio like setting, and they were so wonderful in this intimate setting. I have seen them a number of times, and this was the best show yet.

The show was wonderful, and for the encore Bob Crawford sang a solo song playing the guitar (not the upright bass), then called Scott Avett on, who sang his own solo of a song I never heard before. He finished and called Seth on, who did this beautiful finger work on this great song, again, never before heard. It was the most beautiful ending of a great show. Afterwards, the boys, all three, hung out signing autographs, chatting, mingling and it was a little slice of heaven for my family and me.

Lauris Vidal opened for them. He's a local boy, currently moved back to Deland. Check him out, he's cool. He had fun, it's obvious. Ran into Katie Ball, the Saturday Bluegrass DJ on WPRK, and her husband Ben. Nice seeing them closer to our stomping ground, and not just in Winter Park/Orlando. So, another late night for us doing music stuff. Love it.

Back home, and it's crash time.....but wait, not totally, Florida Film Fest is happening.....back to driving to Winter Park and onto my next blog!


Pictures above would be captioned as follows, if I could figure out how the hell to do it!!! -

Top left - Makenna chillin with Seth Avett
Top right - Jordan doing the same
Bottom Left - Ok, this is what heaven looks like to Jordan - Scott Avett and Jordan