After a couple of cloudy, cool and windy weeks summer finally arrived, just in time for the annual Anderson Bluegrass Festival!

For three days each July, 600-acre Riverside Park in Anderson fills with campers, tents, RVs and motor homes as bluegrass fans flock to this otherwise sleepy little town.
We decided to go Saturday night, which is the main attraction, with bands taking the stage to past 3 a.m., only stopping their performances at midnight for a surprising massive fireworks show.

We arrived around 6pm and listened to a few local bands who, to say it gently, could do with a little more practicing but around 8 pm the better bands took the stage and we enjoyed some rally good bluegrass music, and dancing, from than on while having some nice beers in the beer garden.

Bluegrass music, by the way, is a form of country music, originated in rural dance bands, has mixed roots in Scottish, Irish and English traditional music, and also has jazz elements.

It's traditionally played on acoustic stringed instruments like the fiddle, banjo, guitar, mandolin and bas and (occasionally) harmonica.

The pic on the left was taken at 1 am, notice the light!

It attracts a lot of 'free spirited', 'flower power' hippies from the 60's with lots of tie-dye and Birkenstocks and a swarm of bare footed, very dirty little children running around. Peace man!

How about these tie-dyed long johns on the right!






The fireworks at 12 midnight were huge for such a small village. Despite the light sky it was very visible!

When we got home around 2am it was finally getting darker:

Most of the wild flowers have come and gone, there's still some Fireweed and Monkshood flowering together with Arnica and  Yarrow and this fluffy Cotton Grass in the 'moose-marsh' in front of us.







I'm trying to keep the hanging baskets and wall boxes of the hotel alive although the wind does a good job breaking off stems and drying out the soil.
They're still looking good though, I think!

James has started the job that's probably going to take him the rest of the time we'll be here; the painting of all 3 train cars! He's started with the roof of the lobby:

As you can see by the clouds he has to fight the rain....

And while some of us are working for a living , others are just laying around doing absolutely nothing.....

       

Well....be that way Merlin, you're missing out on some good tips driving the shuttle. Yes, that is a $50 (!) dollar bill in there! Not bad for 'volunteering' !

One of these days we're gonna make it into Denali Park, I swear! Can you believe we still haven't gone there! We're still waiting for a nice, clear and sunny day  (yeah, good luck on that one) so we can see the elusive (because often in the clouds) Mount McKinley!
Next Monday so far looks good or maybe Tuesday, we'll see.

In the meantime I'm watching the Olympics. Once I start watching I just can't walk away from it!
Oh, and I bake. Banana (mini)muffins anyone......?