Jim took charge of the laundry today as the kids washed the RV and went swimming. Earlier in the day Mami and I did the run around stuff that must be done after most gigs: banking, post office, resupply, shopping, etc. We even had a romantic lunch from McDonalds' dollar menu. Hard to belief in 8 day we will have been married 25 years. I have known her longer than I didn't.
Ketchup (Catch up): Now back to Friday. The shows on Friday went well but the seats, as I may have mentioned were hot, so the best crowd was the last one when the sun went behind a big cottonwood and gave us the shade everyone needed. It was that time of night that inversion (I believe that's what its called) kicked in and a breeze came through making the fire tricks a little trickier. But all went well.
Our neighbor at the festival was a large mobile zoo of sorts with camels, monkeys, goats, birds, reptiles and more. Kurt and his crew were super nice folks and the kids spent much time over there with the animals.
Saturday was a great day. Bigger crowds at every show even with the day being a degree or two hotter. I met a really nice man named Grover who came down from Flint to see us. He came to two of the shows and was surprised that we weren't running the exact show at every show; pleasantly surprised. He particularly liked Amelia's Praise and Worship version of the Aerial Silk.
Now that morning we had the parade as I mentioned. Usually parades end at the event venue, or start from there. This parade started a mile away at the High school and ended a mile away at a church that had no access except through the parade route. I had to navigate back streets to find the closest access to gather my guys since they had a lot of equipment and walking back would have been rough. I got within an 1/8 of a mile so they were ok....but tired and hot.
In case I didn't mention it Cousin Wes, our clown, joined us late Friday night and performed the Saturday and Sunday shows with us. He has added a lot of new things to his repertoire. I have some video on FB (Facebook) of him performing but haven't figured a way to tie it into this page.
Sunday the event had morning services which many of us attended. They also had an ice cream give away and free coffee an doughnuts. At the donut give-away Amelia got the last chocolate donut. A little girl behind her had asked the servers for a chocolate donut but were told there were no more. In true Amelia style she gave heres to the girl. The servers were so impressed with her kindness they gave Amy two glazed donuts.
Grover from Flint enjoyed our show so much that he came back Sunday. In fact, we noticed a lot of faces returning for our Sunday shows. One grandad and granddaughter watched all three shows. At the near end of the first show one of my kids came to tell me that a truck had hit our RV. I ran back to see what had happened and as I did I popped my mike and killed one of our $600 speakers (Marty, if you are reading this I will need your repairing skills when I see you in Iowa.) The sound guys from the beer/entertainment tent had parked their box truck real close to our RV. As they pulled out their box rubbed against the awning cover for the front slide-out leaving a nice scratch on their truck and bending a 3/4 in bracket bar. mami said it was like an earthquake in the rv. They didn't stop. The fair folks chased them down and they faxed their drivers' licenses and insurance info. They will have to replace that bar but I need to give it a closer inspection when I get back to KY.
The last audience of Sunday was a fantastic crowd in great spirits.
We packed up in some hurry but it still took us a while to get out as many vendors and folks had the same idea and we had to wait for this vehicle or that. Our goal was to get to Toledo and stay two nights. I needed to pig up the pig today was the reason for the two nights. But we leave tomorrow (Tuesday, my and Amy's birthday) to head back to KY. It is supposed to be T-storms tomorrow so keep us in your
prayers.
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