Harvest Festival Hoedown

[bjarvis]

I was a little frazzled on the first day (Friday) but everything gradually became better as the weekend went on.

Shepherdstown, WV, is a little historic one-horse town with narrow streets so it tends to get tied up with traffic easily. Don't even ask about parking.

We were primarily dancing in the two floors of the War Memorial Hall. It's a very nice historic building with fantastic hardwood floors. The upstairs larger ballroom had excellent acoustics; the lower floor, not so much. The lower room's four columns didn't help either although we were able to work around them. Our third dance space on the Saturday only was at the historic Entler Hotel, one block away; the room acoustics there weren't fabulous either and we again had the issue of columns but all went pretty well.

Our GCA callers did pretty well, I think. I wasn't able to attend Zip Warmerdam's or Chris Phelan's sessions but reports were favourable. Mike's Mainstream and Plus sets were well received, including his first-ever Advanced tip. kent4str's two hours of Advanced seemed pretty good and I'd like to think my own hour of A2 was largely a success. Our 15 minute guest spots with Alan Hirsch, Blaine Knupp and Abe Feldman were all well-attended, especially for the first hour of dancing on the Friday.

I wish I could say more about the dancing overall but I didn't get a lot of time to actually dance. I had tremendous fun in the C1 and intro C2 sessions Saturday and Sunday; I've even recorded a few for further study.

Our kitchen crew outdid themselves with hot breakfasts both Saturday and Sunday. And so many raffle baskets... oy! kent4str and I flogged 50/50 tickets Saturday night, raising $602 in total, then kent4str went on to win the jackpot, donating it to the 2009 IAGSDC convention, DC Diamond Circulate.

It's all over for another year. More than anything else right now, I need sleep.

Click for photos.

Comments

[weekilter.livejournal.com]

So, what's the story on the model house and model park?

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

Not a clue. There was a plaque naming it and the historic society preserving it, but not a word about why any of it was built in the first place. I just presumed that, like many similar structures, it was built on the whimsy of some local aristocrat with too much money & time on their hands wanting to make a mark on society without actually doing anything useful or productive.

Oops... was that too cynical? :-^

[stormecho.livejournal.com]

Some interesting shots there without captions. Is deege just resting? otterpop58 is playing with a pole? And shirtless Matt is always fun.