Last year Cliff and I stayed for a few days at Betty and Bill's summer house in Galax, Virginia. We fell in love with the place, especially in the fiddle and bluegrass tradition and in the New River State Park with its 57 mile-long hiker/biker trail. Why not get family and friends to join us for a week at the 2008 Old Fiddlers Convention, we thought. Said and done. We reserved four cabins at the New River Trail Cabins, and so Cliff's parents, his brother Gary and wife Sandy, and Jill, John, and Laura joined our whole family. Some of the pictures below have been taken by Jill and Kristina.
The cabins are really ideally located. They are right on the bike trail and just 5 minutes by bike into Galax and the Fiddlers Convention.
The Convention lasts a full week, with competitions starting on Monday with the kids' competitions.
Then follow three days of individual competitions on all the different bluegrass instruments, fiddle, guitar, banjo, mandolin, dobro, autoharp, etc., as well as bands and individual singing. Here is a picture from the top of the stands. The campground is in the background.
And Friday and Saturday the bands compete. Bluegrass and old-time bands take turns.
A lot of the activity, however, takes place on the campground, where thousands and thousands of people camp and jam the whole week long.
This group of jammers was particularly good. Note the woman to the right with a washtub base...Here you can listen to a group playing. One of the most impressive fiddlers we heard was Adam Larky, a 12-year old who won the kid's competition for bluegrass fiddle. Cliff and I had not heard him during the competition but just happened to hear him jamming with his father at the campground. We were blown away.
Click on the arrow on the above youtube video and you can hear Adam play and if you want more, there are a lot of youtube videos of him playing, including his winning performance at Galax.
We went to the convention every day, and we would sit in the stands or in camping chairs,
or just walk around listening to music or
eat fried potatoes, or
even better, deep-fried Oreos.....
heavenly?
Or maybe some roadkill?And if we did not hike, bike, swim, or listen to music, we would eat, drink, and hang out around the cabins.
Every late afternoon we had dinners together on the decks. Here is Nez grilling marshmallows,
and here drinking beer with Cliff.
On Friday we had a picnic with all the leftovers. Cliff's sisters Janet and Betty joined us with Tim, Bill, and William. Despite being 17 people now, we could not finish all the leftovers!
Benjamin and Gary awaiting their turn.
Jill collapsing on the floor after a busy day.
Kristina and Thomas also relaxing.
The cabins had wireless Internet, so no need to be disconnected from your friends.The only activity that has not been documented with these pictures is that some of us also played bluegrass in the afternoons and even gave a small concert on the deck on the last day. But, I have no pictures of that, so I can't prove it. But some of the participants of this group have plans to enter the competitions next year, so I'll make sure we get some pictures then. Stay posted.
