Home in Clarinda for a few weks

 70º degrees at 7 pm here in Clarinda, IA - drizzled much of the morning and some of the afternoon..  Had almost one-tenth of an inch in gauge today -- I dumped 1.5" and a very large bug, from the gauge when we got back after 10 days in Missouri.

At the Bluegrass Festival we heard 11 bands - all but 2 were on for 2 sessions each and 1 was on 4 times.  There were just short of 24 hours of entertainers (the set-up between each took a few minutes).  I took video of all but about 40 minutes one time when we went back to the trailer for a meal.  Majority of that time I was running it just for the video and today I have spent hours transferring the files from the camera SD Discs to an external drive as I sorted them by band.  Now I am in process of converting those MP4 files to audio MP3 files back on to the external hard drive.  When finished, I will then copy the audio files to a flash drive that we can listen to it in the pickup when on the road.

On Friday the temp got up to 95 degrees and though we were not that uncomfortable having mostly shade under the trees and usually a light - 6 to 8 - mph breeze.  But with the continuous running of the camera it felt hot to the touch, causing the batteries to not run as long as usual and I was continuously changing the 5 batteries I have and usually had 2 on chargers much of the time.  Kept getting message to shut the camera off to let it cool.  Only a minute or so and back on, but where I can usually record up to 30 minutes at a time, I would have maybe 3 to 5 starts in those 30 minutes.  Those I have converted and looked/listened to seem okay and know will enjoy the audio while driving.

We were on grass, on slope, and pretty close to the stage.  No numbers were announced for the 3-day event, but I would estimate the chairs set out all up and down the sloped area were something close to 300, maybe more.

Only when Rhonda Vincent was on stage were most of the chairs filled.  With no breaks in the entertainment from 12 Noon to 10:45 pm people were shuffling to the several food stands much of the time.

There was a permanent wood-fired pizza oven, a ..Food Trailer with catfish and shrimp, pies, ice cream, hamburgers, etc. and their permanent food shack, cotton candy, etc. so lots of munching.  We only bought one meal - a delicious pizza and ate at the trailer the rest of the time.  Guess the trailer was only about a quarter-mile from our chairs, though it was uphill part of that.

Though Saturday was still warm, it was much cooler than Friday.  It rained much of Friday night and up until Noon when it lifted and the entertainment resumed.  I would guess we had an inch of rain during that period.  They were extremely dry and the ground soaked it right up.

Ready to pull out Sunday morning.

After pulling the travel trailer the 230 miles to home in Clarinda Sunday and unhooking the trailer and unpacking things we drove to Omaha on Monday for a doctor's appointment and some grocery shopping.

Start our Church Choir Practice on Wednesday and will sing this Sunday morning.

Later, LCM