After spending the winter in the Adult Toy Storage, the Westy is ready for the trip north back to Minnesota!  I needed to finish the awards program for a great client of 30+ years and then it was a 2-day journey to Thomson, Georgia, for the 25^th Annual Blind Willie McTell Blues Festival.

I’d been on the go for the past 2 months with shows, shoots and general business, so it was great to hit the road, get off the interstate and onto the back highways.  The land around central / northern Florida reminds me a lot of central Minnesota, near Milaca and Onamia.  Pretty flat, lots of trees, lakes, etc.  The rural residents appear to be simple – trailers homes on a plot of land, some nicer homes, but the number of one room churches is mind blowing.  Sometimes there were 2 or 3 churches at a crossroad.  Really want to do some research into why so many different ones in such a remote location.

Used ‘the google’ to find ‘RV parks near me’ and one came us that was about 20 miles from my location and appeared to be highly rated.  Arrived there ready to enjoy the evening, have dinner and a few beers and get a great night sleep.  I will only show you some photos of the bathhouse and let you wonder how it got a 4.2 rating.

What you don’t see in these photos are the gnats, that when I asked the owner about them he said, ‘we got married out here with a small family and 2 million gnats attending’.  All I can think about is, am I in store for this all over the southeast?

Thomson, Georgia is a quaint little town of 5,000 about 100 miles west of Augusta.  Beautiful topography with rolling hills, pines and no gnats!  My campground was on the Little River, which is part of Lake Strom Thurmond.  It was created by the J. Strom Thurmond Dam during 1951 and 1952 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers near the confluence of the Little River and the Savannah River.  At 71,000 acres, it is the third-largest artificial lake east of the Mississippi River.  The site of the festival in between my campground and the town of Thomson.  This is one of the nicest campgrounds I’ve enjoyed.  Each site has tons of privacy, great views and NO BUGS J.  Outhouse was nearby, but to go to the showers, it was about 2,000 steps (approx. 1 mile) from my campsite.  In the photo of the turn around, my campsite was on the right, one in the center and only one more on the left.  See if you can spot them!

Friday night on Main Street in Thomson offered a glimpse the people and music of that area.

At most, a couple hundred folks came out for some ribs, chicken, beer and some blues by Sky Page, playing her cigar box guitar (and her husband on percussions) and then the Juke Joint Jukes.  People were incredibly friendly, kind and very curious how someone from Minnesota wound up in Thomson.  BTW – the ribs and chicken were great and washed down with some local craft beer.

On Saturday, the gates to the festival open at 11AM for a noon start time.  Thought I’d get there early, make breakfast and hang out.  Beautiful grounds – far more of an intimate setting for a festival than I expected.  And, the gates were open by 10AM, because they could.   Again, lovely folks everywhere.  Settled into my chair right next to the sound board (should be good sound and sightlines from there) and enjoyed the sound check.

Met some great folks at the festival:

Kay and Barry – arrived on their Harley from South Carolina the night before.  After her divorce, she decided to ‘get back in the game’ but didn’t know how, so a friend suggested a biker dating site – yes, there is a biker dating site!  And that is how there is a Kay and Barry.  In planning for the trip, she and Barry saw on the festival website that there was a 30 and 50 mile ‘Bike and Blues’ ride the morning of the festival, so they got up at 5:30 AM, put on their leather and headed to the festival.  After 30 minutes waiting and no other motorcycles showing up, they realized it was a BICYCLE ride and not for them!  Judging from the crowd I saw at the festival, there were not that many folks in attendance that could ride a bike for 30 miles, let alone 50!  Maybe it is a marketing effort to get younger folks to attend the festival.

On that note, the town of Thomson, according to the census, has 5,000 folks living in the city with 42% white and 56% African American.  At the Friday night event, there was a pretty good cross section of peeps attending, but at the festival, it was a considerably white, middle-aged event.

The couple that won the cigar guitar raffle – sweet retired couple attending both events and getting the guitar autographed by all performers.  He just sold his Orkin franchise to his son and she is a retired teacher (I think).

For blues lovers, this is an awesome festival.  Great line up of artists, great sound, great food and all set in a beautiful surrounding of woods and fields in the middle of nowhere.  We (as in Linda and Gary) will be back – hopefully next year.

On Sunday, I pushed hard to get to Nashville to catch a couple sets of Rachel Hester and the Tennessee Walkers at Roberts Western World and grab a hotel with wifi and send out the blog, catch up on work, take the Monday staff call and begin the push north – hoping to stay on the 2-lane highways and off the interstate, returning to Minneapolis by Friday morning.

Back at you in a couple days (if there is any blog worthy stories)!