Wow! We should have taken our water wings along with us to this one!
Friday night setup was hotter than hades and HUMID, but we got the tent up and the "stuff" unpacked on on the tables and covered. Whew! Then we staggered off to our rental house and popped into bed with visions of bright, sunny days and huge crowds of people.
Saturday before noon, storms hit the grounds. The site was a great location - flat, grassy - but with all the rain we've been having in TN, the ground could only absorb some of the storms, so it was pretty spongy. You could see the storms coming and everyone was grabbing side curtains and tying them on.....and then holding on to them! It was wild and wooly and, in spite of our best efforts, we were soaked and some of our display suffered from the blowing rain. We dot dried up and had intermittent rain/storms through the afternoon. The crowd on Saturday was pretty good considering the forecast and everyone was putting up with the wet with a smile. There were lots of vendors and lots of clans.....really good massed bands and singing groups at the stages. The working dogs ignored the wet and did their jobs well. They were right behind our tent, so we got to watch them at work.
It poured rain most of the night Saturday night, so the grounds by Sunday were pretty swampy. The golf carts running around with VIPs and whoever didn't help the situation, but they said they had to keep driving over the same area (?) and it, of course, turned to mud, mud, mud. We moved the table back further into the tent so people would be standing on the highest ground in the tent! The crowds were really sparse on Sunday but no one could really blame them with the weather. We had the parade of tartans at 1:30 and had just gotten back to the tent when they announced ANOTHER storm was about 15 minutes away ....and if we could pull and pack up in 15 minutes, that we should go ahead and do it because more rain was coming. We did! Sherry Anderson, Paula Womack and her daughter Michelle, Tom and I carried about 2/3 of the stuff from the tent to our truck and then found an available cart that we loaded up and took the remainder. Harold and Patsy Bennett had been with us on Saturday, but Harold wasn't feeling well on Sunday and they didn't come to the games on Sunday.
We had a wonderful time in spite of the rain. The site is really perfect for a highland games and I think this games has unlimited growth potential. Parking was a little tight and we couldn't park in the college parking lots because our vehicles aren't registered for the school........but everyone managed to find a spot and enjoy their visit. I was surprised at the number of vendors - lots of them! Lots of clans and we had the spots around the athletic field with the vendors making up the outer ring behind us. We were all quite impressed.
Lots of Thom(p)sons stopped by the tent and chatted - we handed out lots of business cards. They enjoyed our Border Reiver banner (as did many other clans) and some hadn't realized we had gotten our arms granted. We weren't surprised - figured it was going to take some time.
I'll put up what I have of pictures (very few) in the next few days but I think we will have to wait for Sherry's to get some good ones.
If you live within driving distance and didn't come - you MISSED IT! Thanks to all who came, visited and helped at the tent. You all make it worthwhile.
