Southern Exposure

Long before there were many performers booked or details available, I bought us some tickets to go to this summer's FloydFest, an annual music festival held along the Blue Ridge Parkway near Floyd, Virginia. When, years ago, Nate and I took our honeymoon road trip across country, driving all the historic and scenic routes we could find, we loved the Blue Ridge Parkway and vowed to come back again and again. I guess that, combined with the fact that we haven't had a vacation just the three of us AND the incredible stationary feeling that comes with December in Michigan, is why it seemed like a good idea to lock in the tickets (besides, they were incredibly cheap back then, and I'm nothing if not a sucker for a good bargain). It didn't matter what the music was--I just liked the idea.

Last week as we were getting to leave, though, we were on the fence. Nate has almost no time off left, and I'm grudgingly going through my last days of work, showing up in body if not in spirit. Besides that, it's easy sometimes to get in a rut and stick with that which seems easy. And don't even get me started on Clementine's unpredictability in the car. We almost called it off, but now almost a week later I'm so very grateful we didn't. Nate and I spent the entire drive home trying to articulate just what it was about FloydFest that was so magical and wonderful. Time alone as a family to be sure, but also the community, the setting, the vibe--things were just so different in a truly significant way. It was just what we wanted from a vacation. In some ways I feel like I've been to a foreign country and am coming back dazzled by the new customs and people, but it's not that it was a foreign experience at all.

At first I was thinking it was the difference between the north and the south that marked this as unusual, and then I was wondering if it was an urban/rural difference. Maybe it was just the vibe of the festival, which attracted such a broad range of people I hardly know how to categorize, from hippies to cowboys, southern belles to punks, all sorts of parents you can't imagine wanting to pitch a tent in the woods and listen to the pounding drums and relentless bass until 3 AM while the smell of pot wafted about the tent. But even that is simplifying the experience.

Clementine had a blast, as pictures will prove when I sort through them tonight. She met all kinds of kids whose parents were just as open and enthusiastic as they were, sharing food, asking about us and where we were from, giving us the inside scoop on the festival and surrounding area. It was such a change from the kid scene in Detroit, which isn't nearly as open and friendly.

C's schedule is all mixed up, so I'm going to go drag her lazy ass out of bed and haul her to daycare so I can put in a few last company hours. UGH.