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Bean Blossom

Welcome to Bean Blossom!

There are three bluegrass festivals on my bucket list: Telluride, Merlefest and Bean Blossom. I’ve been to Telluride twice, once with my wife & daughter just for a day in 2001 and for the full week with my buddy Jim Medley 2012. Since it dovetailed nicely into my desire to visit the state of Michigan this year, I signed up for a full 8 day pass to Bean Blossom 2018. The central Indiana location is only 3-4 hours from Springfield IL, so I invited Jim to join me once again, thinking he might be able to drive over for the weekend. To my surprise, he took the entire week off work, so I had the pleasure of the company of one of my oldest friends for the whole festival. What a treat!

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Kentucky Backwoods 4

Relighting the Fire

I was unsuccessful at quitting smoking.

They say it can be addictive, and I guess that must be true. I was up to several times a week on several different devices. I had reached the point where everything tasted of smoke and my clothes and hair lent their smell every room I entered, like some gigantic campfire scented Airwick. So I tried to go cold turkey. (Ever notice how most cold turkey is smoked? But I digress.)

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Kentucky Backwoods 3

Traces of the Past

When you’re exploring America’s back roads, you often encounter reminders of an older era. Sometimes you are confronted with a full-tilt anachronism like this:

Amish farmer with a horse drawn hay rake in the rear view.

As I cruised out of the National Park into private lands, I passed a farmer baling hay. No big deal… except this chap’s hay rake was propelled by only two horsepower – as in two horses.  Pretty unusual to see such an old piece of mechanical farm machinery actually doing the job it was made to do a hundred years ago.

I was dawdling at the stop sign at the corner of his hay field, trying to figure out if I could get a photo of him without disturbing him, when the moment got even better. This Amish guy turned his team out onto the road behind me and started coming up on the truck. I turned the corner, and he came right along with me. When I glanced ahead I saw why. Continue reading “Kentucky Backwoods 3”