Road Trip Number One: HFAA Workshop

 This is the month of back to back events it seems.  Back to back county fairs, roadtrips and birthdays.  Why stop if you can just do it all over again the next week!?  (Well, one reason is because it gets a bit tiring.  I'm looking foreward to a much less scheduled August.)   We did pack in some pretty unique experiences the past couple of weeks.   Join me as I take you along on our adventures...

Roadtrip Number One:  The Hardanger Fiddle Association of America's national workshop (HFAA) at Folklore village, near Dodgeville, WI.

     I dropped Sylvia off at the workshop each morning at 8 AM, along with her friend, Laura Johnson. They spent the day learining Norweigen fiddle tunes and meeting other players from around the country.  Sylvia was in the advancd class, and got to learn from a teacher they had brought over from Norway.  

  The girls made new friends and learned new songs during the day, then played music for the dancers in the evenings.  I attened the final Saturday night concert and "dance party".  After the groups played, individaul fiddlers went up to the microphone and played one after another, for hours.  The dancers would listen to the music a bit at the start, and then start pulling each other onto the floor as they recognized the step patterns that went with the various type tunes.  It was really neat to see how organic it was.  I didn't get any video of that later portion (it was almost midnight, and I was just enjoying soaking it all in.)   We were in bad around 12:30AM.  I heard it kept going until 4AM!   Here is a video of a song I really enjoyed listeing to earlier in the evening, when the groups were playing the songs they had learned together:

While the girls were in classes, Ephraim and I went out adventuring. The first day was to Haven's Petting Farm, outside Mt. Horeb. What a fun place!  Basically, if you could catch it, you could pet it. Cats, goats, ducklings, rabbits, piglets, cows, chickens, llamas, and a zebra! It was fun to feed them, pet them, and hold them. We spent hours here, just enjoying all the marvelous creatures around us.

The upper portion of the barn was a fun area to play in. They had tunnels built in the bales of hay, and a huge corn pit. I saw there, and wondered why I just watch Ephraim play at places like this, but I had paid just the same price.. so I took my shoes off, and started digging in the corn. I buried my feet, then Ephraim. It felt really relaxing and hypnotic to let them run out of my hands over an over again. 

My favorite part was sitting at the top of the hill above the farm, looking out over the cows, and the hills. The wind was blowing, and it was so peaceful.  Ephraim and I sat on a bench together and talked about what we would raise on a farm if we owned one. I think Ephraim would make a great farmer.

We went swimming that evening to get all the dust from the barn and corn bin off us. It felt great.  The next day we went to the Mississippi River Museum in Dubuque, Iowa after we dropped the girls off at their class.  They had great exhibits on saltwater fish and oceans as well as the Mississippi River fish.

Ephraim got to feed stingrays. It was a really unique experience. He  got very wet, and did not particularly appreicate the salty water dripping down his face.

They had an amazing touch pool, with sea anenomes, cucumbers and star fish. It was as good as an aquarium as we saw at the Oregon coast.

  My favorite spot though, was the topographic map activity tub.  It was a tub full of rubber chips, with a light and projector haning over the top. It had a sensor on it, so it could color the tub different colors based on the height from the lamp.  It oculd also create "rain" if you held your hand out for 10 seconds, blocking the light (like a cloud over the terrain).  Then the "water" would run down the landscape you had just scuplted. You could dig channels, and make mountains or volcanoes. We played there together for almost an hour.  It felt good to play like a kid again, and be part of Ephraim's creative world.

It was a lot of work, keeping Ephraim busy, but not overwhelmed, for a couple of hot and humid summer days.  But we did have fun.  Fiona, the wolf pup, started her modeling career on this trip:

Ephraim got a kick out of making her look like she was in a National Geographic movie. We both agree that stuffed animals are much easier to pose for pictures than chickens.

Another of my favorite times was Friday night, when we were waiting for the girls to call us to pick them up. It was late, after 9pm, and Ephraim was in his pajamas, playing cards with me on the bed. We were snacking on a bowl of cheetohs and poptarts. It felt like such a good life.

     The final morning was pretty idyllic as well. We were waiting for the final morning of classes to begin, and had some extra time.  I sat in the rocking chair, reading in the cabin. We had the front door open to let in the fresh cool morning air. The sunshine made the wooden floor glow. Sylvia sat on the bed, fiddle under her arm, plucking a tune she was working on learning, while Laura sat on the couch, knitting.   You could hear the birds outside.  It was as if we were living out a scene from a "Little House on the Prairie" book.