Don't Go Ridin' on that Long Black Train

Tonight we're in Berea, a small town known as the Arts and Crafts Capital of Kentucky.  I guess that's true, but I'd be a better judge if the town didn't roll up its streets at 5 PM, even the Visitor Center.  The only  exception seems to be the Thursday night blue grass jam in the hall of the Berea Baptist Church.  Under a larger-than-lifesize painting of Jesus at Gethsemane, that church was rockin' with a dozen musicians sitting in a circle playing old timey blue grass songs for over two hours.  There were guitars, banjos, mandolins, even a Hawaiian guitar, the kind that you play horizontal on your lap.  The group meets once a week and anyone's welcome to participate.  Bob Hastings, you could have played your spoons here to a round of applause.  The audience tonight were mostly locals, eating hot dogs and peanut butter cookies and singing along when they heard their favorites.  Requests were welcome as minor challenges, particularly if you wanted to sing an off-key solo yourself.  I thought about it but couldn't muster the courage.  What a treat to find myself in the middle of such pure enjoyment of music making.

And the Adventure Begins . . .

It’s the evening before I leave for two months on a Canadian adventure.  I’m hanging out at home with a few close friends, eating pizza, drinking wine, and enjoying good company.  I’ll miss these impromptu gatherings that happen frequently in my neighborhood of Historic Oakwood.

Spending the last evening before leaving with my Oakwood  "buds"

I’m Ruth Sappie and I live in Raleigh, North Carolina.  I’m driving to Banff in Alberta, Canada to volunteer for a month in Banff National Park as a park ranger assistant.  Tomorrow my sister Bunny and I leave on a 3,000 mile, 40-hour road trip.  It will take us 5 or 6 days to get to Canmore, Alberta, a small town about 20 minutes away from the park.  We’ll spend three days sightseeing in the Canadian Rockies and then she’ll fly home out of Calgary.  I’ll stay in the park for the next four weeks.  I don’t know what I’ll be doing yet, but in one correspondence, interacting with the public, clearing trails, and amphibian monitoring (I hope that means frogs) are listed as likely assignments.