lake eden arts festival (leaf) – day 1

friday morning started off miserably. Nothing went right. The girls and I finally got on the road at quarter to 11 — I had been hoping to leave around 9. Remembering my illness following eating at Taco Bell on our trip back from Texas a week previously, we decided to stop for lunch at Moe’s. Traffic in Anderson, SC, was horrible and put us even further off the schedule.

Instead of following the directions from the LEAF website, we followed the directions from mapquest and the TomTom. All went well until the last turn. I was convinced it was the wrong road as we turned on it. But then, seeing a line of cars as I rounded the turn, I was prematurely hopeful we were in the right place. Then I saw the tree blocking the road. And all the cars turning around. Having no idea how to follow the LEAF directions from our current location, I decided to not worry about it and simply follow the line of cars in turning around. Thankfully, it did not turn out to be the blind leading the blind, and we arrived!

Our friend and neighbor Lalah had come out to the registration booth to meet us, which was, oh so nice. We checked in, drove to the “family campground” and unloaded with the help of Lalah and her husband. Once the car was unloaded, I drove the two miles (very, very slowly), parked the car and walked back. By the time I got back, they had gotten our tent set up! The girls and I worked on setting up the rest of our camping gear, then wandered around the festival grounds to get our bearings.

What a gorgeous property! A beautiful lake, surrounded by the mountains. And for dinner? We bought a pizza. We watched the pizza folks hand tossed the dough and made the pizza in real pizza ovens, right there in a vendor tent!

We took the pizza back to our “compound” and dug in. At that point, I had noticed my wristband was gone, so I went over to find out if I could get a new one. The organizers begrudgingly gave me a new one. And, despite asking for it to be put on tightly, it was put on so loose that I could slide it right off my wrist.

The girls played games, then we went to bed to read. During the night it started to rain. And rain. And rain. Thankfully, we stayed mostly dry and mostly warm in our little tent.