The 8th Annual Gathering

The morning sky was lovely.  I jumped out of bed to grab this photo as I waited for our guests to arrive.

The first to arrive was a 32' RV from SoCal followed by this rig from Lakeview California.

Josh and Missy rolled in from Oregon just in time for lunch and it's a good thing because they had lunch patrol this year.  First things first though - they're setting up the awning for the "beer garden."

By noon, our place was a pretty full house.

A couple years ago we recognized the need to supplement the indoor plumbing.

Most of the over-nighters were in RVs.  We only had three tents this year plus this hybrid tent that attached to Jerry and Lorrie's SUV, letting them sleep in their vehicle but have stand-up changing room.

The most popular table game this year was Mexican trains because any age can play it. 

The most popular game was again the double elimination horseshoe tournament on Saturday.  It took a good part of the day and most everyone either played or watched.

Dirt was also a huge attraction.  I forget that not every boy has dirt to play in.

McKay our grand-niece and her family flew here from North Carolina.  Her parents shipped out a new-to-us game called Corn in the Hole, which is apparently popular in the South.  It's fun out here in the West too!

We had a little bluegrass pick-up band this year.  Several of us are vowing to dust off our own strings and knuckle down before next year so we can play too.   Alison and I sang along by looking up the words on our iPhones!  How times have changed. 

To give you an idea how eclectic the gathering is, Martha on mandolin is an old boss of mine, John on guitar and I went to 7th and 8th grades together then reconnected through Facebook, and Petey on banjo went to community college with Ian.

The food never stops.  This is breakfast Saturday which Rochelle fixed.  It's almost a bidding process.  People volunteer what they're bringing and when.  We have never had better food than we did this year, though because of the flies, all meals were served in the kitchen.  Rena drove out from Connecticut and got here Thursday.  She's a kitchen maven and worried to me about having enough food since we're so far from stores.  Ice is a problem, food is not.  I told her it's like the Bible story of the fishes and the loaves.  The food is heaping over at the end.  Later she told me that she got my analogy.  We eat well.

Buster and Maddie went to pet camp so Sammie was here on her own.  She did great with the other dogs and was the absolute champ with all the children.  Some of you know that she's an abandoned dog who adopted us several years ago.  

Gavin was our youngest attendee year and loved Josh and Missy's sweet dogs.  You've heard about Burning Man and the playa dust.  That's what we are in outdoors  all day and what the baby is sitting on here.  It is silty but it washes off.

The end to another wonderful year came yesterday.  It's an intense three days.  We come together from all over, family and friends, and we'll do again next Labor Day.  I took 244 photos on my DSLR and whittled that down to about 130 which I uploaded to Flickr.  If you want to take an extra few minutes, you can watch them here.  The slideshow is nice. https://www.flickr.com/photos/institches/sets/72157646746052569/  

I'm tired and the house is dirty.  I haven't woven in a couple of weeks or read a book either for that matter, but I could not feel more grateful and thankful.