The North Carolina State Bluegrass Festival

 The NC Bluegrass Festival

August 16 2023 Wednesday,

We departed Hickory Nut Falls Campground later than usual, as we only had 50 miles to travel to our next destination. For the next four days we will be in Marion North Carolina to attend the North Carolina State Bluegrass Festival. 

A Short ride this morning.

The Festival is held at the sprawling Tom Johnson Camping Center. The campground/Rally Park is now part of Camping World but they have kept the original name. That was a wise decision IMHO because The Tom Johnson Enterprise had an excellent reputation. It appears to me that CW is keeping the place in same pristine condition.

Some of the RVs here at the festival

The pavilion

Our campsite is in the Rally section so the sites are less opulent than the regular campground. We are in site G15 which is at the end of the row so we only have neighbors on one side of us. It is a full hookup site, meaning it has fresh water, electric hookup and sewer. The site is thick green grass, the drives down the rows are grass covered gravel and the main roads are asphalt. We are an easy walk to the covered pavilion where the show is held. There is no WIFI in the Rally Park but we have 5 bars on our Verizon Jetpack and very fast broadband.

At WOW moment: If you’ve been thinking about entering the RV lifestyle and you don’t plan of being your own Handyman, mechanic, maintenance person, Jack of all RV trades, do this first. Go to the service department of your nearby Camping World and check out the cost of their services. I do everything on our travel trailer and had no idea how expensive it is to pay for RV service.

August 17 2023 Thursday,

First day 

The entertainment starts at noon and features four Bluegrass groups; they each play a 45 minute session. This equates to four hours when you add in the set up time between groups. There is then a one and one half hour dinner break followed by the same performers in the same sequence. The groups have a different line up of songs in their second set.

My first collage.

Today we saw, in order of appearance, Retro78, Williamson Branch, Po Ramblin Boys, and the Malpass Brothers. We will not critique any of the performances, they are all good. We will say; we have been trying to match our travels to the Malpass Brothers schedule and this is the first time we’ve been successful. They were as great as we knew they would be. We were also pleasantly surprised by Po Ramblin Boys. They put on a very good show and their lead female singer is star quality. 

Malpass Brothers

 

Po Ramblin Boys

During dinner break we went to a local restaurant called J Hartmond for dinner and it was very good, but the cost with tip was $16 each for a loaded baked potato and a salad. We also drove to the local Walmart for a few supplies.

August 18, 2023 Friday

Second day

Today the line up was Deeper Shade of Blue, Tim Graves and the Farm Hands, Rhonda Vincent and the Rage and Nothin Fancy. Again, no critiques, they were all good. Ronda Vincent was the headliner for today; she grew up in the music entertainment world and is known as the Queen of Bluegrass. Millie has been a fan and Facebook friend for a long time. It was the first time Millie got to see her in person and she was not disappointed, Great show!

Rhonda Vincent and the Rage.

Rhonda Vincent, Queen of Bluegrass.

view from about half way back in the pavilion.

Fans lining up to buy Rhonda Vincent souvenirs.

At the dinner break we went to Ingles grocery store and purchased Sweet and Sauer chicken with noodles from their hot foods counter. We ate back at the RV, we each only ate half our dinners and saved half for tomorrow, which means our dinner only cost $3. per person. We have dined “ala grocery store prepared meals” several times in the past when traveling and now that we have to live under bidenomics we will be doing it a lot more.

August 19, 2023 Saturday

Third day,

We have passed a thrift store in our travels around town and decided to go browsing this morning before the show. While we were out and about we drove through some of the local RV parks just to check them out, anyhow we ended up on a long windy road locally called “The devils Whip”. It took us all the way up the mountain to the Blue Ridge Parkway. We drove north on the parkway until we got to the next road going back down towards Marion.

We would have made to the music festival in time for the 2nd set but for some unknown reason I happened to check the propane tanks on the RV. The fittings at the ends of both hoses (China Made) had small leaks, one tank was near empty, the other probably would be too except I had the valve turned off. There is a Camping World RV store at this complex that includes the rally ground and we are leaving in the morning so I purchased replacement hoses (USA made) and installed them.

We saw almost all of the 2nd set; that was ok, as much as I enjoyed the entertainment, after three days of sitting in a lawn chair my old body was starting to complain. We saw Backline, Terry Baucom’s Dukes of Drive and Authentic Unlimited.

My friend Doug who is a North Carolina Good ol Boy asked me via text how I liked my first Bluegrass experience. This was my reply.