Camping Trip, Day Four, July 30

Saturday, July 30: Got up fairly early, so we could get ready to go to the grape festival. We arrived at the festival grounds around 10 a.m., in time to listen to a polka band, watch a chicken dance, and see a grape stomp, a grape pie eating contest, and a Baccus look-alike contest.

Mother was content to sit in her wheelchair and listen to the music, while the rest of us milled around the festival and sampled wines at the various tents. When the ice cream wagon opened, I got Mother a cup of soft serve ice cream.

While she ate that, Sis and I went across the street to the museum, where it was wonderfully cool. The focal point of the museum is the display of coal mining equipment, because that was the industry of the area for many years. In fact, there is a memorial at the park that features a statue of a coal miner, and several marble monuments listing the names of coal miners, some of whom were killed in mining accidents.

The museum also had a very old slide projector and color slides of famous works of art. The projector and slide cases are wood. Very interesting.

Sis and I were both interested in a display of necklaces made of China berries. We weren't willing to pay the original $9.50 price, but we were willing to pay the sale price of $4.50. Sis bought a chocker necklace of dark pink China berries, and I bought a longer one of light pink berries.

Then we went back to the festival, and left shortly thereafter to go back to camp for lunch. While we were at the camper, the electricity went off...not a good thing in the record-breaking July heat. Hubbie tried the breakers indoors, to no avail, and then checked the outdoor breaker. That worked and the lights and air conditioning came back on. Unfortunately, the power surge fried an outlet in the bathroom.

In the afternoon, Mother decided to stay home and rest while Hubbie, Sis and I went back to the festival. I left my cell phone with Mother, in case the power went out again.

We went back to the winery that specializes in fruit wines other than grape, because I wanted to buy a particular type that I'd tasted at the festival. Inside the winery, there was a man playing a fiddle, and a little boy handing out brown paper bags of grapes for free.

We sampled a few wines and then went to another winery, where there is a room set up for wine tasting on festival days...a larger space than their regular tasting room. In the parking lot, Hubbie waited and waited for a lady standing at the open back door of her vehicle endlessy doing we know not what in the backseat. Hubbie finally decided to go ahead and edge into the empty parking space beside her. She seemed a bit surprised by his audacity, but she didn't shut her car door.

We had no sooner exited our van than Mother called to say the power had gone off again. Drat. We hurried back to the campground, hoping Mother and the animals weren't getting insufferably hot.

Hubbie went to the registration building to report the outage, and was advised that we needed to move the camper to a new spot. Great. Move the camper in 100 degree temperatures! But move it we did. First, we got Mother and the animals into the yard, and then Hubbie folded the camper, and I helped guide him into a new spot.

While this was going on, Sis said Mother was getting too hot, so I turned on the air conditioner in the van and got Mother seated in there.

By the time we got the unit moved, my face was blazing red from the heat, and I downed a glass of ice water and mopped my face with a wet cloth. I felt no adverse effects beyond being overheated, but my face sure was red.

Once we'd gotten Mother and the animals settled, we went back to the winery, where we sampled a couple of wines and a few kinds of grape juice...Mother and Daughter had requested that we buy them each a bottle of juice. I also bought a basket of white muscadine grapes.

Then it was back to the festival for a few more rounds at the winery booths (sounds like we really swilled the wine all weekend, but actually we were given only very small tastes each time).

While we were there, I took pictures of a couple of cute calico rabbits. I'd never seen that coloring on rabbits before. Yesterday, I took pictures of a monkey in a cage at the grounds where the camel was stationed.

By 4 p.m., we were ready to head back to camp, where I heated barbecue and canned corn. We had that with coleslaw, and potato salad that we'd made yesterday from leftover mashed potatoes. Of course, as with most meals this trip, we also had grape tomatoes from our garden. It was all very good and seemed to hit the spot. This is one of Sis's favorite meals, so she particularly enjoyed it.

We spent the rest of the evening playing Skipbo. I don't know who won how many games, but I think we all won a few over the several days that we played.

Vacation over. Time to head home in the morning.

Note: Saw lots of animals this trip...besides the camel, monkey, and rabbits at the festival, we noticed a fawn, still in spots, dash into a thicket as we traveled up a hill to the Catholic Church. At the campground, there was a crane and a flock of geese. There was also a snapping turtle, but unfortunately, Hubbie smashed it when he moved the camper to another site (of course, we didn't know the turtle had been under our unit until Sis mentioned it later).