Saturday, July 27

We were up around 7 a.m. this cool morning. Had a yummy breakfast of raisin-cinnamon bread (smeared with cream cheese) that Sis had provided, along with fresh fruits...Bing cherries, cantaloupe, and peaches, and coffee.

We all took turns getting ready for the day, and around 9:30, Hubbie, Sis, and I were ready to head to the festival grounds. Mother opted to stay home this morning.

Festival organizers mentioned yesterday that if predicted rain materialized, the festival would be cancelled today, but fortunately the front passed, and it was a lovely day, so the the festival proceeded.

Our mission was to see if that vendors at that refrigerated truck was dispensing grapes, yet. They were, so I bought two boxes of the sweet Reliance grapes, and one box of Venus. Sis bought one of each.

We took our bounty to a shade tree, where I peered in my bags. I found that one of the boxes seemed short of grapes. When Hubbie returned, he gave me some more money, and I went to buy three more boxes of grapes.

Before I did, though, I pointed out to the vendor that one of boxes I'd already purchased seemed short. He agreed, and took all three of the boxes and stuffed them with more grapes. He did the same with the three other boxes I got. I now felt I'd gotten my money's worth.

We toured the festival grounds while we were there, stopping at a woodworker''s booth. This older gentleman displayed a beautiful mug holder that caught my eye. I have some specialty mugs that I thought would look nice on it, so Hubbie bought it for me.

At a "Treasures From Africa" booth, I saw beautiful basket-weave totes. I would have liked to have one, but I had run out of cash. Phooey.

We headed back to camp after that, but before we turned toward the campground, we stopped at a grocery store to get a smoked chicken. I actually wanted a rotisserie chicken, but when we checked this morning, we were told the rotisserie was down, and the only ones available were the smoked ones in the cooler. We settled for one of them.

Back at camp, we had a sandwich lunch and watermelon, and then we all went back to the festival. Mother went with us this time.

Hubbie bought festival wine glasses for Sis and me, which we used to sample wines at the various booths set up around the grounds. The festival featured the usual events...grape stomping, grape pie eating contests, etc.

Just after a grape stomping contest, we noticed that an elderly woman, assisted by her daughter and frail husband, was about to faint. I could see that the husband was not going to be able to hold the woman up very long, so I slipped into his place and helped hold her up, while festival staff ran in search of a chair, and went to inform attending paramedics of the crisis.

Someone brought a chair, and we got the lady seated. She was slumped head forward, and I couldn't tell if she was breathing. I knelt down and kept calling to her, asking if she could hear me. I gently patted her cheek to get her attention. She finally answered that she could hear me.

By now, paramedics arrived and went to work putting an ice pack on her neck, checking her vitals, etc., while a staff member asked her a battery of questions to be sure she hadn't had a stroke. She was able to answer everything, so it appeared that she had simply gotten heat stressed. Her daughter said she wasn't accustomed to walking that much.

The temperature today, although much moderated from past years in July, was still pretty warm by this time of the afternoon, so I'm not surprised that this 84-year-old woman got heat stressed. I hope her daughter considers a wheelchair for her for similar outings in the future. I know Mother is very grateful for hers.

This was one of those times when I was very grateful that I've kept up my stair stepping, resistance bands, and weights exercises, as well as water aerobics, which have given me good leg and arm muscle power.

After that, Mother was ready for a cup of soft-serve ice cream, which I fetched for her. This treat is one of her favorite things about summer festivals.

When we had tired of the festival, we decided to head back to camp. First, though, we stopped at a primitive tools museum, just across the highway from the festival grounds.

This museum is anything but handicapped accessible, so it was a trick getting Mother into her wheelchair and then into the museum. Hubbie drove across the lawn to get closer to the building, because we didn't want to try to push the wheelchair across the ground.

There is no ramp at the entrance...only three steps leading up to a narrow landing. So it took all three of us to get Mother up the steps and into her wheelchair. The landing is narrow, so it was hard to open the door past the wheelchair.

But we finally managed all that, and got into the building. Oddly, there was no one in attendance at the museum. I guess it was on-your-honor, though I don't know who would want to steal all that ancient stuff. And there's a lot of stuff in there, from farm implements to household appliances.

Stopped by a couple of wineries after. Hubbie wanted to get more bottles of $2 port (Sis bought some, too), and I wanted a bottle of sangria from another winery.

At the second winery, I stood at the counter, a little way away from Hubbie, while he purchased the wine. As we stood there, a middle-aged African-American and his wife came up, pushing a dolly with several cases of wine on it.

"Are you in line?" he asked.

"Oh, no," I said, as I stepped aside. "I'm just waiting for my husband. I'll get out of the way."

"You don't want anybody to know you're with him?" he laughed.

"No, that's not it," I objected, "I think he's cute."

 The man turned to his wife. "How come you ain't never told me I'm cute?" he asked.

"What? Now I got to tell you you're cute?" she chided.

The man put his arm around my shoulder and pretended to walk with me toward the door. "I think I'll just go home with her," he laughed.

That was funny enough, but it was even funnier that Hubbie was so engrossed in dealing with the clerk at the counter that he didn't even notice the conversation. At the van, though, he commented to Mother and Sis that he'd almost lost me to another man.

Back at camp, Sis and I prepared supper...the smoked chicken, with more baked beans, and macaroni salad, along with grape tomatoes from our garden, and Sis's yeast bread.

After supper, we peeled and slice peaches for the freezer. We got three quarts for us, and three for Sis. The rest would have to wait until we got home.

When we finished with the peaches, we relaxed outdoors, enjoying the cool evening. We noticed that there were no gnats or mosquitoes. Maybe the cooler weather discouraged them.

Later, closer to sunset time, we went to the dam site overlook. Here, mosquitoes were in evidence, so Hubbie retrieved the bug spray from the van.

At the overlook, we watched a tugboat maneuver multiple barges into the lock. This takes a very long time, and we didn't stay for the whole process. But we were there long enough to see a beautiful sunset. I snapped several shots of it.

We headed back to camp after that, but not before we swung by the lighted bridge, where I also snapped several shots.

At camp, we were ready to call it a day. Festival time was over. Time to head home tomorrow.