One of the funnest things we do every year is play music with our friends. Carol plays the hammered dulcimer and I play mandolin. Well, we attempt to play as most of our music friends have been playing for many decades are we’re just approaching our first decade playing. Despite our skill level our musician friends tolerate us and we have fun
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One of the festivals that we camp at is in Evart, Michigan. We first attended in 2017 after one of our KC friends told us they were attending. I mean, going to Michigan during the hottest week of the year in KC is a good thing. The first year we attended I forgot to bring jackets and boy did I regret that as it can get into the 50’s at night.
We call it Evart but it’s the Evart FunFest and it’s sponsored by The Original Dulcimer Players Club which I think is one of the oldest hammered dulcimer clubs in the country. It’s held in the Osceola 4H campground the third weekend of July and it’s 3 days of workshops, venders, stage acts, and late night jamming. Oh, and it’s incredibly family friendly too with activities for the kiddos and kiddos at heart.
One of the reasons why we love Evart so much is that we were adopted into the Squirrels Nest family. Squirrels Nest is a music jam tent that is run by the Kaiser family. They perform on stage Thursday night to open the festival and they hold a jam every night under their canopy they put up in the corral. During the festival it’s not uncommon to get 30 or more people playing a variety of instruments. It’s quite a site to behold.
This year we met a family with 11 kids. Eleven! The older kids all play an instrument and they are very talented. I have no doubt that the younger ones will pick up instruments when they get older too. Our grandson is with us this week and he’s having a blast playing with all the kids and he’s exhausted every night from playing hard all day long.
Last night we had the Rodent Games 2022 where 3 different camps come together and play silly games. The Squirrels, Sloths, and Porcupine camps competed for the coveted Rodent Cup by completing 6 tasks of varying skills. Much laughter and fun was had by all. Tonight Squirrels Nest hosts taco night for anyone that wants to attend and there’s a surprise birthday party for Lynn Ellen who puts in so much work to make everyone feel welcome.
To say that music has changed our lives is not an exaggeration. I’m not sure we’d be living full-time in an RV if we hadn’t started playing instruments and meeting all these interesting people. I played saxophone in elementary school and Carol played some piano as a kid but I was in my late 40’s when I picked up a mandolin. I cheated a bit as our daughter did Suzuki Violin and the parents are teachers too in that program so I learned the finger positions of a violin and the mandolin has the same fingering as a violin but with frets. So I had a little bit of a head start on the mandolin.
I wish I had learned by ear as I need ‘the dots’ to play most songs. Many of our friends can play hundreds of songs from memory and our daughter, bless her heart, can hear a song for a few minutes and then play, at speed. That’s the skill I wish I had and need to work on.
Every time we go to a music festival we meet new friends. And this introduces us to more festivals and more friends. It’s not an exaggeration to say we have music friends in nearly every state. We have changed our travel itinerary more than once to attend a festival that someone recommended. If you’re ever in this part of the country in mid-July I highly recommend the Evart FunFest and looking up the Squirrels Nest!