Sorry it has been so long since my last post. Have been spending time out in the 'wilds', so it seems, in what is the equivalent of a WiFi black hole. Right now I'm at Camp Thunder Ridge in West Virginia for the 4 day dance weekend 'Almost Heaven'. Starring both the bands, Elixir and Swallowtail, it has so far been a stupendous two days and nights of glorious contra dancing. Add in 150-200 of my closest friends and you can see that this dance is something special.

    Got to camp on Friday afternoon after nearly 7 long hard hours of driving in a hard crosswind. I had been communicating with one of the people setting up the camp so when I got there I found that they had a great parking spot for me down on the running track. Dry, level and right next to the shower room, the only thing missing was an electrical hookup. But the new batteries I installed a couple of weeks ago seem to be working perfectly, so there has been no problem with running the lights for the few hours a day that I need.

    The food has been pretty good overall and now that the wind has finally died down it has started to warm up a bit again. The first couple of nights were pretty cold here. I did okay because I have plenty of extra blankets and sleeping bags in the trailer, but some of the other's, mostly the women, but a guy or two also, got pretty cold there. I handed out a couple spare blankets to a few people and that seemed to make the night easier for them.

    So far the only problem, if you think of it as such, is that there isn't much of a WiFi signal out there at camp. I can get a bit of a signal, enough to read an email if you are patient enough to wait more than 5 mins for each one to load, but sending anything out is so excruciatingly slow that I finally just gave up rather than sit there for the nearly 40 mins it took to get one email sent.

   So this morning I drove in to the town of Winchester Virginia and pulled into a local McDonald's for a bit, But my computer battery is now about sucked dry and there are no outlets in sight. I'm going to sign off now with the promise of getting back on again sometime tomorrow night. I'll be done with camp here by then and on the road to Oswego New York at that point. Another dance next weekend there; The Great Bear Groove, with one of my favorite bands The Great Bear Trio (GBT). Really looking forward to that dance and seeing some of my favorite friends there.