It was July 2012, let’s say it began with this woman beating her drum with dance tap shoes. I was intrigued by the unusual drumming method and just the whole band in general was super cool, I mean who else has a stand-up bright green bass? The band “He’s My Brother, She’s My Sister” has just that.
This Tahoe afternoon at the park got it all going and transported me into the memories of going to Millpond Music Festival in the late 90’s before all the kids sports and school activities took over our calendar. I wanted to return to this happy place and the 2012 Joshua Tree would begin that cycle. Here I would not only experience great music, but also people like Glen and his Hillbilly Hotel (the blue schoolie with a top deck for drumming at sunset)
So I decided to pursue festivals full on, and I hit Bottle Rock, Joshua Tree, Strawberry, Ballyshannon, Millpond, and American River in 2013. By 2014, I was hooked on music festivals and we were full fledged empty nesters as we took Jazmine to school at Colorado State. Dragging around the JayFeather was just not conducive to getting there in the dark and leaving after the last show, so we could return to work on Monday morning.
The van was the way to go for two people who were so far from everything as one in Ridgecrest is. The 2014 RV show in Pomona was to only be for informational purposes since we had planned a four week Australia trip to visit Jenny. John says it is the best thing he has ever gotten me. Little did we know it would change our lives. We ordered the new Pleasureway Ascent in October 2014. And guess what, yet another music festival, Woodford Folk Fest in Brisbane while in Australia where we would rent a Vinny look-alike before he even arrived. When we returned from Australia in January 2015, ironically on my birthday, we took ownership.
More music festivals Such as July 4th High Sierra Music Festival in Quincy California, Parkfield Bluegrass and Kate Wolf in 2022 would follow….The “Fantasy Van” as Ma named him made festing a breeze, and if the children must come, he could pull the JayFeather, like at Strawberry in 2017.
Our family has done much camping over the last 25 years. A tent quickly turned into a tent trailer in 1998, that turned into a 31- foot “Brave Warrior”, Winnebago Brave RV in 2004.
We would be off to the east coast with our minivan in tow for the entire summer. We saw Bryce, Zion, the Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, Mt Rushmore, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and of course the Jersey Coast. In 2011, the “Brave Warrior” was stolen from the Heritage Village RV lot. For the next year we would rent a trailer from our local RV store so we could continue our Thanksgiving camping tradition. In 2012 we bought the 23 foot JayFeather trailer that could sleep a lot of bodies to accommodate all those J girls friends.
This is where we were when Vinny VanGo came into the fleet in 2014. The JayFeather is history as we sold her in the great purge of 2022, and children will have to tent it.
Travels with Vinny VanGo 