Remington Ryde Bluegrass Festival, July 10-13, 2014 Thursday- Sunday

Thursday, July 10, we left the Manheim area and traveled 108 miles to the west to Centre Hall, Pa.  We were rallying with an Escapee group at the Remington Ryde Bluegrass Festival at the Grange Park.  Luckily, the area that we were parked in was not crowded and we were able to hook into 50 amp power along with water, no sewer (although, honey wagon service was available for a fee).  It was a busy weekend.  Bluegrass groups performed for about 45 minutes beginning at 12 noon on Thursday, 11am on Friday and Saturday and last performance schedule for 9pm.  Most groups performed twice on the day they were scheduled – once during the day and then again in the evening.  There were 6 groups on Thursday and then 8 groups on Friday and Saturday.  Tom and I attended most of the performances on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.  Remington Ryde, the festival name, is a bluegrass group that the promoter, Ryan Frankhouser, belongs to.  Rhonda Vincent & The Rage was the highlight of the festival performing on Saturday with a great show.  Other groups that performed that we liked were: “Little Roy and Lizzie Show”,  “Gentlemen of Bluegrass”, “Idletymes”, “Nothin Fancy”, “Goldwing Express” and “Hillbilly Gypsies”.  An outside stage was used and spectators brought their chairs to sit outside or under a tent.  It was a warm bright sunny couple of days and fortunately we secured an area under one of the tents to place our chairs.  Workshops were also conducted throughout the days.  Tom attended 2 workshops lead by RB Powell, Bluegrass theory and Music Theory.  He also went for a workshop on Guitars but the instructor did not show up.  It was a very busy weekend.  There were numerous food vendors on the grounds as well as sales of CD’s and such and festival souvenirs.

Sunday, July 13, church services were planned followed by some performances until mid afternoon.  We did not attend the Sunday activities.  We were about bluegrassed out and had planned to leave on this day.  So we packed up and were on the road about 9:30am heading for Gettysburg.  A little past 12 noon we were at Artillery Ridge Campground after 128 miles.  We wanted to stay here tonight to be able to dump our waste tanks before going home.  An open house was also being planned for this afternoon by our realtor for our house so we could not go home during this time.