Left home for the hang at 5am on Friday in the rain and it rained hard most of the way to the park. With the rain came low clouds which means few views. Did see lots of Christmas tree farms in the area. As soon as we crossed into VA we were greeted by that unmistakable Pepe Le'Pew smell (skunk). Did see a couple of deer along the road. Got to Grayson a little before 1pm.
Found the hang site and set up our stuff. Ran in to Detail Man and his family whom I met at the Hot Springs hang last fall.
Wife wanted the 4 of us (my two sons came with us ) to hang together and we did manage to find a place.. This was wife's and sons first group hang and for one son, his first time camping in a hammock. We finished hanging our gear hung just as it started raining. Made for an interested weekend as this was my first time since I started hanging that it has rained while I was hanging.
Rockdawg (at least I think it was him) had erected a large blue tarp that cover the picnic table and this became "the place" to be when it was raining as we cooked our group meals under it. At times we had 3 Coleman stoves going along with a turkey fryer propane stove to cook those group meals. Also other hangers were using an assortment of backpacking stoves to make coffee, hot chocolate and or cook up other assorted goodies. If anyone went hungry at this hang it their own fault for not getting in line to get some food. While I did not gain any weight this weekend I did go thru the line for seconds and thirds, especially for the Gumbo made by GUMBO.
There were name tags with everyone’s trail-name or real name which it made it much easier to know who someone is (great idea as I am terrible with names) and most of us wore them.
My van battery died and I want to thank the fellow hanger who gave me jump.
Dutch showed up late Friday afternoon and a bunch and of us were checking out his set up hoping to see some new Dutch Toys but we were disappointed.
Friday night about a dozen of us went to the amphitheater next to the Camp Store and watched a slide show on Grayson Park. Learned that the famous Ponies were introduced in the 70's to help keep the highlands brush down. Apparently sheep and cows were tried but could not survive the winters.
After the group breakfast Saturday some folks decided to hike and most of the rest of us went to the festival to play tourist and or help with the hammock display. We were located along a trail leading to and from the food vendors and the main stage so we got lots of foot traffic. We had about 6 different hammock setups and had a fair number of folks of all ages trying out the hammocks. Even had a couple of people wanting to buy hammocks. I had a laptop and was playing Shug's "how to" videos. Smokey the Bear and Sparky the Flying Squirrel stopped by and tried out the hammocks. I think one guy spent about an hour checking out all the different hammock setups.
Back at camp we had Gumbo for dinner and then the raffle. Dutch was the master of ceremony. Lots of great prizes and a big thanks to everyone who donated something for the raffle. I won Pudden's Gost book for my wife and she had him sign it. I also scored one of Dutch's new toys (not available to the general public yet). Dutch said he would send me video on them as soon it is ready. Several hundred $$$ was raised and the $$ after paying for the camp site are going to be donated to the Friends of Grayson Park. One person who won a set of Dutch Ridgelines managed to get them thoroughly tangled and I offered to help untangle them. Did not tell him that I have gotten pretty good at untangling lines lately due to the number of my own I have had to untangle.
Several of us made bad jokes about Big Turtle’s fire starting ability and he still got a great fire going in spite of us.
Pudden told us stories about his childhood and his dad then told us what really happened. Later his dad played and sang some songs for us and then Pudden told some ghost stories.
It started raining later Saturday night and it came down hard. Then the lighting and thunder started up. While I did not get wet that night I did get drenched while taking down my gear in the AM. Did not try to keep anything dry, we just packed it way wet and headed home. Detail Man came by and gave us a hand taking down our stuff (Thanks Detail Man). Right now we got stuff hung out all over the garage drying out.
Looking forward to my next group hang.
Originally Posted by gunner76
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