Long Time No Post, Again!

Good grief, friends, it has been a LONG time once again since I have updated this blog. I'm sitting in an internet cafe in Walsenburg, Colorado, right now, about to set off on the long, winding, spectacular US 160 from here, bound west for Cortez, Mesa Verde National Park, and the Four Corners area. Overdue as this update is, I will have to make it fairly brief because I have a long, long way to drive today.

Let's see... when I last wrote here, I was away off in Iowa. I'd just finished the Garden Grove festival and a visit with friends/musical cohorts Danny and Donna Dee in eastern Iowa. I was on my way to Des Moines to attend the Iowa State Fair with friends Scott, Jennifer, Emily, and Anna Erickson.

The Iowa State Fair was fun! I had not attended a state fair in many, many years. Being at the Iowa fair brought back memories of days of old. There is a lot about the Iowa fair that is cool. I think the most impressive experience for me was viewing by far the largest boar hog I have ever seen---a gigantic specimen weighing some 2,000 plus pounds.

After another fine visit with the Ericksons, I travelled to Missouri Valley, on the banks of the Missouri River on Iowa's western border, where I played two shows at the Bluegrass Cafe in Missouri Valley and enjoyed another good visit with my old friend Bob Raine. Bob lives at Logan, Iowa, which is just a few miles from Missouri Valley. Naturally, Bob and I had breakfast at the Bunkhouse Cafe in Logan, where the very best omelettes I have ever consumed are made. Also did a little hiking. I love to walk the hilly dirt roads around Bob's place. The countryside around Logan is stunningly beautiful.

One evening while I was staying with Bob Raine I went into Missouri Valley to play as a guest at a wedding anniversary surprise party for my friends Charlie and Julie Wisecup. It was fun to see how amazed the Wisecups were to see me there. I played I Would Do It All Again, among others, for them, and gave them a copy of the I Would Do It All Again CD as a gift. A good evening.

Turning west toward Nebraska after the Missouri Valley weekend, I journeyed to Homestead National Monument near Beatrice, Nebraska, where a section of the original tallgrass prairie that once covered the entire state has been recreated. I orginally went to Homestead years ago to hike trails through the preserve. One thing led to another, and I've been doing an annual concert there ever since! This year's show was a particularly fine success. We had a campfire (which I pretty much had to teach the young female park rangers to build). We had some music. We had some laughs. The audience was very warm and receptive. I stayed after the show and helped gather up folding chairs on which the audience sat. The place where we took the chairs was up a fairly long hill from the concert site. I had not had much exercise that day other than hiking a couple of the Homestead trails, so the workout was welcome.

On the Sunday after the Homestead concert I drove north and west to Crete, Nebraska, where I spent another magical day at the beautiful cabin Ted Beauvais and Janet Jeffries let me use, down a network of gravel roads near the Blue River Lodge. Wonderful!! Thanks Ted and Janet. :=))

In Lincoln, Nebraska, on Monday, I entertained an audience of senior citizens at a rest home in Lincoln, a show arranged for me by Deb Oates, a music fan and friend who works there. It was a fun gig, and I think the old folks enjoyed the show.

The next weekend found me doing a show at Charlie Wisecup's Farm Museum, back in Missouri Valley, Iowa. I seem to get through that town a lot! The Wisecup museum is really very cool, and he has a good crowd for his annual show. There were a number of entertainers on hand, some of whom I knew, and some who were new to me. I did my show, of course, supported by Lee Muller on guitar and Jimmy Pearce on bass. Both fine players. I had the pleasure of joining Lee and Jimmy in supporting Terry Smith later on. Standouts among the other performers were a band of folks doing sort of old-timey bluegrass music. There were lots of my friends and fans from far and wide in the audience. It was fun, as always, looking over the old farm equipment on display.

The next week, August 31 through September 6, I spent in LeMars, Iowa, in the far northwestern corner of the state, performing at the HUGE and WONDERFUL National Traditional Country Music Association festival. I can't possibly describe to you briefly the amazing variety of experiences and performances that make up this event. There are many stages, and music on every stage from early morning until late night. The audiences are big and very enthusiastic. I had terrific support from people like fiddle and guitar ace Jay Kelly (Nebraska), bass fiddle and accordion wizard Perk Washenberger (South Dakota), Mike Mitchell (Alabama), Anna Erickson (Iowa), Lee Muller (Kansas), Jake Simpson (Oklahoma), Janet Jeffries (Nebraska), on and on and on. I had fun supporting lots of musicians all weekend. I love to do that. I played more Dobro this festival than I have done in some past ones. More piano too, I think. Terry Smith was the festival headliner, and as always it was a pleasure to do the guitar and mandolin lead playing in his shows. We had the whole Terry Smith band for most of the festival. We are a pretty darned good group, I think.

As always I enjoyed working with young people just getting into the music. There was a lovely family named Kooi (a Dutch name), featuring beautiful talented kids; there were Austin and Rebekah Truax, a great young couple on the bill; Alexa Whipple, a powerhouse singer and yodeller aged fourteen; Emily and Anna Erickson, and more. Great fun. I received a nice note from one of the kids who couldn't make it to this festival, Jesie Frisbe, and Rebekah Truax made me an apple pie! All good!!

Whew... Friends, I could easily write another couple of thousand words about the NTCMA festival, but I'm just out of time. Have to get on the road.

I do want to note that one of my stops on the way to where I am now, from Iowa, was at Arapahoe, Nebraska, a town nestled in a beeeyoootiful natural setting, where I am promoting a new festival next year. It will be called the Cottonwood Festival. We have a great, large, air conditioned building in which to have the shows. We have hookups for RVs. We have motels. We have food. We have horseback riding, fishing, a hayride probably, potluck around the campfire. All of this will be on the weekend of August 13-15, 2010. I will be performing with my musicians, of course. Many more acts TBA. Keep in touch. For additional information send me an e-mail: charleygroth@yahoo.com

Gotta go!!