Bluegrass on the Beach - Lake Havasu, AZ Mar 2-6, 2017

Bluegrass on the Beach Festival, Lake Havasu, AZ

“Bluegrass on the Beach,” Lake Havasu, AZ, Mar 3-5, 2017 Happens every year, first weekend of March, at Lake Havasu State Park, AZ

Bob is a volunteer at this festival, which is Mar. 03-05, 2017. He has to arrive a day early (Thurs. Mar 2) to start his work shifts. It takes 2 1/2 – 3 hours to get there from our house so I planned to leave by 9 am,, and son-of-a-gun, we did! Arrived at the campground around noon, only stopping to refuel at the Loves at Lake Havasu on the way. We parked in the paved parking lot area as we did last year, rather than the dirt and hilly parking areas.

Parking Lot Camping

All the camping/parking areas were almost full already when we got there, so we really couldn’t have chosen the dirt areas if we’d wanted to. Might be more pickers parked down there, but that’s ok – it’s easier parking and leveling on the paved lot. We parked on the last row to try and stay away from the big Class A’s but ended up with plenty of them close to us anyway. Class A’s ruled the parking lot, including the huge Prevost we saw there last year! Bob’s first shift was to start at 2, so having arrived at noon, we thought we’d have plenty of time to set up camp and have some lunch. But at 1:00, one of the volunteers came around looking for Bob – said he was supposed to be down at the ice house for his shift! Oops! We forgot again that the time zone changes when you cross the Colorado into Arizona. You have to set your clocks ahead an hour! Oh well, he grabbed his sandwich and wasn’t but a couple of minutes late. The weather was beautiful when we arrived – about 70 degrees, a slight, cooling breeze, and clear skies. Since no bands were scheduled to play until Friday, they showed a movie that night – a very good, and quite lengthy interview with Ralph Stanley. After that movie, they showed an episode of Cumberland Mountain from RFDTV featuring the Stanley’s, but I was starting to get cold, so we went on to bed. I was very impressed with the quality of the bands! We had seen Bluegrass ETC last year, and they were excellent again this year particularly having just banjo, guitar, and bass. There was also Larry Stephenson and his band, Wayne Taylor and Appaloosa, Marty Warburton and the Home Girls, and Country Current, among others. First time we’d seen the CC since back in the days with Bill Emerson! I was very impressed with how good they are! Possibly even better than back then! This was the last gig for their banjo player. Introduced myself to Marty and to Wayne Taylor (who used to play with Country Current years ago). Will have to meet up with Marty again on FB!

The “Bluegrass Etc” band

Saturday’s weather was heavily overcast and windy, but not overly cold. That evening, ater the shows were over, I picked with some good ole boys for about an hour and a half. Don’t know who they were – they weren’t friendly, but didn’t mind my playing along. They obviously had been playing together for a long time, had some nice arrangements together, and had a lot of funny jokes and camaraderie. Sunday was even windier and colder. Was pretty unpleasant to sit out for more than a couple of hours. The overcast finally broke up about 2 pm but was still very windy.

Our dogs in the dog section

One really nice thing they started at this festival was setting off a space in the audience area for people with dogs! First time there and first time I’ve seen this anywhere! Would love to see this policy elsewhere! All the dogs did quite well together!! Met a nice fellow there with his wife and their little Shi-Tzu girl. She had a big topknot on her head – very cute. Was too tired and chilled to pick on Sunday night although I could still hear picking going on in the parking lots. Along about Sunday afternoon I noticed that the water pump wasn’t shutting off and pressure was low and beginning to spit. Tank empty. :(. Surprised it emptied so quickly, but it only ready 2/3 when we filled it. Seems that we just can’t fill it all the way because of the trailer being parked on a hill when we fill it. Bob added 5 gals from our cans, so we had enough to finish the day and night.