Grandfather Mt. Highland Games

FRIDAY:

Friday afternoon I zoomed up to Linville NC and to meet up with some girlfriends for the 2010 Grandfather Mountains Highland Games. I've never been to the games, so I was looking forward to it. My friends all had Scottish backgrounds and I realized I did to. My grandmother was a Campbell so I was looking forward to learning more about the Campbell surname. Kirsten and Cathy drove up on Tues, and Lisa showed up Thursday night for the Torch Ceremony. I had to work and could only get up there for camping on Friday and Saturday. So around 2:30pm, I pulled up to Grandfather Mountain in Linville, NC and up to the check in area to get my parking sticker and my camping pass (green wrist band). I called Kirsten to let her know I was here and she told me she'd be over in a second to show me where to go. Literally, a minute later she showed up and we entered, what I like to endearingly call, "the Shanty Tent Village." Seriously, there were miles and miles of tents and RV's all decked out in Scottish Flags. It was crazy! hahaha! We pulled up to our camp spot, a nice section on the bend towards McVillage, and met up with Cathy and Lisa. After quick hellos, I unloaded all my stuff (cooler, backpack, chair.) I had given Kirsten my tent last week, so they could save me a spot next to them. It was already up, so I dropped off my backpack and unfolded my air mattress and let the pump do it's job. In a couple of minutes, I was all unpacked and my air mattress was full. Kirsten went with me to go park my car at the camper's lot and we shuttled back to our shanty tent town.

Well, as soon as we walked up to our tent site, it started pouring rain. We all huddled under the canopy and since there was nothing else to do.... we started drinking! hahaha! I pulled out the Bourbon and Lisa and I had bourbon and gingers, while Kirsten and Cathy sipped on Beer and Scotch. When the rain finally let up a bit and we were feeling quite toasty, we all ventured out to give me a tour. We met up with the Browns, a family that Kirsten met a couple of years ago, when she came down for the highland games. They were such wonderful people, they had roasted an entire turkey and later that night, stopped by our tent to bring us a HUGE hunk of it to share. After goodbyes with the Browns, we venture back out onto shanty town lane and pass by a crazy looking Little House on the Prairie wagon that was decked out as a camping tent. You KNOW I had to check it out. haha! I met the crazy owner, who was waaaay more soused then I was and he said I could climb into his Scottish Gypsy Wagon and take a look. He had actually built the wagon over 2 years and customized it for traveling. It was like a mini RV. We continue on thru tent city and finally get to the vendor area and I get a sense of the place, but by then it was 5:30pm, so most things were closing down. We made one last stop at a Jewelry Tent and got caught in another crazy rain downpour. So we hung out with the vendor for about 45 mins. They were pretty cool and chit chatted with us about the Highland festivities. When the rain let up a bit, we high tailed it back to our tent site to make some dinner. A guy named Patrick noticed our stuff was getting wet, so he offers to plastic wrap one side of our canopy tarp and we graciously accept. He saved the day, cause our stuff was dried out and it didn't rain the entire rest of the trip! haha! Pat's a nice older guy who know's our other neighbor Linville, and is staying in an RV with his son around the corner. He and his son play bagpipes and they were here enjoying the festival and competitions.

More rounds of bourbon and ginger ales and introductions with our neighbors. I got to meet Linville Rose, who was a very refined gentleman with a HUGE ass tent for just him and his grandson. I mean his tent could be classified as a McMansion of tents. It had like 5 separate rooms. He had a closet with a wardrobe rack full of clothes in one room! haha! Seriously, he knows how to camp with style. I loved Linville, he was like the grandpa that watched over all of us, but was cool enough to thrown down and party with us too. Next to Linville it was Cynthia, her husband Mike, and their three kids. They were really nice and REALLY into being Scottish. Mike had the Scottish ancestry and wore his kilt the entire time we were there. He actually taught me alot about kilts, claymores, dirks, sgian dubh's, shields, tartans, and Pict's (the blue painted warriors, like in the BraveHeart movie). So Mike was an interesting character. Not only did he school me in all things Scottish, since he's been coming down to these games for years, he knows lots of people and when they would stop by, he would introduce all of us girls to everyone. So I got to meet other die hard Scots rocking out in kilts. Literally rocking out. You see, I got to meet/see most of the members of the popular Scottish band Albannach. They would stop by Mike's tent for a beer or just to chit chat! I saw Jamesie (Bass drummer), Donnie (bagpiper), and Aya (drummer and tambourine). I also got to meet the second mayor of McVillage (you have to be here to understand) McVillage is like the "cool" camp spot where the long timers get together. Lucky for us, we were up on the bend from McVillage, so we were close enough to meet some characters. I met Darin and Erin from Canada and got a really good photo of Darin and Mike doing the Captain Morgan pose in their kilts. hahaha! Anyways, back to our little bend. The neighbors on the otherside of us were pretty cool too. Tom was an Englishman (by the way, the Scots hate the English waaaay more than the Irish do!) and Sprague, from Raleigh. They had the skimpiest set up. I mean, all it was was a small dome tent and that's it! No chairs, no fire pit, no tables, nada. We made sure they hung out with us and got to meet everyone. I totally felt like the social chair for our little nook in Shanty Tent Village.

Later on that night, we went over to the rowdy side. You see, the camping is divided into two areas, the quiet side, which everything quiets down by 10pm, and the rowdy side across the street into the woods, which shuts down around 1am. So we headed over to the rowdy side to catch Patrick's son Andy, play the bagpipes and join a drum circle. It was definitely a younger crowd and livelier side. As we hiked up (in flip flops) on a dry creek bed with tons of loose rocks, I'm too toasted and laughing too hard to notice all the times I slipped and slid on the rocks. When we get to the large bonfire, (and I mean HUGE fire pit, as in the biggest I have ever seen,) we join in the circle of dancing people and check out the bagpipers and drummers. After about an hour we decide to just head back to our own fire pit and chillax a bit. Plus it was FREEZING! It might be 100 degrees back at home, but up in the mountains it was a chilly 65. Well, when we get back, there's a ton of people already at our campsite waiting for us. So we fix some fresh drinks, and chat all night long with our neighbors and guests. Around 1am, everyone goes to sleep, but me, Darrin and Mike. This is where I learn alot about the Scottish heritage, the highland games, and weapons. I finally decide I need to go to bed, cause we have a LOOOONG day tomorrow! So around 1:30am, I crawl into my cardboard box... I mean tent. (I so missed my hammock right about then) and plop down onto the air mattress, which kind of deflated a bit over the course of the night, and I couldn't pump it back up without making so much noise with the pump, so I sagged on top of the air mattress, draped my down sleeping quilt over me and the next thing I knew, it was 8am the next morning.

SATURDAY:

I got up and because I had just arrived, decided to forgo the cold showers. So I changed clothes in my tent and since it was my day to do the cooking, I pulled out the bagels, got the water boiling for coffee, put out Advil's for everyone, and started skewering fruit for fruit kabobs. Soon, Cathy and Kirsten came back from the showers, and Lisa finally woke up and we sat in our chairs having breakfast and planning out our day. Around 10am, we headed over to the field with our chairs and watched some of the games. They also had a marathon going on that morning, so we got to see the runners enter the track area and cross the finish line. It was pretty cool, lots of people running in kilts. And we actually knew one of the runners! Daniel from back home was in the marathon race, when he came by our section we cheered loud and saw the huge grin on his face when he recognized us. So, the games. We caught the hay bail toss, which basically was a guy in a kilt, with a pitch fork, tossing a bail of hay over a bar, like a pole vault jumper bar. Then we saw the weight toss, a heavy weight tossed as far as the thrower could. We caught the herding dogs, herding sheep and white ducks. That was really cute, those border collies really get into their job! We saw a bunch of shirtless men in kilts wrestling, saw a ton of girls in kilts dancing, and then decided to walk into the groves to catch a couple of bands.

The groves were pretty cool. You walked up a little hill and over the ridge, and down into an open area covered by trees. It made for some great acoustics. We got there in time to catch a band called Trebius. Which consisted of a drummer, bagpiper, and a guitar. They were very good. Then we walked over to Grove 1, the bigger area, to catch Albannach. It got crowded fast and we only had standing room. You could feel the energy in the little "holler" as soon as the band took stage, (which the stage was a giant boulder, very natural setting, kind of what you would think it looked like back in the day in Scotland). Once the music began, it was mesmerizing, almost primal. The drum beats just took over and I felt the music. I really got into it. Later on that night Mike told me that if you have just a drop of Celtic blood in you, as soon as you hear those drums beat, it will awaken the Celticness inside you. I totally believe it. It was definitely an experience that I can not describe other than very primal, very raw, very tribal..... Anyways, I really enjoyed Albannach. I wanted to buy their CD right away, but I held off and told myself that if I saw them tonight and I felt the same strong, raw, stirring, feelings, then I would buy it.

After the music we decided to take a break and walk around to see the Clan tents and grab some lunch. . The Clan tents were set up around the track, while the festivities happened inside the track on the field. We stopped by the Scottish food vendor and I got a meat pie, I was too chicken to try the haggis or the Scottish Eggs (google either one and you'll see why) and my verdict is... what I expected. Pretty plain food., just some meat wrapped in a pastry. We then headed down to the Woodlands tent for some good NC BBQ (vinegar based sauce is the BESTEST!). We hauled our goodies back to our campsite and ate lunch there on our table.

After lunch, we filled up our "water" bottles with some amber colored liquid and headed back to catch more of the games. Lisa and Kirsten wanted to catch another band, so Cathy and I went to the games. While we walked around the field, we walked passed some of the Clan tents and I actually did the whole "Sorcerer and the stone" thing at one of the Clan tents. The kilted man asked me what I believed to be most important to me and I said it was my little family. Then he asked me to pull the sword up out of the stone, and I did! I was grinning like a silly kid when he made me a "Lady" and pinned a button on my shirt. I know, it's the corny, but it's the silly things that I love. hahaha! Anyways, after touring most of the Clan tents, (some even had complimentary shots of scotch!) we caught a couple of Caber tosses (telephone pole tossing) and then headed over to the music groves to catch some more music. We watched Albannach again and I got a great picture of Jamesie, up close and personal. haha! I mean I got up right in his grill and snapped away. He was a good sport about it too. AND I was still digging the music. I knew I wanted the CD now, but I wanted to wait til the concert tonight to make sure the raw passion I was feeling wasn't the amber colored liquid from my water bottle!

Around 6pm, we shuffle back to our campsite and because it was my turn to make dinner, I put Jeff (a neighbor) to work on getting the coals on the grill hot, while I assembled the marinated beef and veggies into kabobs. I also put out the tortilla chips and black bean and corn relish/salad I made for everyone to snack on. So while everyone (we had a nice crowd follow us back) was sitting around the fire, refreshing their drinks and munching on my dip, I started grilling the kabobs. We are laughing and relaxing, when Linville decides that he wants to get a group photo of us girls. I suggest getting a group shot of everyone, so we all gather up our cameras. I spotted a random guy walking by and grabbed him with the promise of a beer if he is would to take our photo. He deserved that beer too, cause there were about 12 cameras out for him to shoot our picture! hahaha! After the photo shoot, my kabobs were ready and thank goodness I had enough for everyone! I got some great compliments on the dinner. Since the rule is, if you cook, you clean, while I was cleaning up, everyone was chit chatting away, waiting for the concert that night. Cathy helped me out alot and I was able to finish up faster than I thought. By now, Kirsten had switched me to Gin and Tonics, now I thought I didn't like gin, but these were delish! They went down like water. Around 8pm we finally head out to the main concert event area (the track) to catch the concert that night. Well, Kirsten and I take our sweet time and tell everyone we need to pack some "provisions" for the night and that we'll meet up with everyone there. So the group takes off and we go about packing a day pack with ginger ale, bourbon, scotch, gin, and tonic. You know... the essentials. haha! On the way up, Kirsten and I were doing the "I love you girl", hugging each other, almost about to cry, bonding thing, when we get almost to the gate entrance. I mean we are so close I can see the stage! and she goes, "I can't find my camera". Without skipping a beat, I say, "Well lets go back and get it, I need to refresh my drink with ice anyways," and we walk the 1/2 mile back to our campsite. She scours her tent and finally finds her camera, while I mix us a couple of gin and tonics, and off we go again. Well, we get right to that gate again and she has forgotten her jacket. I laugh and say, lets go back cause it's going to get cold tonight, plus, we need to refresh our drinks. We stumble back, still doing the "I love you girl", and she grabs her jacket while I make us another gin and tonic. Off we go again for the third time, walking that 1/2 back up to the gate, and about half way there, we forget something else, I can't remember what it was, but we both burst out laughing and walk back to the campsite. By this point, it's 9:20pm, the concert has already started and we haven't left the campground area. As we are leave our campsite, we see Lisa and Cathy walking back. They were getting their jackets, so we decided to walk to camp with them, then all of us walk up to the concert. We finally enter the gates and the music is pulsing in the air. We find our camp chairs smack dab in the middle between the two stages. It was really a perfect spot. We all plop down and start dancing in our chairs, enjoying the music, and taking silly pictures. The concert is a compilation of all the bands that were their today and the headliner is Albannach. Well, Albannach finally got on stage and started playing and they were amazing. Right then and their I vowed to buy their CD the next morning.

After the concert (what we caught of it), we head back to our campsite around 12pm. We are still wired and Lisa, Linville, Patrick, and I decide to head over to the rowdy side to see what's going on. On the way there, we are stopped by a girl and guy, who looks familiar, but I can't place, handing out cherries that were steeped in some grain alcohol. So I do the polite thing and take a cherry from a stranger as they tell me about the highland games in Gatlinburg TN next year and how Albannach will be playing. Then it hits me, the guy is Donnie, the bagpiper from Albannach! I'm celebrity stunned then and can't focus to say a thing now. After they leave, I tell Patrick that we just met Donnie and he laughs at me. We continue on to the rowdy side and find Patrick's son, Allan, playing bagpipes around a fire pit for a crowd of people. As we mingle, a guy that Kirsten met, Dan, asks where Kirsten is. We say she's back at our campsite passed out in her tent. We all decided to go wake her up, so we walked back down the dry creek bed, slipping and sliding everywhere, walk across the highway, and into our campsite. We peered into Kirsten's tent and whispered (and giggled) "wake up!" She did, laughing at us and we all continued to have fun. Cathy is still chit chatting away with a few people around our fire pit, so I join them for bit. Around 2am, we decide to call it a night and everyone headed back to their campsites. As Lisa and I were cleaning up the campfire, Jerry, in nothing but his red plaid kilt and flip flops, walked up and asked me if I want to go over to the rowdy side and party some more. I politely tell him no, like 15 times. I'm wasn't going over there that late, and especially not with his half naked self! I think he finally got the hint when I turned off our strung up Christmas lights and crawled inside my tent. It was a good day, but I know I'm going to feel it in the morning.

SUNDAY:

The next morning, as I had guessed, was a rough one. I got up around 8am, donned on my sunglasses, and started packing up. It was the last day and we were leaving that afternoon. I deflated my air mattress, roll up my sleeping quilt, and packed up my backpack. When I stepped out my tent, I saw Cathy almost packed up. She needed to leave earlier than the rest of us. Kirsten made us breakfast that she called kitchen sink and Mike our neighbor called "bubble and squeak" (which is a real Scottish/English dish. But the name makes me hurl. It means left overs in one pot that usually bubbles up and makes a squeak noise when cooking it.) She mixed all the left over veggies we had with eggs. (Tomato, avocado, onion, garlic, mushrooms, and eggs) and it was actually good. I topped that off with a couple of Advil and some coffee. After breakfast, Cathy left, and the rest of us went to retrieve our cars to loaded them up. Once our cars were all packed up, we decided to walk around the festival one last time, then hit Douglas bakery for some treats to take home. We caught the closing bagpipe parade and then walked down into the grove so I could buy my Albannach CD. We hit Douglas Bakery and I loaded up on some orange cranberry scones for me, and some Scottish oatmeal/chocolate chip cookies for Boo. Then we finally end up at the flag tent where I bought some flags to hang in my bonus room at home. I got the Old Scottish flag, an Irish flag, an American flag, and a Welsh flag. Now all I need is a Costa Rican flag and a Bolivian flag to finish off our heritage collection. Lisa, Kirsten, and I slowly, and wordlessly walked back to our campsite one last time. We said good bye to all of our neighbors, hugged one last time, and by 12pm, we were on the road headed home.

It was an amazing weekend. It opened up a whole new appreciation of Scottish heritage for me that I can't wait to share with my dad. He needs to know his heritage. Hell, I may even get him a kilt. haha! I had so much fun with my NC girls and look forward to doing it all over again next year, once my liver has had a chance to recover. I found an amazing band, Albannach, that I really dig, and I met some great people that taught me alot about being Scottish. This weekend totally took me by surprise in how much I really, truly enjoyed learning what it means to be Scottish. Til next time... GET OUTDOORS!!!