The first of the long shadows of evening were just beginning to appear, as we pondered the probabilities of getting lost in the woods so late to evening, but what the heck, who gets lost in KY? Off down the trail we went. It turned out to be a modernized creek bank, lined with the most delicate of pastel blue and white flowers, with the creek babbling along beside us for company. It was quite steep at times and often lined with large flat rocks, which obviously were an addition to the natural surroundings. As we approached the end, our fears of being lost faded with the first glimpse of a macadam surface below, right there, in the second to last hairpin turn of the path, stood what we guessed to be a morel mushroom, 5 inches tall, white with light brown tints in its pointed and wrinkled crown. I had never seen one in the wild before, and would have gladly delivered it to a buttery saucepan, had it not been for the inability to tell it from a false morel. We left it to its fate at the jaws of some wild pig that might wonder by. Elated by our successful navigation through the woods, we elected to continue south along the campground road, and reaching a fork with one road dropping away to the south and the other climbing over a small knoll, we asked a passing park attendant which way to the festival, She smiled and in her customary southern drawl, slowly stated, that we could take the high road , or we could take the low road, as they both went to the same place. This was the spark that was needed as Laura broke out into song of "You Take the Hi Road", With arms interlocked in "The Wizard of Oz" style, we skipped down the lower road, singing past the cabins, until passing one which contained 5 of the roughest looking campers I'd seen all day. They said nothing, nor did they move or show expression, just stared, blank faced. I suppose they were expecting teenagers, and were a might taken back by these two old skipping, singing, granny folks. The mood being broken, we returned to a more conservative style and continued to the festival grounds in short order.

Our arrival at the bottom, coincided with the beginning of the only evening entertainment offered. The "Ceilidh" (kay-lee), Gaelic for "sing-a-long" was held in the main tent. Designed in yellow and black, the tent was rectangular and ran about 50 yards long. Bleachers were set up on three sides and a small stage in the middle. Maybe 50 of so people attended, and obviously many of them friends of Alex Beaton, who hosted as Master of Ceremonies, cheering him on with personal accounts of previous engagements. He was followed by drummers, jokesters, and pipers, not to mention other Scottish bands, and a demonstration by several of the pipe contest judges. The next performer on the program turned out to be one, Chip Reardon. He was the blind man that we saw "practising his singing" in the dining room next to us. He sang a song called "The HEE-LAND King of China, which was a song filled with a delightful humor. Interesting enough, we found that Scotland has an alias, "Newcastle", for those wishing a trivia for the week. It is often used in their songs, in place of its proper name. Well into the second hour of laughter and merriment, without warning, all power went out. Plunged into darkness, the pipers dared not pipe and march around on the little stage, and Alex, had lost his PA system. We sat there for a few minutes in silence and then general conversations broke out everywhere. With the flaps of the tent down, in the country locations, darkness was complete. Far too dark to move about, so we just sat. Then from the third row back someone turned on a flashlight. Like a dim spot light, they began following the paper on stage, who immediately began his piping and marching back and forth. I then remembered the small halogen light I kept in the camera bag, and when added as a second spot light, brought cheers from the crowd and the continuation of the fun. I now found myself swaying back and forth to the rhythm of the pipe as I followed his every movement with my light. It took a surprisingly long time for the electrical problem to be solved, and my arm was ready for a rest when once again we were bathed in the soft glow of electric illumination from above. It was rumored that a single power cord was furnishing all the power to the tent and the fuse had blown. This was most likely true was we watched the sole attendant unscrew several bulbs from the overhead lighting. It worked and no further problems occurred. However towards the end Alex had to set his microphone up again to sing, as no one wanted to go home. Well, as he started plugging things in, Laura yelled out to him, "Don't blow out the lights again!!" He looked up, with a twinkle in his eye and said "Auch! wasn't me blew them out the 1st time." We stayed a few minutes after the ending song to talk with Alex and several other performers, and then headed off to the Motel and bed.