Woke up early again, but this time I managed to get back to sleep for a little while longer. When I finally did get up off the couch, I was still the first one to get up. I took my shower, got dressed and went over to Cottage 2 to see what was going on for breakfast. I had one of Morgan�s omelets with ham, cheese, peppers, mushrooms, and tomatoes in it. My compliments to the chef! I finished off breakfast with some more fruit salad.
Some of us decided to go on the Nature Walk, but we had stopped at Cottage 3 and found that Jens and Steve had some ideas for a special concert that evening which involved all of the musicians. There was going to be a rare planetary alignment that evening. Pete asked me to record the discussion with his video camera and I sincerely hope it came out and that camera was steady enough (Sorry if it didn�t work, Pete). My back was sore by the time I stopped � It was hard to stay in that position for those 45 minutes.
After my camera work was done, I joined Jim, Patrick H, John, Dell, Tom, Deb and Roger for the walk. Almost immediately, we saw a deer feeding on leaves and she was so close to the path. We didn�t want to disturb her, so we quietly took some pictures [except for Jim and his Velcro camera case! ;)] and let her be. There were so many small lizards on the boardwalk, but they ran away or jumped onto nearby trees as soon as we got close. I had gone through another roll of film and reloaded. My camera is not quiet when feeding a new roll of film, so I was the one making lots of noise this time. We got to the end of the walk and rested for a short time. After a few quiet moments, we all heard a slow knocking and John said that it had to be the laziest woodpecker in the world to which all of us laughed. Then we talked, if I remember correctly, about how many times each of us had seen TD in concert. After that, we got back up, walked back down the boardwalk and went on the other end of the trail.
It turned out to be another hot day and stupidly I wore my black TDI logo t-shirt. Quite a few people were asking me about where I got the shirt � It�s the one that came with the Holiday Booster a few years ago when Valentine Wheels was released and is no longer available from TDI. I also forgot to bring any water with me on the walk, so when I got back to the cottage I was thirsty and drank a Gatorade. Left the cottage and joined Roger Smith on the porch of Cottage 3 where he was burning some CDR�s for Lars and having a hard time with it. Jim came by and joined us, followed by Patrick H (I think) and we talked about a bunch of things, mostly about music though. Well, what did you expect? That�s what brought us all together in the first place!
Later, I was invited to go along on another motorboat trip; this time with Pete, Bill Fox, Morgan, with Vic and Patrick steering again. This time, as we got out of the canal, we went left towards the Suwannee River Sill for �a little adventure,� as Vic put it. I was suffering a little in my dark shirt, but at least I brought some cold water with me this time and I had enough sunscreen on, so it didn�t bother me too much. The current was quite different in this area and there was a sign stating that the water was too low for motorboats, but Vic took us down anyway. We ran into a few trees, brushed up against spider webs, and avoided several stumps in shallow water until we ran up on one. It was then time to try and get the boat turned around for the trip back. This wasn�t easy, but we all helped maneuver and eventually made the trip back upstream.
As we left that waterway, I noticed an alligator sunning himself on a log so Vic cut the motor and we rowed a little closer. All of us took photos and then Patrick noticed a couple more across the way, lurking just under the water with only their heads visible. We also saw another swimming right at us, but he was a ways off. Were they up to something? There were six of us in the boat and four of them in the water; if something were to happen, two of us were sure to make it and I was in a good position to be one! We must have gotten too close to the one on the log, because he soon went into the water and was swimming away at first, only to see him turn in our direction. Cause for a little excitement! Vic started the motor again and we were on our way back to the canal.
Dinner was being cooked when we got back. Tonight was going to be pork chops, homemade mashed potatoes (so creamy!), dahl (a lentil-based dish with lots of different spices made by Marion � very nice), homemade applesauce (made by Morgan � much better than store-bought), and another salad. Another excellent meal in the swamp! The food bill was being divided up between 16 people, I think, and those all chipped in $36. Not bad for 8 square meals. I couldn�t eat in Las Vegas this well for so little money.
More cleanup and then we were in for a treat: Planetary Ambience at Ricochet Gathering in Okefenokee Georgia 2002! Earlier, John Christian had suggested we call it Trembling Earth, as that is what Okefenokee means, but Jens didn�t go along with it or didn�t understand. Bill Fox asked me to take some photos with his camera during the show, as he was going to be rather busy. Again, not my equipment, so I only hope most of the pictures I took for him came out OK. Robert also asked me to bring him some soda, since he was busy. I felt like a roadie!
All of the musicians were assigned a planet: all played for Earth, Peter had Mercury, for Bill it was Venus, John took Mars, Howard Moscowitz was to take Saturn and Dave was given Jupiter. Jens played percussion and Steve Schroyder played keyboard throughout. Robert Grabowsky was given the task of maintaining drones, different for each planet, throughout the performance. This concert, an homage to the planets, lasted over 5 hours and 20 minutes! I consider myself privileged to have been there for it. It was a warm evening of ambience, drone and sequencing, electric and slide guitar, a midi banjo (owned by Howard � one of only two in the world, if I remember correctly), keyboards and synths. Now, I would like to say that everything worked well, but there were some bad notes, missed cues, what have you, but all in all it was a fantastic program. I only wish I had a recording of the whole thing. Maybe some of it will make it onto the official release, but not all I�m sure. They started right before 8 PM and ended about 1:20 AM. Wow!
Afterwards, many of us hung out and talked. Many had been drinking, some a little more than others, but it was a fun evening. I hated to see it end. It was great to hear stories from Steve and Jens, we heard a little about Vic and Roger�s trip to Bad Sulza in Germany � this was how Vic managed to get Star Sounds Orchestra over here, so it was interesting to hear about how it came about. We all have our life stories and it was a lot of fun to hear them. The musicians were done, so we had some TD concerts playing in the background and then Kosmophonon by SSO. Poor Roger, his pronunciation would come and go during those early hours of the morning. The evening came to an end and I went to bed around 3 AM very tired, but extremely happy.