2014 Chase the Chile
All in all, it was really a lovely weekend with only a couple of minor glitches. The flyin itself went truly smoothly. Dropping the early Saturday morning mini-dance at the balloon fiesta was a stroke of genius on my part (although I think others will claim it was their idea). It was replaced by dance workshops at the center that morning, nicely attended. The balloons did go up Saturday morning, perfect weather, floating all over the northeast heights, including right over ASDC when we arrived!
We had five houseguests this weekend: Aldo Watkins from Austin, Evan Smith from Dallas (his first flyin ever!), Bennet Mark and Kim Harris from Mountain View, CA and Scott White from Alamosa CO. It was a very good mix of folks, all who got along very well.
I mentioned glitches--it only applied to houseguests. Evan arrived 4 hours later than planned (1am Friday morning), then he got really sick on Monday (bad cough) and to top it off, his flight back to Dallas was delayed about 2 1/2 hours. Kim arrived either sick, or had a bad bout with allergies, coughing his lungs out for a day, curtailing part of their activities.
The schedule for the dancing worked out nicely for Sandie Bryant, Kris, Scott A and me. The only LONG feeling dance was the Sunday 11am to 3pm last gasp dance. Only two callers signed up for open mic sessions (Alan Hirsch, 2 tips and Mike Turley, 1 tip), so Kris, Scott and I carried the rest of the dance. We still had a couple of squares going when we ended at 3 and I was totally tired (but happily).
Food? Oh, my! There was ALWAYS food. Our contribution to the massive Friday night potluck was to slather two of my thawed meatloafs in homemade tomato sauce, reheat it for an hour and take it to the center. It was all eaten, although it was the 2nd meatloaf in the offering and was near the end of the food line.
It was a nice respite to not have to be at the theatre for WICKED show settlements until Sunday evening. I did work from 5pm to 9:30pm at the theatre for the final (24th) show and big wrapup settlement, but was able to spend a lot of quality chat time with our houseguests otherwise. Danny had completely cleaned and prepped the house from Tuesday to Thursday. My back issue had mostly abated, although I did have quite an ache for a while. Danny's leg issue had been cleared up by antibiotics, although it turns out he had a serious tooth abscess on Friday evening that nearly spoilt his weekend. He's back on even stronger antibiotics to clear that up, after a trip to the dentist on Monday.
Although I posted an album, here are a few pics from the weekend.
We had five houseguests this weekend: Aldo Watkins from Austin, Evan Smith from Dallas (his first flyin ever!), Bennet Mark and Kim Harris from Mountain View, CA and Scott White from Alamosa CO. It was a very good mix of folks, all who got along very well.
I mentioned glitches--it only applied to houseguests. Evan arrived 4 hours later than planned (1am Friday morning), then he got really sick on Monday (bad cough) and to top it off, his flight back to Dallas was delayed about 2 1/2 hours. Kim arrived either sick, or had a bad bout with allergies, coughing his lungs out for a day, curtailing part of their activities.
The schedule for the dancing worked out nicely for Sandie Bryant, Kris, Scott A and me. The only LONG feeling dance was the Sunday 11am to 3pm last gasp dance. Only two callers signed up for open mic sessions (Alan Hirsch, 2 tips and Mike Turley, 1 tip), so Kris, Scott and I carried the rest of the dance. We still had a couple of squares going when we ended at 3 and I was totally tired (but happily).
Food? Oh, my! There was ALWAYS food. Our contribution to the massive Friday night potluck was to slather two of my thawed meatloafs in homemade tomato sauce, reheat it for an hour and take it to the center. It was all eaten, although it was the 2nd meatloaf in the offering and was near the end of the food line.
It was a nice respite to not have to be at the theatre for WICKED show settlements until Sunday evening. I did work from 5pm to 9:30pm at the theatre for the final (24th) show and big wrapup settlement, but was able to spend a lot of quality chat time with our houseguests otherwise. Danny had completely cleaned and prepped the house from Tuesday to Thursday. My back issue had mostly abated, although I did have quite an ache for a while. Danny's leg issue had been cleared up by antibiotics, although it turns out he had a serious tooth abscess on Friday evening that nearly spoilt his weekend. He's back on even stronger antibiotics to clear that up, after a trip to the dentist on Monday.
Although I posted an album, here are a few pics from the weekend.