Monday, August 18, 2008

Jackson Hole Highland Games

This was the last band competition event of the season. I was kind of looking forward to it, but then found out we wouldn't have enough pipers there to compete for placement. Since I haven't been competing solo this year, it seemed like a wasted trip especially considering the price of gas.
The band was paying for our rooms, and had already reserved a room for my son and I, so I felt I should go in spite of the expense.

My son has not been very excited about playing in band events lately and I think that is largely due to the shift in the importance of a social life as he enters adolescence. He wants to hang out with youth his own age and not the young adults and older adults that make up the band. I can't say I blame him, but at the same time I think that if he quits the band he'll quit drumming so I've been pushing him a bit to stick with it. He's a good kid and has been willing to go along even if it is reluctantly.

We got up to Jackson fairly late and went straight to bed. The next morning I got up and went down to get some of the free breakfast leaving Teagan in bed. He came down a few minutes later. We met up with some of the other band members and found out that the band would not be doing the morning massed band event at the town square (I was looking forward to doing that as well, so I was a bit disappointed). Teagan was happy because he got to sleep in a bit longer.

Around 10 am we went down to the fair grounds where the games were at. I got tuned up a bit for the noon massed bands and then we went a looked around. We ran into Jesse Fry. She was a young drummer for the band when Teagan started and they were good friends. I think he was very happy to see her there and it made his day when she came over and gave him a hug.

We hung around the fair grounds most of the day and played in our two performances which I thought went fairly well.

For the closing massed bands I played the bass drum. I thought I'd give it a try and so the bass drummer, Sandy (who also is a piper) piped for the massed bands.

We left soon after the games were over and had a non-eventful drive home. Teagan told me that he had fun on the trip and for me that was exactly what I needed to hear.

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