We’re back in the van, this time heading to LeMars, Iowa for two shows at the National Old Time Music Festival.

Hopefully there will be no speeding tickets, no impassable traffic jams, and no one will lock the keys in the van (all of which happened within the span of a few hours in West Virginia two weeks ago). Also, shortly after passing into Maryland, we ran over a beaver.

The banjo player isn’t riding with us — he’s already in Iowa for his wife’s family reunion. Instead, we have Paul’s wife riding along.

For more about the festival, read on:

LeMars, Iowa…..LeMars, Iowa, is the home of Blue Bunny Ice Cream, the largest manufacturer of ice cream in the world. It’s also a north-east Iowa rural area surrounded by corn fields. According to Sheila Everhart, Director of the upcoming 33rd Annual old-time rural roots music festival, “We’re expecting the largest influx of foreign performers,and guests, from foreign countries at record breaking numbers this year. We’re definitely not the Olympics, but we are just as concerned with our traditions and our cultural heritage as the Chinese are, and we have several gold medalists coming from Iowa in Bejing to prove the athletic side of Iowa. Now we begin the process of proving the validity of Iowa’s traditional music. Bob (my husband) and I went to China to perform in Bejing five years ago, and my how it has changed. The experience is one we will never forget, and because of it, we continue to extend invitations to foreign performers of America’s traditional country and bluegrass music to attend our festival. This year will be an incredible adventure in ’saving’ America’s rural music. We expect 36 performers just from the country of New Zealand. There are also performers coming from Australia, Holland, Ireland, Germany, England, Canada, and France. The festival lasts 7 days, so as the dollar is low, it’s a real bargain for foreign guests.”

The event starts on August 25th, and ends on August 31st, with ten sound stages accomodating well over 600 performers of old-time acoustic rural music. According to Bob Everhart, “Acoustic music is health food for the ears, and we have a ton of it this year in LeMars at the Plymouth County Fairgrounds, with our main stage indoors in an air conditioned building. There’s also workshops and contests for just about everything there is in old-time music. Our doors are wide open, and like China, we encourage everyone to participate in our efforts of keeping our great American traditional rural music alive.” More information is available at their website: http://www.oldtimemusic.tipzu.com