A TOURIST'S PERSPECTIVE:WE GOT IT GOING ON

This past weekend, we did FloydFest.  It was an extended family vacation of sorts.  We set up Wednesday in the Healing Arts Village, which is a little cul-de-sac on the main drag of FloydFest.  We butt up to the Children's Universe and are just over the way from the Main Stage. The Healing Arts Village is sponsored by the Blue Ridge School of Massage and Yoga.  It is a peaceful oasis in the midst of a rapidly growing world music and arts festival held annually near Floyd, Virginia.

We call ourselves HomeBase.  We had to write a little bio/blurb for the FloydFest schedule brochure so we came up collectively with the following:   "Homebase:  a gathering place where people experience real relationship with each other.  A non-denominational place of sanctuary, celebration, peace, love and healing."
Pretty lofty, huh?  Somehow my name got associated with the whole thing and they called it Lynne Florin and Friends.  They chose a picture of a statue of the mother Mary in head covering and prayer hands for my bio.  Haha!  I guess that's what happens if you neglect to send in a picture of yourself.  The powers-that-be pick one for you, and then holy mother, you are supposed to live up to that gig. People that know me find that particularly funny.  I sometimes have a sarcastic tongue and the mouth of a sailor-in-training.

Oh, but how I typically digress and stray away from my point here.  From our vantage point in HomeBase and our wanderings out into the "real world" of FloydFest, there was much commonality in theme.  We were celebrating life in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains of SW, VA.  Time and time again I heard people comment how beautiful our little section of the world is:  from the stage, in passing, from vendors, from the myriads of great people we met.  As night fell, 12,000 people shared the unbelievable night sky that we sometimes take for granted around here.  One couple I met couldn't believe that a short hike over the hill from the Main Stage and they could see clear into West VA, dozens of mountain ranges and hundreds of miles away.

So sometimes it's good being a tourist in your own neck of the woods.  Sometimes it takes the eyes of another to recognize your own blessings.  And it is good to be content on this beautiful Blue Ridge Mountain morning.