Lotus World Music Festival

September 24, 2011

There is the most FABULOUS world music festival that comes to B-town every year.
The Lotus World Music Festival brings musical groups from all over the world to the Midwest for four days every September: http://lotusfest.org/.  The excitement the festival generates consumes the entire town.
Musicians mingle with town folk along the streets as hundreds move between venues to hear the huge variety of musical groups perform. The performances take place in nightclubs, churches (where the acoustics are AMAZING), outdoor tents and city parks.

This year we chose to attend only one night of the event since we just returned home from Seattle and we are still recovering from that trip. Here are some samples of what we saw and heard:

This is a street musician playing some wonderful bluegrass. He is hidden in the shadow of this doorway playing just a fiddle and stomping his foot on a box. Local street musicians can be found all over the streets.

The Movits! http://lotusfest.org/movits A Swedish band that ROCKS THE HOUSE! They sing it Swedish,  but it doesn't matter since they are extremely entertaining.

Eilen Jewell: http://lotusfest.org/eilen-jewell. This musician plays really fabulous rockabilly style music. Her guitarist, Jerry Miller, is quite famous and has the coolest sound. I'm sure you will agree.
We saw her in the Bluebird, possibly one of the best small music clubs in the country.

Unfortunately, my camera ran out of space, so these are the only movies I have of the event. Go to the Lotus website in the first paragraph of this post to see / hear the full list of musicians who were at the festival. Really, really, fun!

Our Jon Stewart weekend is coming next. :o)

Vashon Island

Sept. 19, 2011

Our trip out to Vashon Island couldn't have been more beautiful on this bright, sunny Seattle day.
The ocean water is so clear that we could see jelly fish and other sea life in the water as the ferry made it's way from the Fauntleroy ferry station in West Seattle to Vashon. Our friend Anna came to pick us up at the ferry station and then we made our way out to her fabulous flat that sits right on the water of the Puget Sound.

Anna had makings for a wonderful tapas lunch in the fridge so we got right to preparing a bite to eat. The view of the sound from her flat is just outstanding. It would be really hard for me to ever leave this beautiful setting if I lived out here. Very inspiring environment. A perfect place for Anna as she is an artist/musician/writer.

Here are Anna and Rowan.

After we had our relaxing lunch we took a stroll down the beach from Anna's place to check out the neighborhood. Another artist, a potter, had the pathway along her retreat decorated with some of her creations.

This driftwood sea king was on display right next door to Anna's place. It seemed to greet the boats that came by along The Sound.

We decided to take a drive around the other side of the island and across to Maury Island to the Point Robinson Light House: http://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=113. They have a couple of cottages the general public can rent for vacation stays right next to the light house. Very secluded and beautiful. We took a refreshing walk along the beach and took in the spectacular views.

A couple of rustic lean-to shelters we found on the beach.

We had just a wonderful day visiting Anna and Vashon Island. Here is the amazing view of Mt. Rainer we got as the ferry took us back to West Seattle. It's amazing how big that mountain (volcano) is!

Like the view of Mt. Rainer wasn't enough today, we had this sunset view from my sisters living room window on this last evening of our visit to the great northwest. This is looking west toward the Cascade Range. Just stunning!