Virginia Highlands Festival 2010

This past week has been pretty yucky around my place - I've been sick, but no worries I'm finally feeling better now.  My poor Dad has been sick as well and actually had to visit his heart doctor and have some x-rays done.  They put him on some antibiotics and may be changing around some of his prescriptions so hopefully he'll be feeling well again soon.  My Mother on the other hand is going a bit stir crazy at home.  With Dad being sick all week they haven't been able to go to church or the gym or anything.  So today I thought I would take her out for a little while.

The Virginia Highlands Festival is held every August in historic Abingdon, Virginia.  Lucky for me Abingdon is only about 20 or so minutes away from where I live.  There are tents full of arts and crafts, food vendors, and lots of music.  There were no "mini" artists, but maybe someday! :)  I thought I'd share some pics with everyone today.

This is the back of the Field-Penn 1860 House Museum.  The entire house is very beautiful - I love the vines that run along the back porch.   The black metal piece you see in the yard is some sort of old fashioned water pump.  A couple of other historic places that I didn't get pictures of, but are worth checking out are the Martha Washington Inn, which was a private home built in 1832, but is now a 4 star hotel.  There are some ghost stories that go along with the hotel as well if you care to google it.  There is also the famous Barter Theatre, which has some pretty cool history as well.

I couldn't resist taking a picture of these - pottery with faces!

This tent was full of very interesting wind chimes.  See the one with the tea/coffee pot on the left?  There was also a neat one on the other side that was made to look like a chuckwagon.  It was too big for 1:12 scale or I would have definitely bought it for my saloon.

The "Starving Artist Cafe" - I thought the raged looking awning was very appropriate.

This guy was carving wooden bowls.  The huge pile behind him is all of the wood shavings.  It looked so cool that I just wanted to jump in it!  Probably would have come away with quite a few splinters though...

The arts and crafts tents went down a street that ran alongside a set of railroad tracks.  There was a really cool pedestrian bridge that ran over the tracks so my Mom and I walked up to take some pictures.

Here's a cool view looking down the tracks.  And at the bottom you can see my shadow :)

And a view looking the other way.  The old white train station building has been turned into the Art Depot.

Below is my Mom's favorite tent :)

Now I want to show you my favorite part of the arts and crafts tents.  Mary, the wife of my very first boss, makes beautiful pottery.  You can read more about her craft here - Stoneware Baskets. 

And here's Mary :)

I have many of Mary's beautiful baskets at home that I'll have to take some pics of to share with everyone as well.

I hope everyone has a great Monday - it's also my sister's birthday so Happy Birthday Samantha!