Clearwater Festival 2007

we drove up to Croton-on-Hudson, a small town on the Hudson River thats been the site of the Clearwater Revival for 30 yrs or so. (click here for website) Our friends Jack & Rebecca have been long-time volunteers who'd not been for a few years because of the kids, and we'd all been talking about giving it a shot for quite a while. we took Friday off and drove up to check in as volunteers and pitch our tents. Volunteering gives you a big discount on the 2 day festival, plus free breakfast/lunch/dinner and a big volunteer party & dance on the last night.

Miss Sabine Mitchell, settled in and ready to work. (Jack and Rebecca were assigned to Cooking/Kitchen duty, and Hege & I got assigned to the Drinking Water crew, who manned one of about 6 water kiosks around the grounds and sold bottles of cold water for $1 - a big deal since temperatures were in the high 90's F both days)

the park, which was bought and created by Pete Seeger and the Clearwater organization, is truely beautiful. its a seemingly unspoiled expanse of open fields and wooded campgrounds on a penninsula extending into the Hudson (click here for map) here is hennie and sophia climbing one of the trees

aside from the full schedule of music, there were endless tents of crafts, kids storytelling, clowns, puppet theaters, information on a wide variety of environmental/social issues like river conservation, recycling, alternative energy, gardening, etc. etc., and dozens of food vendors. (though we ate very well at the volunteers tent). here is hennie taking a shot at spinning thread

we were obligated to put in about 10 hours each over the course of the 2 day event; there was a schedule of shifts, and hege and i weren't always assigned together. It was a bit difficult to work out alternative times and switch shifts with other volunteers (almost none of whom had children). this photo was on sunday afternoon and i'm doing my last shift as the sun is mercifly setting. hege and the girls had arrived for the last hour or so and hennie took to aggressively helping me sell the water. she'd take a bottle out of the iced garbage bins and hold it up and call out like a carnival barker : "COLD WATER! ONE DOLLAR!" it was hilarious and extremely effective and she seemed to thrive on the success and attention. mette less so, though she held up quite well overall, helping to dig the bottles out of the icy water.

somebody in one of the tents had a Cockatoo she let us babysit for a while

a juggler in the kids area. the festival did a fantastic job catering to the children with a full load of crafts tents, games, activities, storytelling, clowns, etc. all the girls were fully engaged and active at every moment

here is hennie watching a live video monitor of cameras which a group of divers were manning as they explored the river bottom

jack and sophia taking a break from the heat

hennie weaving

Fathers Day was sunday and the girls (all 6 of them) all got up and applied tattoos to surprise Jack and I.

listening to the Raging Grannies

here is the one photo i was able to get of the legendary Pete Seeger himself, who performed a couple of times. We missed both unfortunately, because the times of our work shifts. We caught the end of the Raging Grannies (group of politically active older women who sing as a choir), but he had already left the stage. He was around quite a bit though, zipping thru and checking up on things in a golf cart. He's in fantastic shape at 88. Last year he performed a wood chopping exhibition, swinging an ax and splitting logs, something he supposedly still does on a regular basis at his home.

and here is the sloop Clearwater sailing around the point as the sun sets on Sunday. Pete Seeger started building it in 1966 or so and its been a constant sight on the Hudson since. you can regulary see it coming into New York Harbor, or anchored off the west side piers in manhattan. it takes school children and volunteers on educational sails up and down the river. we'd hope to take the girls on it, but were too busy.

here the Clearwater is joined by the Mystic Whaler, a 2 masted schooner also from the mid 60s (steel hull), which is their second boat. It was an exhausting but beautiful 3-day weekend, and we'll probably do it again next year.