Well, Mary and I sure have been busy lately. We’ve had the wonderful pleasure of having Mr. and Mrs. Bill and Sally Fernald as house guests. The four of us have gone exploring through the Unaka Mountain Wilderness area, roamed around Mountain City, and jammed Bluegrass music all over eastern Tennessee. What a blast! They’re so much fun.

Today, Bill and I will be playing at the Rock Creek Opry Place from 1:00 ‘til 5:00 p.m. Tomorrow, (if they stay one more night before returning to their home in Zephyr Hills, Florida) we’ll be playing over at Elizabethton at our usual Monday night jam at the Sunshine Market.

Under the "Pictures" tab position your mouse over "Mary's Photos" then move your mouse to the right and count down four bars to the "Summer 2011 in Tennessee" tab and click it. This will reveal the beautiful pictures Mary took of our trip through the Unaka Mountain Wilderness Area behind our home. It's an amazing feeling being so high in the mountains and completely surrounded by such majesty.

In the last several weeks that Mary and I have busied ourselves doing a host of activities, we’ve had very little time available to post any pictures or relate any of our experiences to viewers of this website.

On the Bluegrass Country Pictures page please find pictures ranging from the festival I played in Parrotsville, TN, with Walter Greer and his band, “The Glory Land Singers”; pictures of various jam sessions in Elizabethton at the Sunshine Market; snapshots taken at The Red Barn on Scioto road in Unicoi; The Rock Creek Opry Place in Erwin and also of “Butler Days” festival in Butler, TN, where I played with Mike, Chuck and Jeffrey as their newest band member in “Two-Step”, a hard-driving Bluegrass band dedicated to the playing and singing of traditional Bluegrass music. I really enjoyed playing with all the above groups at the various jams and gigs.

As always, I’m very thankful for the excellent pictures taken by Mary with her various cameras. She does a great job and enjoys visiting with her many, many friends.

The pictures will be loaded in a little at a time until we finally get caught up. Check back often. Thanks.

Mary has been travelling with me and taking pictures of people, places and things and enjoying her many conversations with her female "pals" while I busy myself playing music with our friends. Since the festival in Parrotsville, we've been to the Rock Creek Opry Place in Erwin where I perform as a member of the house band; and also we went to Elizabethton on Monday night for some nice jamming there.
 
The other day, I had a wonderful telephone conversation with Donnie Perkins who is home recovering after several months in the hospital. It was great to visit with him and catch up all all the news. Slowly, as his health returns, Donnie's beginning to play his fiddle again. This is the best news one could hear, short of his return to good health.

Mary and I had a delicious breakfast of homemade bisquits, sausage gravy and scrambled eggs at Walter's home in Chuckey before heading for Parrotsville (the third oldest settlement in Tennessee) to play at the Park there. Band members present were Walter and his wife, and Claude, Rick and your's truly. The Set was entirely Gospel and was a lot of fun to perform. Several other performers were there, too, including a man who sounded just like Randy Travis and a young girl who could sing like the Angels. It was a fun day, for sure.

Thank you all for your patience. Mary and I have moved to our new home in south-eastern Tennessee and after much fanfare, finally got our internet service. Seems nice to be reconnected with the outside world, although the brief interlude from service was good, too. There is much to report and many pictures to load in and I will be fast at work at all this as soon as time permits.
In the meantime, tomorrow morning I will be heading for Chuckey and Parrotsville to play music with "The Gloryland Singers" as their banjoist at a Bluegrass Festival.
I'll be back in a day or so.