Last weekend we had a teacher workshop on Saturday at Cumberland Gap National Historical Park.  That, alone, would have made the weekend busy, but there were many other things going on as well.

On Thursday the Levitt Concerts in Middlesboro returned.  This is a 10-week series of free concerts held in downtown Middlesboro.  This first week, it felt like the entire town showed up.  There were 650 people there, at least for the opening act, Riverside Revival.  Riverside Revival is a local group headed by a singer/ songwriter from Middlesboro.  We enjoyed his music very much.  The headliner was Willow Avalon and she wasn’t as good.  For one thing, I couldn’t understand anything she said.  I like being able to understand the lyrics, especially if it is song I’ve never heard before.

We sat with Pam and Chuck Blank, residents of Middlesboro that we met two years ago.  Chuck is one of the organizers for the concerts.  I was sure that the concerts two years ago had started in June instead of July and Pam confirmed this.  She said they had always started later but the schedule was moved up a couple of years ago.  Volunteers Pat Muse and Trish Taylor also joined us.  We all agreed that the opening act was better than the headliner.  Many of the locals must have agreed because they left during Willow Avalon’s set.

On Friday Tom and I worked and helped set up for the Teacher Workshop. Some living history folks from Wilderness Road State Park came over for the day.  It was weird to have living history people there and not be doing living history myself.  They were at Cumberland Gap because they don’t get a lot of visitors during the week.  They were very pleased with the 150 visitors they got to talk to while “working” in our yard.

Friday there was also a maintenance emergency at the campground.  In inspecting the electrical box for some upcoming renovations, the maintenance people noticed electrical sparks coming out of the box.  They immediately turned off the electricity to the building.  For the time being, the camp office is off limits, which means that our access to laundry is also shut down.  Meanwhile, the campground rangers are trying to do everything from an outside setup powered by a generator.

Friday evening we headed over to Pat and Trish’s for some games and to attend the campground program.  We have been enjoying playing TransAmerica with them, and they liked it so well that they ordered one for themselves.  We helped them break it in.

After our game we walked down to the campground amphitheater for the evening program.  The speaker was Zoe Doubles who is a Ph.D. archaeological student studying the mound.  She gave a good talk on the excavation of the Carter-Robinson mound and then described what she hopes to do at the Ely mound.  There were a lot of local people attending the talk, which is always good.

Saturday, the teacher workshop started promptly at 9.  Forty local teachers and educators had registered for the free workshop, which included breakfast and lunch.  Ranger Lucas was in charge of the event and was one of the speakers.  As many of the rangers as could get away attended sessions of the teacher workshop.  Lunch was BBQ from Haymaker.  Although there were plenty of buns, baked beans, and potato salad left, the pulled pork was all gone at the end of the day.

The subject of the teacher workshop was teaching Native American and Revolutionary history to children.  Ranger Lucas spoke along with Zoe Doubles.  The featured speaker was Susan Abram, who recently published a book on the Cherokee-American alliance.

In the afternoon, the teachers went on a field trip to Ely Mound.  While they were gone, the volunteers cleaned up their lunch and put away tables and chairs.  Ranger Lucas was very pleased to get back and find all that cleanup work done.

Everyone who attended felt that the teacher workshop was very worthwhile.  The teachers were already talking about signing up for next year.  The whole day went extremely smoothly, thanks to Ranger Lucas’s hard work.

Sunday was a slightly quieter day, but we did have a pizza lunch with anyone who was working that day.  The pizza was in celebration of volunteer April.  April has been here for six weeks and done a great job of fitting in and working hard.  She is heading back to Minnesota for the start of the school year and we will miss her.  April helped with cave tours, trash pickup, trail hikes, pinnacle talks, and spent one or two days a week with me in the textile room.  She was a great addition to the volunteer corps this summer.

After all of that, Tom and I enjoyed some quiet days off this week.  It is good to be busy – and it is good to have some quiet time afterward.