Abbey Road on the River 2010

Well folks, Tim and I just got back from Louisville, Kentucky from our first Beatles festival together.  We helped with Tim's dad's business, selling Beatles paraphernalia at his booth for the Abbey Road on the River festival.  We left our hotel room at 8:30 every morning and set up the booth, then stayed all day outside in the hot and humid weather until we took everything down and packed up around 11 or so.  I can't even begin to tell you about all the funny/miserable/awesome moments we had, but I've got lots of pictures (and some video) to show you. 
First of all, some of my favorite moments from the trip:

• Packing up all the merchandise while Gary (Dave's business partner from Liverpool) sang songs, loudly and incorrectly.  "I sawr a mouse..."  "Where?" "There on the stair..."  and watching him do hula hoop motions while singing, "Lay the blanket on the ground..."  Needless to say, we had never heard those songs before.  Every night, same songs.

• I watched Tim spaz out as something with wings flew in his face.  He knocked it away with his hand.  I asked, "What was that?"  He said, "I don't know, but whatever it was, I just made it really angry."

• Living through a torrential rainstorm (probably way worse than Carrie's).

• Gary went around collecting the money we made from our pockets, and everyone was handing him huge wads of 20's and 50's and a couple hundreds.  Andrew got out his money to give it to him.  He said, "Alright, alright....here you go," and hands him...two 20's.  That was it.

• Running to the bathroom to get extra paper towels to use as "sweat napkins."

• Seeing how incredibly obese the population of Louisville is.  As Andrew put it, "The obesity statistics of the United States would decrease drastically if Louisville was removed."

• Building off of the aforementioned highlight: watching overweight women ask us in their Southern drawl, "Yeeeah....can I get that shirt in a large?" and telling them politely, "Sure," while thinking, "There is NO WAY that woman will fit into the large.  I am WEARING the large"; then handing them the (small) large size and watching them hold it up to themselves and streeeeeeeeetch it out over their bust, turn to their friend, and say, "What do you think?  I think it'll fit."

•  Having my first introduction to Bikini Lady...and video-taping Andrew dancing with her. 

• Gary trying to do his best impression of our "weird American accents," with his two standard phrases: "Would ya like uh cup uh caaffee?" and "Guuuuuuuud jaab!", both sounding like a cross between Goofy and a really overexcited child.

Okay, now for some videos.

How would you ever feel like this blogpost is complete without some footage of Bikini Lady?  She comes every year to the Beatles festival, and every year...she is at the front and center of the stage, dancing away.




This video not only shows you more of Bikini Lady's sweet moves, but also adds another Louisville dancer as a bonus.  Seriously...I don't think I ever saw anyone dancing in a coordinated, seemly manner.  (Although that may have had something to do with alcohol consumption.)




Here's Andrew, bravely dancing with Bikini Lady.  My personal favorite.



We'll end on a more pleasing note.  Here's a video of the most beautiful clouds ever, flying over Louisville:



We had so much fun.  As Aunt Robin put it, "Working the festival is a lot like having kids.  Right after you go through labor, you think, 'That was TERRIBLE.  I am never going to do that again.' But then time passes, and you start thinking, 'You know, I think I could do that again...' and it starts all over."
So...we're just waiting to forget how bad it was to swim in your own sweat all day while moving heavy boxes, listen to "Taxman" over and over and OVER again, stand on your aching feet, and run on 6 hours of sleep a night.  As soon as we do that, we'll definitely be back for more!