[at-l] Damascus Trail Days?

[johnrtaylor@softhome.net (johnrtaylor@softhome.net)]

This year's Trail Days just wrapped up. I had a good time, and the event was 
a lot of fun.  I've been to this event for several years in a row, really 
enjoyed more than anything the camraderie and drumming circle at Tent City 
down by the river. But this year the town initially tried to forbid camping 
ANYWHERE in town, trying to force everyone to go to the new "Trail Days 
Campground".  This campground was at least a 20 minute walk out of town, and 
many hikers I talked to said they didn't understand why the town was 
segregating the hikers so far away from the festival area.  The gear reps 
were especially irked, they had expected that their booths would be at tent 
city as always. So the reps didn't get to enjoy the festival over in the 
town park, since they were so far away manning their booths in the 
campground.  The campground WAS nice, just way out in the boonies, away from 
everyone else. 

Tent City ended up happening after all, due to the town simply not having 
enough cops and whatnot to stop it, so they just gave up.  But there was no 
drumming circle there, at least not at 11 pm when I cruised through. 

I met some other hikers who were delayed getting to Damascus until Sunday 
and wanted to get some gear serviced, but all the gear reps had already 
taken down their booths and left by the time the hikers got all the way out 
to the campground on Sunday afternoon. 

Dunno, maybe there were tons of hikers who loved the new rules, but it seems 
like Trail Days is a-changing, 

JRT "Humvee"