On Saturday, we packed up our kids, along with our friend Tammy and her daughter Shelby, and drove to Montgomery for the Alabama Highland Games. The weather was beautiful, with blue skies filled with fluffy white clouds. There was a 30% chance of isolated thunderstorms, but they must have decided to do their thirty percenting over some other area. It was a bit warm, though. I don’t know what the official high for the day was, but we were all pretty much drenched in sweat by the time we left, somewhere around 4pm. Fortunately, since Clan Campbell was the Honored Clan, our booth was set up next to the grandstand, under the shade of several large trees.
The bands this year were excellent. They had Smithfield Fair and Slainte Mhath (pronounced “slawncha va”, Gaelic for “good health to you”). We really got a kick out of Slainte Mhath’s bagpipe rendition of the Rick James hit “Superfreak”.
We have no idea what the official numbers were, but it seemed to us from casual observation that there were a few less vendors and clan booths this year than there were last year. But we think this is probably due to a couple of factors: 1) last year, there was a good bit of rain just before the Games, so the grounds were muddy and it was extremely humid. So some of the people might have been discouraged from returning. 2) some of the vendors and groups might have been from the areas recently hit by Hurricane Isabel, and so had higher priorities to take care of. In any case, we still didn’t have time to look at all the things we would like to have seen.
Anyhow, a good time was had by all. Though I think we might try attending another event that occurs during cooler weather one of these days. The Stone Mountain Highland Games look pretty promising. Mid-October in the Atlanta area is probably noticably cooler than late-September in central/south Alabama. Maybe we can give that a try next year.
