Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
in the middle of the Pecan Grove campground where the campers themselves sign up for the
30-minute sets.)
The number-one goal for most campers, many of whom haven't missed a single year
since the festival started in 1972, is to stay up as long as humanly possibly and soak up as
much music as their tired, sunburned, bug-bitten bodies can tolerate. After the official shows
shut down around midnight, coffee is brewed and most everyone, regardless of age or phys-
ical condition, begins to wander.
The music changes as you move from campsite to campsite. Irish ballads blend into
renditions of Grateful Dead tunes. You might hear an old sea shanty played on a pennywhistle
or see someone playing a string bass made out of car parts. In the distance, there's a bagpipe
and somebody always brings a beat-up trumpet to play taps (funny at first, annoying by 4
a.m.). And there is always the crackling of campfires, the smell of wood smoke, and the
laughter of friends.
Although the Walnut Valley campground (divided into the Pecan Grove and the Walnut
Grove) has been described as an upscale refugee camp (there are thousands of tents, sleeping
bags, pop-up campers, and even recycled parachutes hanging from trees), the individual
campsites are often elaborate affairs with matching sofas and La-Z-Boys.
Encouraged by the annual campsite contest, festivalgoers decorate their temporary digs
with intense planning, much of which would give Martha Stewart pause. It's not unusual to
see castles, tropical paradises, “log cabins,” and re-creations of Granny's back porch. One
year's runner-up in the campsite contest featured dozens of pink flamingos, two ponds, all
