Lake City Campground and the Florida Folk Festival

May 26-29, 2016

We have used a variety of accommodations while attending the Florida Folk Festival over Memorial Day weekend and for five years have enjoyed the cleanliness and quiet of the Lake City Campground.  Our first year there we became acquainted with a fellow guest who also attended the Festival.  A good-natured rivalry developed over decorating for the holiday.  We were determined not to be outdone this year and hung patriotic bunting and streamers from the awning.  We checked the weather forecast and were advised winds were expected to be 3 mph.  We ran some errands and found the awning had automatically retracted in our absence, indicating winds of at least 17 mph.  For a little while, we had the undisputed title for best-decorated–never mind that nobody else had set up yet.

Jane enjoying decorated coach, before the wind.

The Festival itself is one of our favorite weekends of the year. It’s held in the beautiful Stephen Foster State Cultural Center State Park in White Springs. The Festival features eight stages of music and story-telling, two workshop areas, a jam area, folk-life demonstrations, a luthier display, craft demonstrations and sales, and lots of festival food spread over 800 acres. Performances we were especially glad to see this year included those by Billy Dean, Jim Stafford, Arlo Guthrie, Bing Futch, Brian Smalley, and Ben Prestage. Jane and her friend Joette Giorgis played at open mic Friday night–enhanced by one of the best sound guys around, Tom Ellis.

Joette Giorgis and Jane at Open Mic.