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As I posted previously, we had been waiting to attend the Mother Earth News Fair when it came to Asheville, NC.
Once again, we were not disappointed!
I am soooooo glad I paid the extra for a parking pass. We were camping at Davidson River Campground all weekend. It was a short one and since the kids are still in public school until the school year ends, we only had time for one day at the fair. That was plenty for us.
There was so much to see! I didn’t sign up for any of the demonstrations or talks. I just didn’t feel like the kids could sit through that this year. There were lots of cool products to see in person and lots of very knowledgeable people to talk to.
I’m also weak as hell. I had to get my baby a souvenir since he had to go without Mama for the first time this weekend.
I gave my kids each a bit of money to spend while there. My oldest was fascinated with this couple that was painting tiny paintings. Apparently, they travel all over and just paint what they see. He bought three of these tiny canvasses from them. I don’t have permission from the artist to repost so I did not take a picture of them to show. Sorry!
My middle child decided he wanted to make something. He was very excited when we entered the tent where various artisans were showing how to make things. He was really interested in a woman who was using a loom to weave kitchen towels. I’ve always wanted to do that someday and it was very neat seeing someone doing it in person. This led him to the woman behind her who had a table set up where people could make things by weaving. He chose to make his own basket. She helped a bit, but he did surprisingly well and caught on very quickly. She finished the end bits. They involved some pretty sharp shears. He talked all weekend about how proud he was of himself! This just totally melted my heart.
We managed to see a waterfall before heading out. The campground was pretty great. About as peaceful as you can expect a campground to be. A few off leash dogs and some campers that stayed up way past quiet time, but nothing too bad. It was a rough start for camping for us, but ended up okay. We hadn’t been camping in years. It was definitely a learning trip for us all. The firewood was, unfortunately, very wet. This caused some problems, but thankfully we brought our campstove. It worked great even after being neglected for a couple years. You can find the same one we had here.
I also let both boys practice using a fire starter. We have mine, which you can find here, and one of the boys used the fire starter on their survival bracelet. You can find those here. It took some practice for them to finally make sparks, but they both did. We ended up preferring mine for starting the fire. It was easier to get a spark from, but their survival bracelets have so many more features like a compass and para cord. I ultimately started the fire, but the fire starters proved to be much more reliable than the lighters we brought. We used the lighters to light the camp stove. Since the campfire wasn’t very reliable, we didn’t use it to cook at all. Mostly we enjoyed the heat and spent loads of time just trying to keep it from going out.
We were pretty wore out by the end, but it turns out some of that was because I was coming down with what my middle child had last week, but all in all it was a great trip. My mom was with us for this one and we both can’t wait to take the kids camping again.
Was anyone else at the fair? Were you there to see something specific? What was your biggest takeaway from the fair?
A Hen and Her Chicks 
It sounds like you had a good time! Also, I am seriously impressed by that basket.
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