How we got there, and what we did then
These are the stories of arrival, meeting, settling in and learning that whether you're reading mail or standing in a dusty campground, NanciNet people are the nicest anywhere.
Day One: Thursday.
Got to Kerrville by 2:00pm and found the secret NN message from Dawn-Marie Heckleman on the message board! Hooray! She and Mark Ferguson made it! The message indicated where Dawm-Marie was camped and I trudged on over to her campsite to meet her.
I could not find her campsite.
The message said she was in a gray Coleman Tent after the stack of firewood...or thereabouts. Half the tents are gray. And of that number a third are Colemans. After a shallow search, asking people if they know Dawn-Marie... or NanciNet ("um..I don't know what she looks like... I just know she's here.....") I trudge back to the message board area and re-read her directions. I go to the camping grounds again.
I could not find her campsite.
I decide to go back to the message board and write something on her original message, and as I am looking for a pen, a cute girl is looking at me funny...no, wait, she's looking at my NanciNet Button (A must have for such contacts!). Yep it was Dawn-Marie, just sitting around waiting for Mark Ferguson to return from a car trip to Kerrville proper. Just then a dark-haired guy drives past in a rented Mazda, Yepper, it was Mark Ferguson!!
Yay! Three of us have finally met!
Day 2: Friday.
I decided, after talking to Mark Ferguson the day before, to drive up to Austin and meet up with the other NanciNetters. I was about a half hour late, but in attendance was Partial organizer Eric Hay (total nice guy), Mark Ferguson, Dawn-Marie Heckleman, Sara Huiziga, Sherry Toatman, Shelly Brisbin and her husband Frank Feuerbacher, Debra Meyer a few others I forgotten (sorry!)...
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Photo by Frank Feuerbacher
??, Shelly Brisbin, arms belonging to George Strawser, Sherry (hey Sherry, look at the camera!) Pearson, Dwn-Marie Heckleman, Ruelleen (Nanci's mom) Strawser, Mark Ferguson, Eric Hay, Sara Huizinga |
Photo by Frank Feuerbacher
George Strawser, Shelly Brisbin, Dawn-Marie Heckleman, Ruelleen Strawser, Mark Ferguson, Eric Hay, Sara Huizinga |
Ruelleen Strawser and Eric Hay |
... and some one else... oh yeah...
Nanci Griffith's MOM - Ruelene Strawser (Hiya Rue! :) ) and her husband showed up to dine with us. What a treat!
After lunch most of us headed for Kerrville and had a heck of a time meeting up with Charmin' Chuck Duffield with sons Patrick and Jeremy, father and daughter David and Emily Riley (from Lancashire, England), Jamie and Andrew Bollich, and somewhere in there we met up with John and DeeDee Stevens! Hiya folks!
Chuck Duffield (duffield@txdirect.net)
"welcome home"; and as soon we got in to the quiet valley ranch, i knew that was home indeed.
Arriving on Friday was indeed an overwhelming task. Not knowing what to expect, I couldn't have imagined all those people and "how was I going to find a camp site and the other NanciNetters". After an hour of driving around, looking, and hoping, we decided that "campsite was the better part of valor" and we would just have to wait to find everyone else. Finding a small campsite at the entrance area to the "Meadow", we immediately began to unhook the trailer and was assisted by other fellow campers whom we never got their names nor ever seen again.....setting a comraderie mood to the air that would last the whole weekend. Not being setup yet and having the camper partially leveled and fighting the wind to put up a sun guard tent over the camper, a ladie appeared from around the corner of the camper saying she was looking for the NanciNetters.....Lo and Behold....it was Dawn-Marie Heckleman! We were soon joined by Jamie and Andrew Bollich, Eric Hay, Sara Huizinga, Mark Ferguson, and others...and everyone began setting up (elbowing in amoungst other campers) and surrounding my camper. We were really beginning to mass, and it was very apparent there was a feeling we had all known each other for years.
Jamie Bollich (ABollich@aol.com)
Friday afternoon was our arrival time, about 4 pm I guess. We were stopping all over asking help finding the NN group, but it was seeing the Duffield's Casita camper that finally did the trick for us. It was such a pleasure to meet everyone and confirm that Nanci's fans are such kind, unassuming, down-to-earth sorts. I won't name everyone because others have. You know who you are, and I'm so glad I got to get to know you. I kept having to resist my urge to play matchmaker among certain people, but perhaps they'll keep in touch and something will happen!