Where do I start?

Fennboree 2017 was a roaring success. No one was murdered. No fights broke out. All people from all blogs chatted together happily, and many friends were made.

Forrest made two appearances--he came for a few hours on Friday, and a couple hours on Saturday.

Friday afternoon was the hot dog roast, but I was so busy talking with old friends and new friends that I forgot to eat.

I know some people took lots of pics, but this post has a smattering of the very few James or I took.

A few "legends" made their first appearances at Fennboree--Diggin Gypsy was one, and one asked me not to post about her on the blog. It was great to see both of them for the first time, face to face. The other legend to make an appearance was Jenny Kile, who was as nice as can be, and very personable, along with her husband.

Jenny when she arrived:

James and I stayed until around 10:30 pm on Friday night, and near the end of the night, I discovered the guy I was talking to with Dal and James and Brooke lives about two miles from me in Florida. It was definitely a "wow" moment!

There were a couple of people writing books about the Chase on hand--one was Dan, a former writer for The Wall Street Journal, and I enjoyed speaking with him at length about the chase, and introducing him to as many "big names" as I could.

I also enjoyed meeting Ben and his wife, Laura, and had the pleasure of introducing them to Forrest. Ben has been researching the poem and following the blogs for about a year, but I don't see how he has much time, because he's an oncology surgeon. Forrest, as a cancer survivor, was very pleased to meet him and his beautiful wife.

Yesterday morning, I didn't feel very well. James and I have both been struggling with lingering colds. When we got to the campground, I sorta flopped on the ground next to Stephanie, and we chatted a while. NTMI had brought over his chair and graciously allowed me to sit on it next to Forrest. 

Forrest is a really cool guy. He engaged every searcher with his squinty blue eyes and casual humor. He was very cordial and pleasant, and every person that approached him received a smile and a question about where they were from. He signed every book brought before him, and in some, he drew little doodles. It was interesting to see him draw the seemingly meaningless little squiggles on their names.

And I also noticed that each time a man or woman held out their hand for him to shake, Forrest would remove his hat and stand in respect. I thought that was very gentlemanly and made him very personable.

He would also come out with some quick one liners that made me laugh. One time, a man asked if he and his family could have their picture taken with him. Without missing a beat, Forrest pointed at me and said, "You should be asking Mindy here for a picture with her; she's one of the top dogs," or something like that. I just shook my head and smiled.

At one point, Forrest leaned over while I was chugging down Powerade to restore some much needed electrolytes and asked, "Mindy, how old are you?" That caught me off guard, and I didn't have time to come up with a quick snappy answer, so I just told the truth. "Forty-eight." He replied, "You don't have another 74 years left then."

Nope, I sure don't! Lol.

As the day wore on, I started to feel better, and chatted with a bunch of searchers. The doodle contest was fun. I won second place for my silly little doodle (Thanks to whoever voted for me!) Dal said he was going to post the winner's doodles on his blog sometime.

I have a lot of respect of every searcher I met. I enjoyed talking to Brooke, who I briefly met last year but didn't get to talk to much. Of course, Spallies and Boomergirl and JDiggins are my peeps and I love them to death. Old Drum has so many interesting stories, and his wife, Sandra, is just a sweetheart. She kept bringing jars of jam to Forrest until Forrest couldn't find anywhere to put them. I think Shiloh stepped up and took them to the car.

Here's Old Drum and Sandra greeting Forrest:

And speaking of Shiloh, I got to meet the young man on Friday night, and he knew a little about me. We talked and joked for a while, then talked seriously about his business and what he does. They basically take old burnt wood and recondition it for flooring, which he sells all over the world. He even sold wood flooring to a place in Dubai! Anyway, I told him I think he's a great young man with a great work ethic. If anyone is interested in seeing his business, you can find it on the web here.

I enjoyed talking with Iron Will, who happens to be a big nerd like me. When Forrest was around, I said to him, "Iron Will and I are big nerds." And Forrest replied, "When you look up that word in the dictionary, you see a picture of me." Everyone laughed.

Well, maybe this picture is the one in the dictionary:

The owner of the hat is a really cool guy, David, who invented the Jelly Belly. The hat was made by the same man who made costumes for Elvis Presley.

Mike D or Mr D and I had a few good conversations. He's overcome a lot, and that guy is a GREAT painter! If you're reading this, Mike, send me a pic of one of your paintings so everyone can see your talent!

Heidini showed me her marvelous charm bracelets. They were very pretty! Heidini, if you read this send me a pic so everyone can see!

WiseOne told some exciting and pretty scary stories of her searching alone.

Seattle Sullivan and I shared a few comments. He's a smart guy...and I heard through the grapevine that Forrest said he was a genius at Fennboree.

Cynthia was awesome, as usual.

Desertphile was his usual quirky and quick-witted self. He has written a book and is in the process of looking for an agent. It looks like a pretty hilarious and great book. He, Wisconsin Christine (14 year old genius), and I broke into Cohen's "Hallelujah," when Christine said she liked to sing. It was pretty funny, because I can't sing. A little Crown in my coke was enough to temporarily lower a few inhibitions. Lol.

Here's a pic of the phile, holding an advance copy of his book:

Amy was a sweet princess, friendly as ever, and just so generous and funny and all around awesome. She invited me and James to stay in her home if we search Colorado. We just seemed to hit it off, and I can see us becoming good friends.

And I met Amy Sweitzer, too, and her husband, for the first time. They were very nice and friendly. Here's a distant pic of Amy S. and FF:

Fred Y was someone new, and he was pretty smart with good suggestions.

Patrick is the guy who lives in Port Orange and took his 79 year old dad with him to Fennboree. I think we exchanged an email or two a while back, but we didn't know we'd actually meet at Fennboree. It was a great moment, realizing the world really is sorta small while at the same time being so huge that even narrowing down the Rocky Mountains, no one can find the chest.

Okay, so I'm going to relate this whole trip in a backwards fashion. In the next few days, I'll post trip reports about sites we visited accompanied with lots of pictures. Some of you may already know the extra special news, but I'll post that soon for everyone else in the next week.