Wednesday night we spent at Sheridan's grandma's house in Beechy and then early Thursday we headed off to Craven for the Country Jamboree (or festival as we would say in Australia). Craven is the biggest country music festival in Canada and is like a B&S on steroids. Pretty much everyone has their own camper or bus and there were about 25,000 people there. We had to wait in line about 1.5 hours before we made it into the campgrounds, which wasn't long at all considering some waited 5 hours. Once in the grounds we went to the campsite that Sheridan's friends from Beechy were at and settled in for 4 days of partying. There were bands playing all day as well as well-known singers like Allan Jackson, Braid Paisley and Eric Church for the night acts.

Our campsite was pretty well setup as we parked all the cars in a kind of circle, then had a relatively large area in the middle for chairs and things. A couple of people also managed to bring little BBQ's and there was plenty of food on hand for cooking. Wieners and smokey's seem to be a staple in Canada and that is what we mostly ate, although there was also bacon and eggs for breakfast some mornings.

The festival went for 4 days and was pretty much just one big party. No matter what time of day there always seemed to be people having a good time, either playing drinking games, drinking with friends or walking around meeting new people. Over here they have some rather serious drinking games that are more like sporting competitions then anything. One of them is beers-bee, which is played with a Frisbee and involves trying to knock the opposition's beer off posts. It is a lot harder than it sounds and I was not very good at all. Then there are just some dangerous ones like beer darts where you sit in a circle or opposite people and throw darts at each other beers, when yours gets hit you have to drink it. I didn't see anyone hit with a dart but I hear it does happen.

During the day it was pretty fun to walk around the camp grounds and talk to other people. There was also a bull ride on and the Beechy people knew a few competitors so we spent time at their camp and watching them ride. Overall it was an absolute blast and some of the camp setups were totally amazing. People brought trampolines, pools, slippery slides, lawn mowers, built decks on-top of their buses and had TV satellites to watch the football on. One group even had a DJ and dance floor where you could go and party after the inside bars were shut. It was definitely worth going to and if you love country music it is for sure the place to be!!

So after 3 days of Craven I decided it was time to go home and rest up a little before starting work on the Monday. I was absolutely exhausted after the 10 days away so was glad to be back in familiar surroundings and have time to myself. It was great to catch up with Sheridan though and I will probably head over to Beechy again for the local rodeo in September.