FloydFest is more than music. It’s food, camping, fellowship and lots of vendors selling lots of different things.

Vendors like Floyd Potter Tom Phelps (above) whose booth is always a popular place for those looking for face pots and the like.

Some vendors provide services. BlueNova Computing (right) set up a CyberCafe so Internet addicts could get check their email and fulfil their online fix.

Vendor tents stretch down both sides fo the main staging area of the festival and down into the Global Village where the non-profits were exiled this year so the more commercial ventures could cater to the main crowd.  That left some grumbling.

But the grumbling reached the main area as well when power to an entire line of booths went down Friday because a food establishment kept tripping breakers. One unhappy vendor started referring to the event as "GlitchFest" but others took it in stride.

Phelps says he always sells a lot of pottery at FloydFest. Others say their business is down this year. Depends on who you ask.

FloydFest wraps up Sunday afternoon with a concert by Railroad Earth.

FloydFest is underway, kicking off the first night of concerts with the great Sam Bush (above) whose concert featured a more electric and rock-oriented sound than we’ve seen from him in the past.

Bush’s concert capped a beautiful opening day and the festival, which runs through Sunday on the Patrick County farm just off the Blue Ridge Parkway, features an eclectic mix of music, arts, crafts, food and family-oriented entertainment.

The rain and clouds that threatened earlier in the day blew away as evening closed in, providing delightful weather.

The only storm that threated festival goers came from the National Park Service which brought in its "special interdiction" team to stop drivers on the Parkway and use any excuse to harass them with unreasonable searches and ticket them for stupid things like missing bolts on license plates and beads hanging from rear view mirrors.

Avoid the Parkway if you can and use back roads to get to the festival. It will be time well spent.

I’m an unabashed fan of the Oak Grove Pavilion and its summer music series as well as the White Top Mounain Band, a family bluegrass group out of Grayson Couuny.  So bringing he two together Saturday night was an ideal match.

Floyd’s local dancers, many veterans of the Friday Night Jamboree, took to the floor from the first song and the band lit up the night.

Floyd may be a one-stoplight town but it is far from a one-music town or even a one-music venue whistlestop. Often, the schedule of events is so crowded that one has to choose between a number of excellent events.

Oh, the pain of it all.

Grayson County’s White Top Mountain Band, featuring the multi-plexed musical talents of Martha Spencer (above) brought their toe-tapping Bluegrass music to the Oak Grove Pavilion at Zion Lutheran Church Saturday night, where a large, appreciative crowd danced along with the music.

Visitors to our area often ask: "Can you describe the Floyd lifestyle?"

The Floyd lifestyle. You can’t categorize it in a snapshot. It’s too diverse.

Floyd is the young husband getting up at 4 a.m. to feed the animals before he has to drive an hour and a half to his job at the Volvo truck plant two counties away.

Floyd is the farmer up at the same hour, preparing for a long day cutting hay, mending fences, slopping hogs and worrying about the weather and the price of beef on the hoof at market.

Floyd is the blogger sitting down at his computer keyboard before the sun comes up, struggling the find the words to describe, among other things, "the Floyd lifestyle."

Floyd is the deputy sheriff preparing for another shift, working for a salary that is among the lowest in the county and wondering if he should take a job with a police force in another county so he can afford to pay his bills and feed his family.

Floyd is the city born retiree who cashed out his or her inflated home value and moved here to pay what seemed like a bargain for a house on 10 acres but still was twice as much as a local would have paid for the same property.

Floyd is the local who returned home after many years away, breaking a vow made at 17 to "never, ever live here again."

Floyd is the regular breakfast customer at Hardees, one of the senior citizens who gather for coffee each morning and talk about how much better life here was before places like Hardees opened.

Floyd is the waitress at Oddfellas who also sells real estate and teaches yoga, or the young lady with a master’s degree in biology and who is serving coffee at Cafe del Sol and fostering kittens for the local humane society.

Floyd is a musician who once toured with Emmylou Harris and gave up the road to experience the "Floyd lifestyle" and play for tips at local venues. It is musicians who play for free simply because they love the music.

Floyd is a former actor who owns a restaurant, a former musician who turns wood, a former accountant who raises cattle, a former fire chief who paints landscapes or a former cop who runs a bed & breakfast.

Floyd is the aging hippie wearing a tye-died t-shirt, eating breakfast at the Blue Ridge Restaurant and arguing politics with the farmer wearing a John Deere cap.

Floyd is a county known nationally for its bluegrass music, fine wines, timber frame homes, restorative lighting and eclectic music festivals. Yet many county residents have never attended the Friday Night Jamboree, sampled the wine from Chateau Morrisette and couldn’t tell you where to find Dreaming Creek, Crenshaw Lighting or FloydFest.

Floyd is, as a Radford attorney once described it, "a county with 40 percent lost in the fifties, 40 percent lost in the seventies and 20 percent still trying to figure out where the hell it is."

Floyd is many things to many people and fewer things to others. To some it is a place in need of change and to others a place where change is coming too quickly.

Floyd is, well, Floyd, and that’s not easy to describe.

Any more questions?

(Updated to remove reference that said Floyd County was the only Virgiia county that voted for Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. That piece of historical information was originally given to us by a member of the local historical society. Further research has shown the information to be incorrect. Our thanks to readers who brought that to our attention.)

The Friday Night Jamboree, we are often told, is an evening for all ages and the event brings out kids from 1 to 100.

I love to photograph the enthusiasm of children. Their unbounded energy is infectious for everyone, including adults. They throw themselves into dancing with such abandon that all those around them can’t help but get caught up in the excitement.

You will find many kids among the large crowds that pack the Floyd County Store each Friday night and the event will also bring out the child in you. At this past Friday night’s Jamboree, the crowd of children seemed larger and even more enthusiastic.

Music, of course, is the show but the crowd is as much fun to watch as anything else. I saw one man on stage dancing in wing tips. Another wore a cowboy hat, bermuda shorts and Birkenstocks.

But the children are, and always will be, a show into themselves.

Throngs of people packed Floyd Friday night to enjoy the music that spilled out of music venues up and down Locust Street.

The center piece, of course, was the Friday Night Jamboree (above and below) where bands played on both sides of the street and the thick crowd brought multiple visits from Virginia State Troopers who struggled to keep the road clear for motorists.

In Cafe del Sol, Abe Goorskey brought his fiance, Loren Mills, to the mike for an impromptu song (below) for an appreciative audience.