Labour Day 2022

[Baeau]

If anyone is interested, tickets are on sale for the 156th Highland Gathering & Games in Pleasanton, Ca. Labour Day weekend. Many know/remember it as, a locale slightly North of Hades. Last year (Saturday), as opposed to a prior 115-117 degree weekend some experienced, was very tolerable.

https://thescottishgames.com/

[Panache]

I plan on being their performing with the Red Thistle Dancers .


Cheers

Jamie

[OC Richard]

It's a quirky West Coast thing, that the long-established big cities lie on the coast, that these cities have Scottish societies, that these Scottish societies stage Highland Games, and that these Highland Games are not held in or near the cities but in distant inland hot dry valleys well cut off from the cool coastal weather that the cities putting on the Games enjoy.

It's true for Seattle, San Francisco, and San Diego. I don't know the situation with the Portland Games.

Happily here the Los Angeles area Games, though held an hour's drive from Los Angeles, are not inland but down the coast. (They were held in a hot dry distant inland valley a few times, just to join in the fun.)

Our Games were a couple weeks ago, Memorial Day weekend, and the weather was misty and chilly in the morning and stayed cool all day. Tweed jackets were everywhere to be seen.

But the Caledonian Club of San Francisco shies away from the coast, holding their Games in Santa Rosa (often 20 or 30 degrees hotter than The City) from 1962 to 1993 and since then in Pleasanton, with the weather people have been mentioning.

The 115+ weather of several years ago gave an interesting look to the Pipe Band competition, as the judges suspended the WUSPBA requirement for Highland Dress and bands competed in t-shirts and such.

[Panache]

...The 115+ weather of several years ago gave an interesting look to the Pipe Band competition, as the judges suspended the WUSPBA requirement for Highland Dress and bands competed in t-shirts and such.

Richard,

I was the lead of the Red Thistle Dancers Adjudication team that year. My partner almost fainted as we left the stage.

I loved that the judges began "We do understand that conditions are....err...extreme out in the sun on the stage, but you are a performance team, you all danced wonderfully however as a performance team you really need to make it all seem effortless..." LOL!!!!

Cheers

Jamie

[Baeau]

That (memorable) weekend, it was 114 in the shade of our patio. Which was located across SF Bay in Mountain View (probably, 3-4 miles straight line from the Bay). Hence, our absence from the event. I looked up a photo I took of the patio thermometer. At 5:19pm, it showed 109.

[OC Richard]

Our band had made the decision to skip Pleasanton in 2022.

As soon as this was announced I purchased a full weekend pass to the Long Beach Comic Con, also held Labour Day weekend.

Now the band has changed its mind! And I have to find out if the Comic Con pass is refundable.

So it remains to be seen if I will be with you all at Pleasanton.

About that "memorable weekend" I spent it in comfortable air conditioning! At the Long Beach Comic Con, as it happens. (Maybe if my weekend pass isn't refundable it won't be such a bad thing.)

[Baeau]

So, how did anyone fare over the last couple of days?