I've grabbed my best pictures and a few music samples of the Okefenokee 2001 concerts and presented them here for those who attended the April 20-24th event to remember the great times and for those who didn't to catch a glimpse and maybe get inspired to attend next year's event, the Ricochet Gathering 2002 @ Okefenokee Swamp. My E-mail address is feldon@feldoncentral.com.

Steve Whiteley made some more pictures of the Oke 2001 event available to me, but I have been sitting on them, so to speak, for a long time now. Well I've had some time and ran them through the Photoshop 6 thumbnail website creator, adjusted colors and brightness, and produced a web page for them. Many of these pictures are of the wildlife and maybe some other things the other photographers missed. You're encouraged to check out [[COMING SOON]]

As I said, I had no idea what to expect except to meet the faces behind some of the names on the Tadream list as well as meeting great musicians and hearing memorable music. Well, I can say you guys who considered showing up but didn't missed 5 days of bliss! Here it is July and I am still energized by the event. When I get bogged down on work, I just play the Oke 2001 CD and think about next year's event. Hopefully the guys will let me add some Texas cooking to the event as this year's event! Already there is consideration of next year's event and getting 3 Cottages (All preliminary at this point). Marcel and the Airsculpture guys have expressed interest in showing up next year too. I have to thank Vic and Roger for organizing such a wonderful event, and John and Peter of Airsculpture, Marcel Engels of Free System Projeckt, Dave Brewer and Bill Fox for making us remember classic TD and also laugh at new improvisations and ideas and thanks to everyone else for working hard to contribute to the cooking, cleanup, and volunteering to be roadies for the musicians!

My travelog starts on Saturday as I did not attend the Thursday party in Atlanta at Vic's place (I WILL be there next year!) and I grossly underestimated the driving time from Houston to Okefenokee so I arrived at the Park gates 1 hour after closing. Exhausted and crestfallen (15 hours drive due to a horrific accident in Louisiana (sorry, no pictures!), traffic delays and, to be quite honest, excessive concern about traffic laws), I drove back down the park road (~13 miles) to the intersection of 441 and the Park road and flagged someone down. I was able to get lodgings for the night from a nice elderly lady who rents out her Trailer for a very reasonable price. In hindsight, I should have parked the car, hopped the fence, and walked the 2 miles to the cottages!

With a fresh start, I arrived in the park Saturday morning around 9 AM. I managed to get a vehicle pass from the park office and drove around looking for Cottages 5 and 6. I found Cottage 6 and my spirits rose when I heard Pergamon wafting through the windows at top volume. I made my way to the screened-in porch and was disheartened to see the place abandoned. I feared the TD crew had gone out on the water or on a hiking trip not to return for hours and I would be stuck there by myself. But the crew were merely taking breakfast in Cottage 5 that morning as a couple of folks wandered back to Cottage 6 and introductions began. I was made to feel right at home and a magical event began.