We had a great time at Hillside Music Festival!

Friday, Sue and John were busy getting ready to perform at Hillside Music Festival over the weekend. Laurel and I ran to the grocery store to get milk because I'd hoped to head to the festival for the evening too. We were expecting thunderstorms and I hoped to run in and out ... except the ramp on my van got stuck out when I got out. I spent about 45 minutes trying to figure out what to do. I couldn't find the hand crank for the ramp and whenever I pushed the power button, the ramp moved sideways and hit the sliding door. It looked like it was going to rain any minute and I realized I couldn't close up the van, much less secure it or drive it anywhere. A nice woman with three young children asked if I needed help. She asked a guy who happened to be walking past if he knew anything about wheelchair accessible vans ... surprisingly, he did not! But he agreed to try to help anyway. I searched in the very back and found the hand crank and then looked at the modifications handbook. The two people who had stopped helped me crank and we got the ramp into the van. Once we were successful at that, the ramp became normally functional again. In the midst of everything, I realized that the only two phone numbers I had on my Canadian phone were Sue and John's and I couldn't reach them. By the time I was heading back to the farm, I figured it wouldn't be a good idea to go to the festival. I called Sue to tell her and she convinced me that I should come. She and John turned around and came back to let me follow them to the island (where the festival is held). We decided to take Hardy too since John could handle him for me. 
 It was really crowded at the festival and Hardy did a great job walking through all the people. At one point, we had to walk right past a big stack of speakers that were booming. Hardy stopped to think about all the noise for a minute before walking on. Overall, he did a great job although he did get tired of sitting on my lap while Sue and John participated in the opening ceremonies. On the way back out to the van, Hardy got to ride on John's shoulders ... it was a lot of walking for a little brown puppy. 
Yesterday, Laurel and I went back to the festival, leaving Hardy at home. A friend, Kathy promised to come to  feed, let him out, and play with him. She sent me a text message telling me that he'd done great which was a relief since I'd never left him alone for that long before!