Philmont Report . . .

Well, we are back from Philmont and vacation. Awesome weather. Awesome country. I understand now why North East New Mexico is called "God's Country."

My Philmont Experience was a great success, if I say so myself. I played guitar, sang, and gave the message at 3 chapel services, 2 of which were at 6:30 AM. Yes, my friends, there is nothing like a chapel service facing the New Mexico sunrise with elk bugling out in the distance!

I also played guitar and sang at two evening sing-a-longs. It is hard to play guitar and sing when homemade dutch-oven cobblers are cooking on coals less than 20 feet away!

I also provided a bit of a back porch concert with the help of several other BSA execs, as they hosted several reps from various corporate groups who were at Philmont to explore future partnerships with BSA.

The highlight for me, was getting to sing 4 songs at the closing program on Friday night, outside in the Philmont Training Center Program Bowl ampitheater, in the 40's temperature wise. Frank Riegleman, friend and BSA executive played with me on two of the songs. I later sang "Bullfrogs and Butterflys" and "Friends of the Family" as solos. I left my first major regional music performance with the opinion that I could not have done much better. It was in exhilirating feeling.

I hope to return to Philmont in the summer of 2013 as a chaplain during the summer. That's a ways off, but we will see. I need to start now with planning if it will happen at all.

As far as guitars, I took both the Guild jumbo's, but relied mostly on the F50R 6 string, mostly because we were playing in the cold of the morning or evening. I was able to get it just a few days before leaving, thanks to the help (once again!) of Sean Simon at Grapevine Guitar Works. It is a workhorse, and I fell in deep love with it. Guild's are good "money" guitars. And they stand up to adverse conditions I would not put other guitars through.

Just an awesome experience.

God's grace still amazes me . . . ><>