{"id":8053,"date":"2016-05-26T22:57:30","date_gmt":"2016-05-27T04:57:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8053"},"modified":"2016-05-26T22:57:30","modified_gmt":"2016-05-27T04:57:30","slug":"why-i-am-not-at-the-heartland-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8053","title":{"rendered":"Why I Am Not at the Heartland Festival."},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Amtrack's

Amtrack’s Southwest Chief in southern Colorado. By Steve Wilson – Flickr (Wikimedia Commons)<\/p><\/div>\n

All day I had been tracking the progress of the eastbound Southwest Chief,<\/a> the Amtrak train between Chicago and Los Angeles. It was slightly late out of Gallup, N.M., but on time into Albuquerque.<\/p>\n

Then something happened to slow it between Lamy Junction and Las Vegas, New Mexico. The estimated time of arrival at my station (La Junta, Colo.) kept sliding back.<\/p>\n

Just as well.<\/p>\n

With the train fifteen minutes out from the station, my phone rang with a Kansas City number that I did not recognize, but I ended up talking with Sean, one of the Heartland Pagan Festival<\/a> organizers.<\/p>\n

I was supposed to give two talks there this weekend: one on American nature religion and one on my flying ointment research.<\/p>\n

Things were not good: a dam had overflowed, the access road to Camp Gaea<\/a> was blocked, and the person who was to pick me up in Lawrence, Kan., tomorrow morning (Friday, May 27) was trapped (along with everyone else) at the festival site.<\/p>\n

It was questionable if I could even get there tomorrow. He spoke of reimbursing me for a hotel room. Would I even be able to do the scheduled Saturday presentation?<\/p>\n

It’s not that I dislike Lawrence \u2014 it’s an interesting town \u2014 but did I want to ride all night just to go there and then, perhaps, stay a night in a hotel and then come back again, if I could get my ticket changed?<\/p>\n

And what about all the people who paid for the weekend, were they getting in? There was a strong vibe of chaos and confusion, and I did not envy the organizers one bit.<\/em><\/p>\n

Meanwhile the train was getting closer. “Maybe I had better abort this mission,” I said.<\/p>\n

As I turned onto the highway home, the silver cars of the Southwest Chief were rolling beside me. I was going west, and they were going east.<\/p>\n

So here I am, after two hours’ drive back home. After having sweated numerous bullets trying to put two talks together, packed, gotten everything organized (notes, handouts).<\/p>\n

At least some of the work will transfer to other projects, an article and a book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All day I had been tracking the progress of the eastbound Southwest Chief, the Amtrak train between Chicago and Los Angeles. It was slightly late out of Gallup, N.M., but on time into Albuquerque. Then something happened to slow it between Lamy Junction and Las Vegas, New Mexico. The estimated time of arrival at my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[127,284],"class_list":["post-8053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-festivals","tag-kansas"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-25T","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":769,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=769","url_meta":{"origin":8053,"position":0},"title":"Amtrak Heaven, Amtrak Hell–and all for Pagan Studies","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 24, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Regular readers know that M. and I like train travel. We saw both sides of it on our just-completed trip to Washington, DC.The Southwest Chief was on time to La Junta, Colorado, where we meet it, but the ticket agent was muttering about possible stoppage due to high winds.Somewhere in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8593,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8593","url_meta":{"origin":8053,"position":1},"title":"Heartland Festival Presentations, Take 2","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 24, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Once again, I am packed, ready, and excited to be going to the Heartland Pagan Festival.\u00a0 With any luck, that will be me stepping off the Southwest Chief in Lawrence, Kansas, on Friday morning. (Usually I snooze through Lawrence when traveling east and wake up for the long stop in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"festivals\"","block_context":{"text":"festivals","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=festivals"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=soutrocknatub-20&l=am2&o=1&a=0759102023","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9301,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9301","url_meta":{"origin":8053,"position":2},"title":"The Trip to Salem: Southern Colorado \u2014 Chicago","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 15, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"The eastbound Southwest Chief, which originates in Los Angeles, rolls into La Junta, Colorado, at sunset. A near-miss in Chicago: the sleeping car attendant had lined up everyone's bags on the platform, which is a dimly lit. I found my carry-on bag, rolled it into Union Station, down the corridors\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11195,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11195","url_meta":{"origin":8053,"position":3},"title":"Conference on Current Pagan Studies 1: The Southwest Chief","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 7, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"I was honored this year to be asked to give a keynote address at the Conference on Current Pagan Studies.((The other keynoter was the feminist writer and poet Judy Grahn. Yes, the website badly needs an upgrade.)) For journeys under 500 miles \u2014 and sometimes more \u2014 I would rather\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"California\"","block_context":{"text":"California","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=california"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/lounge-car-interior-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":894,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=894","url_meta":{"origin":8053,"position":4},"title":"Post-travel update","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 19, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I came home Saturday night the 16th with a flourishing head cold that I probably picked up on the previous Monday's flights between Colorado Springs and South Carolina. It manifested on Thursday morning--that interval seems like about the right incubation time--and made the last three days of the conference I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"travel\"","block_context":{"text":"travel","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=travel"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":19,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=19","url_meta":{"origin":8053,"position":5},"title":"Southwest Chief","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 30, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's a snapshot of the platform after Mary & I left the train in La Junta, Colorado. More blogging soon as I get back into writing. I did manage about 300 words on the issue of \"family tradition\" (fam-trad) witchcraft before my PowerBook battery got dangerously low as we rolled\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"travel\"","block_context":{"text":"travel","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=travel"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8053"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8059,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8053\/revisions\/8059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}