It feels fabulous to return to Smoky Mountain Encore clogging workshop! I last attended in March 2020, right before COVID-19 restrictions hit my home state of Ohio.

Fancy Free Cloggers had the added fun this year of bringing a teenager and an adult to their first clogging workshop ever!

The journey in the Mighty Cruze began after Molly drove herself to my house from college (Go, Bobcats!). We loaded up, then headed to the studio to pick up Christine. You KNOW it’s going to be a great trip when this is your send-off!

Bye, Ivan!

Much to our dismay, the cafe hot bar at the Kentucky Artisan Center was closed.. We enjoyed walking around to admire the Kentucky artwork but opted out of purchasing basic turkey sandwiches when we had supplies to make BETTER turkey sandwiches in the car. Parking lot picnic it is!

Another FFC carload found a photo op at Three Bears General Store on the way to Gatlinburg.

Evie “borrowed” a cart to transport her yoga mats to the convention center. Room 4/5 is ready for yoga class first thing in the morning!

Can’t complain about a registration line that lets me participate in the fun dance while I wait! Encore staff kept it moving, so it wasn’t long before I had a neon green admission bracelet, a syllabus, and a tee shirt.

Time to fully join the fun dance, with plenty of breaks to greet friends from other teams. Lookin’ good out there, Cardinal Cloggers!

Speaking of friends, FFC was delighted to see this crew from Riverside Cloggers of Point Pleasant, West Virginia! Will the Mothman Festival resume this year? Fingers crossed!

The team made plans for dinner at Mellow Mushroom on Saturday night, but we couldn’t wait! Molly and I slipped away from the fun dance to share a Thai Dye pizza. YUM!

We’ll discuss the workshop proper in the next post. Spoiler: I loved it!

How was YOUR trip to Smoky Mountain Encore?