This morning I had the wonderful idea to camp at a sheep and alpaca farm somewhere here in Bavaria, about an hour and a half from home. We were already close by, and looking for a place to stay. Our calls to the farm remained unanswered. The farmer was probably also having an Easter brunch, as he should. We decided to look for more conventional places to stay, and ended up on a small campsite near Wemding (wherever the heck that may be).
The location is pretty nice, on the shore of a small lake that was created in the 70s for the sole purpose of generating tourism for the area. The lake has a walk-around path, and a Seestube – like a Biergarten on the waterfront. We found out this afternoon that the Seestube was nice, and that there would be an Easter bonfire this evening.
We weren’t sure what to do. Kids and covid have ruled our lives over the past two years, and when a rare opportunity arises to do something in the evening, we don’t even know how that works any more.
A bonfire. In the evening? What about the kids…? Will there be many people?
We decided not to go.
Then, when we were prepping the kids to go to bed, and close our camper door, our camper neighbors told us there’s a bonfire, and we should probably have a look.
But what about the kids?
It was too late…
Rafa had heard about the bonfire, and there would be no way to get him to sleep. I figured we might as well go.
This was the biggest gathering of people I’ve seen in two years. There must have been 500 people. It was outside, but I’m pretty confident that the inner 300 will all have covid in three days, as people were standing shoulder to shoulder. We were in the outer 50 with reasonable 1.5m distancing, so I’m sure we were rather safe.
The bonfire was pretty nice, but yeah, it was just a fire. Then a group of odd-looking cybergoth wizards passed us, dragging along with them a trolley filled with pyromaniac toys. I’ve seen my share of these pyro types, as the town I used to live in was a hotspot for fire artists from all ends of the artistic spectrum. It brought back good memories to parties in my student days. Good times.
As the fire dudes prepared, the bonfire burned higher and higher. And time was ticking. Nine o’clock. These kids should be in bed!
Then finally the dancy pyro wizards started their show. First some basic stuff. They all do the same thing… Boring. Then, the main wizard rolled up his wizard sleeves and brought out the crazy stuff. This dude really found his element, and I imagine he hasn’t been able to enjoy too many large audiences of late. It’s a beautiful thing to see an artist go all out with passion. If you add fire to the mix, things can get quite spectacular, and they did.
The show lasted half an hour, and when we walked back, while carrying my son on my shoulders, he couldn’t shut up about them, and the flyer they gave him. Then he figured out there were stars. He was quite impressed by those too… We were wondering if he ever saw real stars – he probably never was outside in the dark…
Our evenings have been compromised greatly over the past years, but as it turns out, this is in large part due to our own refusal to break our rituals. The kids will be fine. And covid, I guess covid will do just fine too…
Edit: I walked about two kilometers to get out of this ‘Funkloch’ to find internet to be able to post this. Daily posting means daily posting!
Robin Heinen 