One of the wheel chair and scooter obstacles at festival appears when people have to run heavy extension cords and/or water hoses across the roads. (An AWG10 cord is about the same diameter as a water hose.) People who lay 2 x 4s on both sides of them or "encase them" in a fire hose, etc., to "protect them" where they cross the road create an "impenetrable barrier" for the smaller scooters.

While it's impractical to fix them all, I did find a rather neat way to reasonably remove the "stoppers" within our own camp area.

Cat litter comes in three grades. There's the normal, a clumping, and a "high clumping" varieties. If you line up the hoses and cords, and dump a pile of the high clumping cat litter on them to cover about a 3 foot run, and then stake a scrap (about 4 ft square works) of carpet tightly over it all, when you dribble a little cat piss water on it, the clumping litter "gels" well enough to stay in place, and even Lin's little scooter can ride over them. The hoses/cords may be a bit discolored (dirty) when you pick it all up, but they're "supported" against crushing well enough to suffer no damage from the "traffic." (And the dirt can be washed off.)

The "usual methods" could be used on the road, if people would provide a "scooter path" at least a couple of feet wide at one side of the road.

There was a "coup" of sorts at the last WVA festival. After several years of complaining, mostly by one particular participant, the organizers added a "handicap ramp" to allow roll-up access to the contest stage. Our line-up neighbor Marti was very happy at being able to roll right up on the stage and compete in the autoharp competition while sitting on her scooter. There was also some minor adjustment of handicapped seating at Stage 1 that likely will work a bit better than in the past. There appears to be some recognition that there a lots of old people and handicapped attending.

But the festival organizers have announced plans to require and charge for permits for golf carts used in the camps next year, so they've apparently also picked up on the money to be made from people who need (or just want) some "assistance."

(The signs they had up this year said "golf carts will be charged." I thought maybe they were on the "green kick" about providing charging stations for EVs, but other sources say it's a fee and not a power supply.)

John