Barry and others-- NAT (normal arrival time) is ANY time after about 3 p.m. on Friday. But if you show up earlier, you can always help with last-minute preparations. Most people arrive dinnerish, between, say 5 and 8 p.m., though some people will surely arrive after that. (Keep in mind that I-95 leading from Washington, DC to Prince William can be absolute hell from 3 or 3:30 in the afternoon until 6 or 6:30, though you sound like you'll qualify for HOV-3 if you come through at that hour.) When you show up, you'll check in and get your ID name badge along with a packet of information and schedules; then you'll schlep your stuff to the cabin where you're staying (or go off to the Travel Trailer Village or motel to check in there if you haven't done so) and then come back to the dining hall for some pot-luck food and conversation. After dinner, the conversation will continue in the dining hall, but many folks will have wandered off to a lodge to make music, and another group will have gone off to another lodge to jam instrumentally, and maybe yet another group will go off and sing the sorts of things that the folks at the first lodge aren't singing. This part of the desciption is all rather approximate because it's all spontaneous. If you arrive before, say 11 p.m., there will be folks sitting at the registration desk to welcome you. If you arrive after that, there will be folks engaged in music-making or conversation who will have to get up and cross the room to the registration desk to welcome you. So come on by whenever you can get there, and we'll leave the light on for you. (oops--ad jingles are in a different thread...)

-Charlie Baum