A sussuration of surf on warm sand as the morning breaks over the wide bay bordering the hundred-some acres of the Mudcat Funhouse, Boardwalk and Capo Carnivale. The boardwalk snakes along the edges of the white-sand beach, where pale blue waves roll into ragged lines of gentle surf and the gulls sing fragments of Gaudeamus to the surf's slow rhythm. From a hundred small trailers and cabins parked along the northern boundary of the park, the smell of bacon sizzling and black coffee dripping mingles with the sounds of banjos, 12-strings, and bazoukis tuning up for a day of merriment. Four hundred folkies of various sizes are rolling out to start a day of hilarity and hijinks, although some of them have been up for hours tuning up the rides -- the Death Defying Circle of Fifths, the Flat-E-Terror-Trip, the amazing Tunnel of the Lost Chord, the pulse pounding Journey to the Relative Minor, and a score of others. Others have been opening the stands for food, games, love and magic along the boardwalk -- the incredible "Dylan Back On Pitch" game, The Rick Fielding House of Endless Harmonics, the BSeed Fortune and Forgotten Lyrics Guessing Stand, the JenEllen House of Love and Animal Husbandry, LEJ's Highdrammer Walk, and MBO's Heartbreak Hotelarama. Swanno is doing death-defying dives from the high board. Couples break into songs, strolling in the early light, in perfect thirds of heart-straining beauty. Laughter joins the smell of sunlight and jasmine along the sand. There are special spots all over the landscape, joined by paths among verdant tropical growth and bathed in delectable breezes perfumed by the airs of a thousand distant lands.

Talk a walk down the boardwalk. Look!! What's that????? Amazing....