Healing Appalachia

 2025 ended up being a bit of a musical year for us in a variety of ways, and also centered a bit around Tyler Childers. After we saw him at Commonwealth and Callie missed the show we jumped at the chance to see him at a music festival in eastern Kentucky called Healing Appalachia.

This was a two night event that included onsite camping if you so desired. When we first bought the tickets we jumped at the opportunity to camp, especially since the general camping price was pretty cheap. And at the time we relied on our past experience to assume that high school soccer games would not be played on a Saturday. Oops. Turns out the girls had games on Saturday morning. But that didn't stop us. It just meant we had a few more obstacles to work around. John and Callie drove up early on Friday afternoon to grab a campsite for the weekend. Reese and Sarah were driving up later, parking nearby, and getting a ride into the show. That was the plan at least.

 

And we weren't there alone. Ella and her college friend Sam were camping with us, which made the experience even better. But this picture here of the girls about to listen to Chris Stapleton did not come easy. John had to drive out of the campsite to get Sarah and Reese because they were not going to be able to get a shared into the grounds. Traffic was brutal, which meant that on the way back in, Sarah and Reese got out of the car and walked so they would at least make it in time. All told John was in the car about two and a half hours to go ten miles, but he made it to the show. He wasn't up front with this crew, but he did get the whole Chris Stapleton experience. And it was awesome!

 

Chris Stapleton played until around 11:00 or so, and then we made our way to the exit so that our friends Bob and Tracy could drive us to where Sarah and Reese and parked. This was all arranged so we could leave one car at the campsite and then drive the other back to Lexington, two hours away. This would enable us to sleep for a bit, wake up early, and drive to West Jessamine HS so the girls could play the Colts. As the parents we did feel a little guilty for the lack of sleep and weren't sure how the girls would play. Thankfully they were still riding the adrenaline from the concert. Reese played the whole game and scored in the JV win and Callie followed that up by scoring the lone goal to seal for the victory for the varsity. After that performance we made a quick stop for showers at home and then headed back to Boyd County Fairgrounds.

 

Thankfully there was no traffic as we made our way back and we had plenty of time to hang out, make dinner, and have a true pre-show photo shoot. John and Callie had chosen well so that while our campsite was way in the back of the grounds we also had this as our backyard. All of the girls had prepped to look just right for the Tyler Childers performance.

 

They may be difficult to see in the tall grass, but Callie is sporting what we came to call her Amazing boots, an Amazon purchase that worked out splendidly. They were very comfortable and certainly made the outfit. Callie was especially excited since this was going to be the first time she was seeing Tyler Childers live.

 

All of the girls dressed up nice and were ready to head out as early as possible to get a spot toward the front. This meant standing up for several hours and listening to a number of opening acts before Tyler came out. I don't think these four had a problem with the standing for 4-5 hours part, but Sarah and John were certainly feeling it by the end of the night.

 

One of the great aspects of this festival is that its whole reason for being is to help support efforts to combat opiod abuse in eastern Kentucky communities. It is a cause that Tyler Childers has been involved with for years and he has been integral to starting this festival as part of that work. All that being said, it doesn't mean that people don't smoke, and Reese's sweater served her well throughout the weekend to cover her face when the cigarette/vape/Mary Jane smoke got a bit too much. So many lessons to learn at the age of 14. In any case, this is one of our favorite pictures from the weekend.

 

Tyler's show was incredible and he played a lot of his new album. That was both great because we got to hear songs like Bitin' List, but we were also there for his older stuff. And we loved the references to all the years he spent playing small places in Lexington, like Al's Bar, which made an appearance in his set for part of the show. Once he was done playing we were wiped out. Some of our crew stayed up a bit to talk about the show while John went straight into the tent and crashed. It was a long weekend, but it was worth every hour spent in the car to make it happen.