RoadtripMojo first met our latest hammock winner at the Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park’s Suwannee Rising music festival last spring. Kym Campbell Eckard and husband, Joe, were camping on the Loop two spots down from us. When we weren’t at the Mushroom or Peach stages for The New Mastersounds, Melody Trucks Band, Lettuce, Dumpstaphunk, or Oteil & Friends, we were marveling at the Eckards’ rig. That bright blue Winnebago Minnie Winnie captured our attention. So we introduced ourselves to take a peek inside and out and learn more. We’re RV junkies that way. Then again, whether you’re tenting, pulling a trailer, or driving a retro rig or a million-dollar coach, most camping folk wanna see what the other guy’s got.
Then, the festival was over and we went our separate ways.
Until two seasons and a bunch of festivals later, when we were reacquainted. That’s when Kym liked and shared our RoadtripMojo hammock giveaway post – and her name was drawn.
After a little chatter, Kym reminded us we’d met back at Rising. Heck, we might even have seen each other along our travels. To hear Kym tell it, they’re festival fans. They’ve camped on the Loop and River Road. And they’ve become “huge, and old, Widespread Panic fans” since the Athens act introduced the couple to Wanee (RIP) and SOSMP.
They’ve gotten around a bit. They did the eclipse from St. Petersburg, Florida, last year. Hurricane Florence also chased the family from their home in coastal North Carolina, they ended up camping at the Compass RV Park in St. Augustine – and taking in a pair of Panic shows – the first for their teenage son.
“That amphitheater is truly incredible,” she said of The Amp, where we’ve seen WSP, the Chris Robinson Soul Review, Lettuce – and missed out on the recent The Last Waltz performance by Warren Haynes (don’t get us started – word has it that set was stellar).
So they’ve done all this camping – with no hammock to hang. I mean, what’s a campsite without a hammock? Especially in a place like Spirit of the Suwannee, with live oaks dripping with Spanish moss or the cypress trees around the Mushroom Stage or along the Suwannee River. “Majestic” is magnified amid all this magnificence.
In fact, their Minnie Winnie has a sweet floorplan with comfortable accommodations and that outdoor kitchen that makes the campsite. They also pack bikes and chairs and all the accessories.
Their site was clutch. Kym said they even could hear the music coming from the Peach Stage (it’ll always be the Peach and Meadow stages to any SOSMP veterans like Kym and Joe).
They had it all, it seems, except for that one mesh accessory. And like Charlie from the 1970s eye-candy crime drama, we changed all that.
“We do not have a hammock so you have really made our day,” Kym said. “We have several trips to Florida in the next few months and will put it to good use.”
Maybe they’ll even find themselves at Compass RV Resort or Anastasia State Park or somewhere along the coast with a palm, pine, or oak to hang it from, or back along the Suwannee River, or from the cypress trees down by the Mushroom Stage.
Because hammocks and the Mushroom – they kinda go together.