Contra Dancing at Glen Echo

By the end of one of our Contra dance party evenings, I always feel like I have been away on a smile-therapy vacation. By combining a beautiful summer evening at the Glen Echo Community Center, an old school house in the country by Everson, Washington, with the Toad Mountain Ramblers, one of our local Contra dance bands, and lots and lots of friendly, smiling people gathered there to dance to the lively tunes, that is exactly what we got - a mini smile-therapy vacation!
We drove North on Washington State Highway 9 to the little town of Everson. This valley, carved out as the glaciers receded millions of years ago, is the image I have known all my life as a model for the American farm.
Mile after plush-green mile, as one farm after another comes into view with the streams and rivers on their sides and mountain peaks to the East, West and all the way into Canada to the North, we drove past livestock grazing in the pastures and growing green fields. All of the shades imaginable of green were seen in the landscape. Fields of potatoes showing their blooms of red and white, acre after acre of waist-high rows of corn, row after row of raspberries just ready to be plucked from their bushes and many other crops - all in a different, rich shade of green.

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The Toad Mountain Ramblers played the tunes and Marlin Prowell was our caller as the evening of country dancing began.

Sally took her position in one of the squares and our evening of dancing continued.

While sitting one of the dances out, Fred became our photographer. Thanks Fred!

With happy smiles upon our faces, many vicarious moments were shared as eyes locked and the couples spun around and around and around while weaving their way through all the other couples out on that dance floor. A few more photos from our Contra dance at Everson's Glen Echo Community Center -

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Another great Contra dance party!