Alrighty.  Its been a long weekend!  Im still exhausted, and I had to scrub down three times to get the slime of 90 hours without a shower grungy-ness off of me...

But it was worth it.  What a weekend!

As per usual, I spent the last three or four days before the crew headed out to Honobia for the festival losing my mind.  It can get extremely hectic and stressfull preparing for such adventures as these.  I finished my preps about 45 minutes before we were going to leave.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Bigfoot Conference, let me give you a little overview.

The Honobia Bigfoot Conference and Festival is held every year in Honobia, Oklahoma.  It is a two day event, with a virtual smorgasboard of activities.

The conference has presentations and lectures by Bigfoot experts, researchers and research groups on a variety of subjects, from the research of our big, hairy friend to speculations on the meaning of evidence collected in the field.

The festival portion runs right along side of the conference, and has a talent contest, live music, games for the kids, pictures with Bigfoot, arts and crafts vendors, food vendors and a large variety of other things.  Its an old-school fair...just the way we like it.

So we had originally planned to go down to Honobia on Friday(opening day) to shoot some of the festival, talk with festival-goers and just try and promote 'On the Fringe'.  That changed however, when we made contact with Mike Hall, a TexLa Cryptozoological Research team member and one of the festival directors.  Mikes a great guy and a helluva Bigfoot hunter.  He provided us access to some great stuff(to be detailed in a moment), and through that changed our plans.  That One day excursion turned into the entire weekend...

Day 1

We rolled into the festival grounds around 5pm, found our camp and pitched our tent.  At 5:15 a storm blew through, dropping torrents of water and bringing the cold air right behind it.  On a personal note, thats one of the things I love and look forward to every year in this humid state...the first storm of fall that brings the chilly air.

We met up with Mike, planned the evening and then went about getting prepped as usual:  checking tapes, batteries, all equipment and getting dressed for a night in the woods...yes indeed, this was one of the special accesses Mike bestowed upon us, an excursion into a known-Bigfoot hot-spot with the TexLa team and the Mid-America Bigfoot Research Center Team.  Unbelievable.

Before we headed up the mountain, we realized we were hungry.  Then we realized three other things.

#1-  None of the food vendors were there yet.

#2-  The only store within range was already closed.

#3-  We didnt bring any food.

UN-luckily, Joe had remembered to bring a case of ten year old MRE's(they expire after 5 years).

I decided to take one for the team.  SOMEBODY had to try one.

It was no bueno.  The cheese spread for the cardboard-like crackers smelled like rotten flesh.  I cant describe what it tasted like.  More on this in Life on the Road.

Fortunately, I didnt have to go it alone.  A young feller sat down across from me at the picnic table, and seeing the distress in my eyes, decided to try it with me.  His name was Chris Dike, and he became our little buddy.  He hung out with us all weekend.

Anyway, the MRE's were a no-go, so we headed on up the mountain where we met the rest of the Texla and MABRC research teams.  They are, respectively:

TexLa:

Bruce Densford
Bob Densford
Dulcie Hall


Mid-America Bigfoot research Center:
D.W. Lee
Bobbie Lee
Randy Harrington
Lem Weaver
Dave Ganote
Andrew Nelson
Johnny Hicks
Roy Mcclish
JR Morton

(if any of these are spelled wrong, its not my fault guys.  Dulcie made the list for me)

Now, these folks are legit.  They take this research seriously, and they dont mess around.  Bigfoot research has come along way in the last several years, with new techniques popping up and ingenuitive folks coming up with new inventions...mostly cleverly re-purposed electronics.

I cant tell you everything, because...well, capitalism.  You got to buy the show if you want to see everything.  I will say this.  We had a VERY interesting occurence on the mountain on the first night, and it sent the researchers into a euphoric state of mind.  God Bless you, Randy Harrington.

It was the perfect night to be out.  The moon was just about a hair shy of being full, the storm and the cold air had cleared the atmosphere, and the sky was crystal-clear.  Theres something magical about being DEEP in the woods, so far from the rush of life as we currently know it.  All you can see and hear is nature.  It was awesome.

When we got back to camp that night, we were hungry and frozen, but our neighbor in the tent-city came over and chatted with us and brought a propane heater.  That night we met Marvin, professor from Murray State University.  He was a hoot...oh man, I feel sorry for his students...he makes everything up...lol(Just Kidding, sir).

So the next day we got up at the butt-crack of dawn, and headed over to start the conference part of our shoot.  This was the other wonderful thing Mike did for us...got us in good with everyone.  We're talking some of the most respected Bigfoot Experts and Researches in the world.  They are, in no particular order:

Dr. Jeff Meldrum
Thom Powell
R. Scott Nelson
David Paulides
Harvey Pratt

and many more.

These are some of the coolest, most down-to-earth guys you could hope to meet, and they all gave freely of their time and expertise to us.  So to them, a huge THANK YOU is in order.  This also can be seen in the episode.

We met locals, we met those who traveled great distance to get there, we met skeptics and we met Believers.  We watched some of the talent show, and were treated to a Native American legend about Bigfoot.

We spent one more night in the field with the research teams, and then one more day at the conference and festival meeting people and researchers and documenting the whole experience. 

All in all, even though we went 3 days without a shower, and it was colds*** everynight, we had a great time and made a huge number of friends, some of whom I know will be life-long relationships.

We also learned of a whole new approach to the research of Bigfoot, and the seriousness that its taken with.  We also heard new theories, angles and variations on this enigma known as sasquatch and have a new perspective on all things crypto-zoological.

So to Mike Hall and EVERYONE who made our time in Honobia so great, we say THANK YOU ALL!!!  We will be in touch, and we're ready to hit the woods with you guys anytime!

To all of you viewers, look forward to an in-depth documentary on the 2009 Bigfoot Conference and Festival, that will be loaded with interviews, theories, stories and TWO investigations!!!  Its sure to be the best 'On the Fringe' yet!!!