🐆 The Watering Hole in the Woods
The Watering Hole in the Woods is a heartfelt and humorous gratitude tour update from Tré Taylor following Spring 2026 at Strawberry Music Festival in Grass Valley, California. Part memoir, part music festival anthropology, and part spiritual road journal, this story reflects on the evolution of Leopard Lounge Camp Adventures — a traveling creative hospitality concept rooted in music, community, healing, art, and soulful connection.
The accompanying ai artwork symbolizes balance between light and shadow, freedom and responsibility, creativity and grounding. The leopard crest represents the wild heart learning to stay centered through transformation, while the music-filled forest imagery honors the spirit of Americana roots culture, Burning Man-style creativity, jazz improvisation, bluegrass circles, traveling artists, and the healing power of community.
This year’s Strawberry Music Festival journey included unforgettable music, deep conversations, campground philosophy, generational jam sessions, and an unexpected culinary accident that left Tré recovering from second-degree burns on her right paw. Thankfully, the kindness and generosity of the Strawberry community showed up in full force, reminding us all what the “Strawberry Way” truly means.
As Leopard Lounge Camp closes its Strawberry chapter, Leopard Lounge Adventures continues onward — toward new festivals, new roads, new collaborations, traveling music salons, creative hospitality, healing spaces, artist communities, and strange beautiful humans gathered under string lights somewhere in the woods. BLOG POST HERE: 🐆 The Watering Hole in the Woods
Stay tuned for future music, videos, storytelling, creative projects, and upcoming adventures from the road.
The original Leopard Lounge VW Bus Art Car — lovingly hand-painted in leopard print and covered in saxophones, lounge spirit, and joyful absurdity — became one of the early symbols of what would later grow into Leopard Lounge Camp and now Leopard Lounge Adventures. This photo captures the bus during its Strawberry Music Festival years, when music, community, art cars, bluegrass jams, tiki glamour, and weird beautiful humans all collided under the trees in the most magical ways imaginable.
Part roadside jazz lounge, part Burning Man art project, part rolling hospitality experiment, the 1973 T2 Camper Fahrvernpüssy Leopard Lounge VW Bus was never just a vehicle — it was a mobile watering hole for musicians, storytellers, campfire philosophers, and wandering creative souls. Looking back now, it feels less like a bus and more like the beginning of a long strange beautiful journey that continues to evolve today through Leopard Lounge Adventures. ✨🐆🎷
Read the full story here:
The Fahrvernpüssy Leopard Lounge VW Bus Art Car
🌐 Tré Taylor Creative Works
📺 Tré Taylor Transformations YouTube Channel
the wild ones who gathered there, and the road ahead.
Written by Tré Taylor and Bleep the Tattoo
Category: The Gratitude Tour
Strawberry Music Festival 2026 • roots music • camp life philosophy • road stories from the wild ones
I came home from Strawberry Music Festival with a full heart, a wrapped paw, a suspicious amount of glitter still embedded in my camping gear, and the deep spiritual realization that you may think you’ve evolved emotionally… until you go camping with other human beings for eleven straight days.
That’s when the real coursework begins.
Camping has a way of revealing everything:
who packed wisely, who forgot the coffee, who brought seventeen string lights but no fork, and who suddenly becomes a Navy SEAL commander while trying to position an EZ-Up.
Bleep the Tattoo: “Everybody’s enlightened until somebody touches their tent placement.”
🍓✨🎶
And somehow, through all the chaos and laughter and wandering fiddle music drifting through the trees, Strawberry Music Festival still remains one of the sweetest places for rest and rebooting your system.
A little magical late-night jam session from the very downsized version of the Leopard Lounge Camp at the 2026 Spring Strawberry Music Festival with the wonderful Katie Jane Band ✨🎶🍓 Beautiful harmonies, sweet souls, and the kind of music that reminds you why Strawberry still feels like home under the trees.
With love, music, food, art & fun,
Tré Taylor & Bleep the Tattoo 🐆🎷✨
The Nevada County Fairgrounds in Grass Valley was absolutely stunning this year. The weather was perfect. The music was outrageous. The redwoods and pines felt like medicine. Even the Wi-Fi was better than most cities now — which honestly deserves a standing ovation.
2026 DIGITAL NOMAD GOOD WIFI CONNECTION CAMPGROUNDS:
Three thumbs up to the new connection up there because my Verizon hotspot had solid 5G the entire time. I uploaded videos, sent files, answered messages, worked remotely, and still managed to disappear into the woods listening to bluegrass harmonies and hopeful wandering tuba players.
For all the creative nomads, remote workers, musicians, filmmakers, artists, writers, and beautifully exhausted humans trying to figure out how to survive while still living creatively: Strawberry is still one of the great resets.
There’s something deeply healing about sitting under trees listening to roots music played by people who still mean it.
And the people really do mean it there.
The heart of Strawberry has always felt like the true artisan class of America to me — musicians, makers, volunteers, working-class creatives, old-school folk souls, families, travelers, music nerds, accidental mystics, and the kind of humans who still know how to sit in a circle and harmonize with strangers.
That spirit helped heal me during one of the hardest chapters of my life.
I saved myself.
I moved into my van full-time. I sacrificed. I downsized my life. I invested in my healing. I fought for my health. I endured surgeries, uncertainty, exhaustion, reinvention, and a complete rewiring of my nervous system.
11 years running (minus the Covid years), 8 total fun years bringing the Leopard Lounge Jam Camp to Spring Strawberry, gave me solace during that transformation.
It gave me music when I needed music.
Community when I needed community.
Gentleness when the world felt sharp.
And somewhere along the way, the Leopard Lounge Adventures Camp became part tiki bar, part jam camp, part roadside salon, part accidental healing space for weird beautiful humans.
The Leopard Lounge was never really about alcohol.
It was about hospitality.
It was about creating a little watering hole where people could gather, exhale, laugh, flirt harmlessly, sing songs, swap stories, rest their nervous systems, and remember that life is still supposed to be fun.
A pub in the collective unconscious.
Tell me a joke.
Play me a song.
Have some water.
Eat something.
Sit down, sweetheart. You made it.
That was always the real bar.
And over the years, we found our people there:
the musicians, the mystics, the road dogs, the art car artists, the campfire philosophers, the jazz weirdos, the neurodivergent creators, the wandering healers, the buskers, the cosmic aunties, the people who don’t commit crimes — they commit beauty and joy.
Those are my people.
And honestly, I think I finally realized this year that the Leopard Lounge spirit has always been a little more Burning Man than HOA.
Not reckless.
Not chaotic.
Just freer.
More improvisational.
More musical.
More trusting.
More sovereign.
A traveling jazz bar in the woods where everybody brings something to the table and nobody needs to be micromanaged.
This year was especially emotional because my longtime music partner and soul brother Mark Yee wasn’t there. And without him, I realized how much of the Leopard Lounge spirit came from the strange wonderful combination of our energies together.
Mark has that rare gift of freedom without chaos. He creates space for people to become themselves. He trusts creativity. He trusts humans. He trusts music. And whether it came from Burning Man culture, jazz culture, or simply being deeply human, there’s something beautifully liberating about the way he moves through communities.
Without him there this year, I could suddenly see the shape of what we had built together.
And I realized:
the Leopard Lounge Camp had probably reached the end of its Strawberry chapter.
Not in a sad way.
Just in the way traveling carnivals eventually fold up the tent, wave goodbye to the town, and head toward the next horizon.
So yes, this was the final Strawberry for Leopard Lounge Camp as we’ve known it.
The leopard is moseying onward. I’ll always love Strawberry. I hope to return someday simply as Tré, with a chair under the trees and maybe a smaller setup and a lighter load.
But the full Leopard Lounge Camp will not be returning.
Its time there was complete.
And honestly, I think it arrived exactly when it was supposed to — especially in those tender years after COVID, when people desperately needed laughter, music, hospitality, weirdness, and connection again.
The camp did what it came there to do.
And now the road is calling.
🙏 Gratitude From the Leopard Queen
To Strawberry Music Festival: thank you for the years, the music, the friendships, the shade, the songs, the harmonies, the healing, and the memories.
To Steve Holzberg: A huge heartfelt thank you to Steve Holzberg for carrying the musical soul of camp this year with incredible late-night jams that rolled almost until 3:00 a.m. every night. 🎶✨* With Mark Yee unable to attend, Steve stepped up in a beautiful way and helped create some truly magical musical moments under the trees. Thank you for being the epic jam camp rockstar that you are. 🍓🐆
Christina Holzberg & Sunflower Camp and all the beautiful humans nearby:
thank you for sharing space, stories, music, kindness, and community. thank you for all your hard work, your generosity, your music, and your beautiful camp spirit.
To Brian and Carrie Sweeney and your wonderful family:
thank you for the electrical help, the strawberry popsicles, the sweetness, and your constant kindness through the entire experience. I love you guys dearly.
To Galen and Jodi and your wonderful family:
thank you for showing up early, pitching in, helping build things, bringing your beautiful energy, and reminding me how wonderful the next generation of musicians truly is.
To Sheralee and Norm:
A sweet heartfelt thank you to two of my favorite creative custom costume earth angels, creative electrical shamans—it was so wonderful catching up with you both at Strawberry this year. ✨ Congratulations on your beautiful new home, and thank you for always helping, contributing, uplifting, and sharing your magic so generously. Love you both dearly. 🍓🎶💖
To Brandon Dannals:
A huge thank you to Brandon for bringing so much musical soul, joy, and effortless magic to the camp this year. Brandon is one of those rare musicians who can step into any jam and instantly lift the whole room, and his chemistry with Steve Holzberg was an absolute delight to hear.
To Mokai Blue: For a great show, I heard many amazing harmonies filling in on your beautiful songs. I caught the end of one song here below. Check out his music here.
Watching younger players step into their confidence this year was honestly one of the coolest parts of the entire festival. Kids who were strumming guitar around imaginary campfires last year were suddenly playing bass in jams this year like seasoned road musicians. Entire families were harmonizing together under the trees.
That right there is the future.
To Nurse Tracy:
thank you for taking care of me when my paw got torched. (BACON INJURY HAPPENS)
And to the wonderful burn-trauma angel from the neighboring camp who handed me the silver ointment and calmly explained exactly what to do next:
sir… you may have single-handedly saved this kitten’s paw.
It’s healing beautifully.
Thank you for being one of the earth angels of Strawberry.
🦎 Final Report From the Road
I made it home.
The van is unpacked.
The laundry is finally done.
The paw is healing.
The nervous system is resting.
And during unpacking, I discovered I accidentally transported a live baby lizard from Grass Valley to Pacifica.
So apparently Leopard Lounge Adventures is now involved in reptile relocation services.
I hope he enjoys the beach weather.
Right now I’m parked near the ocean, eating Ikeda’s marionberry pie and triple berry cobbler like it’s a medically prescribed healing modality — which honestly I believe it might be.
There are worse endings to a story than music, trees, pie, ocean air, and gratitude.
And somewhere out there, under some future sky, the Leopard Lounge Adventures will pop up again.
Probably with string lights.
Definitely with music.
Almost certainly with questionable folding furniture engineering.
And if you find the watering hole, you already know the rules:
Tell me a joke.
Play me a song.
Come correct.
Leave people better than you found them.
With love, music, food, art, and fun,
Tré Taylor and Bleep the Tattoo
🐆✨🍓
Las Cafeteras have taken the music scene by storm with their infectious live performances and have crossed many genres and borders along the way. Their electric sound & energy has taken them around the world playing shows from Bonnaroo to the Hollywood Bowl, WOMAD New Zealand to Montreal Jazz, & beyond!
