Day 1: The Good Life

This trip is going much, much smoother than last year. No locking of keys in cars, no late arrivals, just good old fashioned bluegrass festival fun.

Well, with a twist I suppose.

That fact that I got a hotel room for the first 2 nights is pretty awesome. I'm used to slumming it in the campgrounds. For the first time ever, not only do I have a room all to myself, I'm getting the star treatment. This suite of rooms was meant for a group performing at the festival, so they've definitely pulled out all the stops. I should describe the place. It's 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2 floors. G-man, Lauren and I are staying on the bottom floor and Andy from Cadillac Sky has the master bedroom on the top floor. There's also a living room/dining room and a kitchen. It's huge. Mega huge. Probably the biggest hotel room I've ever stayed in.


Really though, it's the little things that make it really spectacular:

Getting There

As every good vacation should, this one has started with a bit of randomness that has resulted with putting me in a far better situation than I had originally planned.

I traveled to Denver this morning to meet up with G-man and his girlfriend Lauren. The original plan was to take Lauren or G-man's car to the festival. Through a roundabout series of phone calls, we found out that the band Cadillac Sky, who is playing the festival, had ended up stranded in Denver and was looking for a way to Telluride. Lauren was able to make arrangements to swap G-man's car for a huge passenger van that could carry us and the band together.

The deal was made.

It's been fun getting to know the band in the drive up here. They're ll nice guys, and jovial traveling companions. Banter was light and spirits remained high for the whole journey.

We got here without any big incident, got the press passes and did our best to figure out our accommodations for the night. My camping passes apparently are at the campsite, and since it was getting dark I wasn't even sure I'd be able to see enough to set up the tent. Amazingly, the Cadillac Sky folks had some extra space in their hotel rooms, so we're staying with them tonight.

I'm in the midst of an all star jam right now: Cadillac Sky, G-man, Dominick Leslie and a few other folks. I'm gonna stop posting and just enjoy myself.



More to come tomorrow!

How Did I End Up Here?

So, through a rather bizarre series of events, I now find myself at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. I've been gone from Fort Collins for just over 24 hours now, and I've already had some crazy adventures on the Western Slope. I don't want to go into too much detail right now because I want to get back to the festival. I just want my friends and family to know that I am alive and well, I have a place to stay, my car appears to be safe and I am having a blast!

Press passes rule, by the way. Not only do I have backstage access, I also have a great seat right up front.!Here's a picture I took of the Telluride House Band:

(Darol Anger, Bela Fleck, Edgar Meyer, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas and Bryan Sutton)

I'll try to keep posting throughout the festival until my laptop batteries die. I may be able to scare up some power from an old friend... more on that later!

I want to get back now to eat and catch a bit of Emmlou Harris. Look for new posts soon!