For the first time in five years, I am having to miss the Telluride Bluegrass Festival! Each year when I lived in Vail, I would venture down to Telluride and morph into a hippie for 4 days. I loved every minute of it! The festival each year revolves around the Summer Solstice each year and was the reason that I fell in love with the town of Telluride. Sometimes I would camp and sometimes, I would stay at a hotel. Either way, I had a blast. On Friday, I received a call from Josh Flowers, a dear friend that I met in Buena Visa and would meet up with at the festival every year. He called to see if I was at the festival. It made me sad. I miss it. In honor of the TBF, I am going to count down some of my most favorite moments from past festivals.
Watching the full moon rise over the box valley in Telluride during TBF 2004. Alison Krauss was playing and once the moon had fully set over the mountain everyone in the crowd started howling. Weird to most people, but completely normal for the TBF festival.
Sharing a hotel room with Missy, Darin, Kayin (who was 7 months old), and Kihei (a precious Sheba Inu that loves to bark). Note: Our room had 1 double bed in it and was the size of a large walk in closet. I guess that’s what you get for an employee rate at a sister hotel during the most popular festivals of the summer.
Camping Back Country at 12,000 ft by Alta Lake with Orly, Lauren, Sean, Huey (the cutest Bernese Mountain dog on the planet), and Talyn (the cutest White Golden Retriever on the planet). From sharing a tent with Lauren, Huey, and Talyn to incorrectly singing Tim McGraw lyrics about Angry Little Piglets, I'm not sure when I've had a better time. Here's a not too shabby view from our campsite:
When attending the TBF, you cannot miss a large fenced off area of the festival dedicated to hula hooping. At first, you feel a little silly, but quickly are reminded of your childhood. Missy and Darren totally got into it with me. When we returned to Vail, I went over to the Lacy residence to hang out with Kayin and found Darren in the driveway making 15 hula hoops! From that point on, the hula hoops were brought out at any and every party at he Lacy's house!
Sam Bush. As I've mentioned before, I Heart Sam Bush. He plays every Saturday night of the festival, every year. Considered to be the Grandfather of the TBF, he never disappoints. NEVER.
My most favorite memory has to do with Josh Flowers. One year, after a horrible misunderstanding with a friend, I arrived down to TBF without a ticket. I arrived on Friday and was able to buy a ticket for that day. As I bought my ticket, I found out that Saturday and Sunday were both sold out. I went into the festival, found Josh, Colleen, and friends and immediately started asking around for anyone that had a spare ticket. Friday night, we didn't have luck hunting down a ticket, so I went back up to my hotel room for the night and made plans with Josh to go and look in the morning.
The next morning, Josh and I got up and headed down on the gondola to search yet again. After about 2 frustrating hours of roaming the streets of Telluride like panhandlers we decided to head back up the gondola to the hotel. I had pretty much given up hope on getting into the festival.
Quick note on the set up of Telluride: Half of the town is located on top of the mountain, known as Mountain Village. The only way to access this on foot is to take the free Gondola system. It's a unique feature of Telluride that makes it an unspoiled ski town and a fantastic picture of public transportation at its best.
Josh and I hadn't seen each other since the year before, so in catching up, we weren't paying attention to our surroundings, and overshot the gondola by about 6 blocks.
Quick note on Josh Flowers: The craziest things happen to this guy. I have never met someone with better luck or the instant ability to make a lifelong friend.
When we realize that we were not going the right direction, Josh looks at me and says, "Wouldn't it be crazy if we found a ticket, just because we weren't paying attention to where we were going?"
At this point, I was so discouraged with the situation that I replied, "Do not say that! Why would you want to get my hopes up! Let's just get back up the mountain."
Not being one to lose hope, Josh pointed at a guy about 25 yards away and said, "That guy right there has your ticket."
I was just downright frustrated at this point. How dare he get my hopes up! Josh approached the man, introduced himself, and told him of our dilemma. As it would turn out, our new friend Dan, from Phoenix, had an extra ticket! I literally stood there with my jaw on the ground. I told him of Josh's picking him out of the crowd and my desperation to get into the festival. Apparently, Dan's wife had planned on coming to the festival, but at the last minute came down with strep throat.
Earlier that day, I had pulled $400 out of the ATM to pay for the ticket.
I met up with Dan to actually get the ticket at 1pm outside of the festival gates. As I went to pull for my wallet to pay Dan for the ticket, he stopped me, handed me the ticket, and let me know my money was not good. He told me he was doing his good deed for the day and it would honor him and his wife to give me the ticket. I was floored. I had never experienced such generosity from a total stranger. This was the moment I fell in love with Telluride. The experience of being in that town brings out the best in people. It made for such a great festival. By far, it was the best experience I had through the years at TBF.
