The Californians

Yes folks it’s that time of the year again, when the Californians (a name given to us by our festival friends) make the pilgrimage to Telluride for the Bluegrass Festival.

Here’s a loose timeline of our travels around the Wild West.

0500/15th June: We board the big blue bus, with Ricky at the helm. Our first stop for the bathroom was Flying J’s where Ricky bought the world’s best Radar detector. Man! that thing is awesome!!!

1600/15th June: We arrive in Moab. Here we get dinner at our favorite Moab eatery, Moab Brewery and spend the night.

0900/16th June: After filing up the big blue bus we make our way to Telluride.
One of the stops we make on the way from Moab to Telluride is Hole in the Rock. Its part Tourist trap, part Zoo. This year the owners have made some new improvements to the place. A Camel, Buffalo, Zebra, Deer, some miniature Horses and a Bird Sanctuary. They also started charging $3.50 to feed the animals, which was a Ricky favorite. None the less we went in anyway...Oh what fun!
We also stopped at this little country store in Bedrock, CO. Rick buy’s a hat, and the store gets to keep the lights on one more day. I’m glad we stopped. We pass this place every year without stopping. A little further up the road is another stop we make every year Naturita, CO. They have this great big walk-in refrigerator full of Beer. After we keep the economy going here, we continue on to Telluride.

1330/16th June: We arrive in Paradise. I love this place, words can not describe it. You have to see it for yourself. Our overpriced condo has a great view of the mountains and Ingram Falls. After unpacking we go for a walk around town, and get some food. I ate too much at supper and got a tummy ache.

0730/17th June: I awake before Ricky and Christina and go for a bike ride to Bear Creek Falls. After about 40 minutes of climbing I reach the falls take a picture with my cell phone then return to the condo. The downhill only took me 5 minutes. That afternoon we get some lunch at Brown Dog Pizza, and then from there we stop off at the most famous drinking establishment in Telluride. The Last Dollar Saloon. While inside I see one of our Festival friends Pam walk by, I call out to her and she joins us at our table. She tells us that she will not be able to attend the festival. We are sad.

1500/17th June: We take the gondola up to Mountain Village for the free Bluegrass show. We see The Greencards and the Lovell Sisters. While in Mountain Village we meet up with some more of our Festival friends, Mark, Steve and Bob. What a great time it was hanging out with those guys. Ricky had the most fun of all…just ask him.

0400/18th June: I get up to get in line for the first of the festival. I do this everyday so we and whoever can get a good seat for the days show.
0500/18th June: I’m joined in line by Ricky, he looks very tried. I guess from to much fun from the night before.
0645/18th June: They pass out line numbers; this is our place in the tarp run.
1000/18th June: The tarp run; when I was a young lad I had a reputation as being a very fast runner, I even held records in Jr. High. Folks, those days are gone. In order to secure a spot on the grass you have to run. You have to go from 0 to a full sprint on very cold tried legs. We get a really good spot for the first day about four rows (Tarps) back.
After seeing about three bands and walking around town, we returned to Town Park for the Head Liner.

2115/18th June : David Byrne comes on stage, what a great set. Although a very untraditional bluegrass one. Every one on stage was dressed in white and there where dancers too. He played about 10 talking heads songs along with some new stuff from his new album; the crowd was moving as one, it was great!!!

0400/19th June: I’m in the Tarp line again, Ricky joins me about an hour later.

0900/19th June: The Tarp run begins; we are almost in the same spot. After a very lazy day we return to Town Park for day number 2…It must be the altitude.

2:45 - 4:00pm — John Cowan Band
4:30 - 5:45pm — Jenny Lewis
6:15 - 7:30pm — Béla Fleck & Toumani Diabaté
8:00 - 9:30pm — Elvis Costello & The Sugarcanes, Elvis Costello’s set was kinda mellow, but I was expecting that.

0400/20th June: This would be my last day in the Tarp Line.

0900/20th June: Saturday is usually more crowded; we get a spot behind the walking aisle, which is good. Today more of the same laziness, damn that altitude.

2:15 - 3:30pm — Jerry Douglas Band
4:00 - 5:30pm — Yonder Mountain String Band
5:45 - 6:00pm — Telluride Troubadour
6:15 - 7:30pm — Kasey Chambers & Shane Nicholson
8:00 - 10:00pm — Sam Bush Band, Sam’s set was his usual awesomeness. He did a Stones cover, Gimme Shelter. Another great day of Telluride Bluegrass Festival fun, I can’t wait for the tapers to release this set so I could relive those awesome moments.

21st June: Because we where suffering from *altitude sickness we didn’t get out of the condo until late, ate a late lunch at Brown Dog and then Town Park for the last day of music.

5:30 - 6:45pm — Tim O'Brien Band
7:15 - 8:30pm — Emmylou Harris
9:00 - 11:00pm — Telluride House Band

Only Christina joined me on the tarp this day, the last day of the festival. Ricky would not be able to attend. We joined Bob and his girlfriend on their tarp for the House Band.
The House Band is a group made up of some of the best and biggest musicians in the world. A great set, but seemed lacking from last year. We say our goodbyes and left before the encore. Another great festival comes to a close.

1000/22nd June: We are seeing beautiful Telluride in our rear view mirror. Our holiday is just getting started, in the words of Robert Earl Keen…The Road Goes on Forever and the Party Never Ends. We’re on the way to Crested Butte, CO. Outside of Ridgeway there was the Jerky Stand…Ray’s. This is the business we should be getting into, Jerky. We spent over 150.00 on two separate occasions. It was good as heck.

1500/22nd June: We roll into Crested Butte, our hotel is very nice and it’s only 125.00 a night. After settling in we take the free shuttle down to the town of Crested Butte, we are staying on the mountain. Ate awesome Mexican food at Teocalli Tamale then walked around the little town. We ended up at the Wooden Nickel. Since this is considered the off season we where the only one’s there. Our bartender was a very nice kid who’s working at the bar in the summer and going to Penn State in the Winter/Fall. He was actually born in Crested Butte. * I read the local papers of these places on the internet. And at graduation time they post the schools that the grads will be attending, it seems like 60% of these kids are going to Ivy League schools…WTF. I’m just saying. Maybe it’s the altitude.

1000/23rd June: I go for bike ride on the Snodgrass trail. I rode here last year and I don’t remember being so out of breath then. I guess I should have trained a lot more. After my ride we went for a hike then back to town for food. After eating at Pita’s in Paradise we went to one of the local bars, The Eldo…A sunning place for shady people, is what the sign side over the door. I’ve been to Crested Butte many times but have never been in here. The sign over the door was spot on. We had one beer and left. We ended up back across the street at the Nickel; our new friend was there, what a nice kid. The shuttle stops running at eleven, so we wish Pierce good luck in life and head back up the hill.

1000/24th June: A travel day, 11 hours to Sedona, AZ. On the way to Sedona we had to back track a little (poor planning on my part, but it was the quickest way) so we stopped back at Ray’s for more Jerky (we had all ready finished what we bought on the way up) and back across the Telluride valley floor, seeing the Falls off in the distant. We stopped in the town of Rico to look for a T-Shirt for Rico, but all that was open was the Liquor Store. A good liquor store with many fine craft beers. * Another thing that is recession proof, Liquor Stores. No luck finding a T-shirt…Sorry Big Guy. After many hours on the road we start our approach into Sedona..so beautiful. Eventfully we arrive at our hotel “The Kings Ransom”. Unpacked again. Our Hotel had a restaurant called Etoile, probably the best meal I’ve had in a long time…so good yeah.

1000/25th June: We take the free shuttle to uptown Sedona and walk around; this was the day we have reserved for the Tomcar, an OHV thingy. We have the Tomcar for half a day, so we hit as many trails we could. We have rented the Tomcar before in Moab, the trails in Sedona do not compare, and they are a lot tamer. The Tomcar is what brought us to Sedona in the first place. The outfitter in Moab stopped renting them because of the repair costs. This time Christina drove the car, she did real well, almost as good as Ricky. After too much fun we shopped and dined in beautiful up-town Sedona.
Sedona is not a place for late night partiers, they start rolling up the side walks at 6:30,
The free shuttle stops running at 6:15, so if you are out past that, your walking home…In the dark.

0900/26th June: Travel day to the River. We leave Sedona, I hope to be back real soon it’s really nice here.

1500/26th June: After a quick lunch we arrived at The Colorado River …Parker. We meet up with Carol and Allen. They have a spot in an RV park. This will be our home for the next two nights. What a shock to the system…the temperature the whole trip never got above 80F and here it was 110F, and at night it got down to 80F. It was so hot the stock AC couldn’t work fast enough, so they have to have a home unit has an extra AC. Allen’s PWC is very fast. He took Ricky and I for a ride at the same time and reached 60 MPH.

1200/27th June: We set up our chairs on the lawn down by the river; it doesn’t seem so hot down there. We all had turns riding Allen’s PWC and it was fun, if I had an extra 15k lying around I would pick up one. After all the fun you can have at the “River” we had hot dogs and hot wings for supper. Ricky had to bring up the fact that our journey is coming to an end…he always does this. While sitting in the restaurant in Sedona we had already recapped our trip. The only thing that was missing was the river trip. The few friends that have completed our two week journeys can attest to the fact that they are indeed once in a lifetime.

Home again…

5/4/2009

Back home. There’s a man selling popsicles on the sidewalk outside. It’s great to be back. Only one more month and we leave for Telluride!!! Feel free to leave cash in our mailbox, a check will do…Thanks

We leave…

5/3/2009

After walking around downtown one last time we head to the airport, to catch our flight.
What another great trip. Many thanks to Christina for making all the arrangements, you missed your calling. You should off been a travel agent.

It rains in Auckland too…

5/2/2009

Raining today, we are supposed to go on a harbor cruse, but decided on going to Devonport instead, a 5 minute ferry ride across the harbor. Devonport is a small community with the usual shops and Pubs; we end up at the Patriot for lunch.
After spending most of the day in Devonport, we return to the hotel to drop off the days shopping then back to the Irish place. We didn’t stay as long this night; we were tired from the night before. So early to bed…tomorrow we leave for LA.

Auckland is a city…

5/1/2009

The Hotel had a shuttle that took us into the city center from there we walked around the Quay (harbor). After lunch at Degree we went up in the Sky Tower to have a look around at the city from way up in the air. That night we ended up at an Irish Pub (tip: if you want to hear live music anywhere an Irish Pub is your best bet). Left the Pub about 2am then to bed.

Bye Bye Queenstown…

4/30/2009

We check in at the Qantas Counter, there’s a memo saying that our flight may be cancel due to poor visibility…it wasn’t that bad. Apparently Qantas has to have 100% visibility, because they have crappy navigation equipment. Well our flight was cancelled. A voice came over the loud speaker telling us to pick up our baggage and call some 0800 number to sort out our flights. Since everybody was calling we could not get through. Our only alternative was to take a bus to Christchruch and catch a flight to Auckland from there.
While seated on the bus before our departure a rep. from QF told us a QF rep will meet us in Christchruch to help us with our flight to Auckland….Ok good. While on the bus we struck up an alliance with this English couple that where living in Queenstown for the last 10 months, they had gotten through to QF and had confirmed that there was an 8:20PM Air New Zealand flight that QF had reserved for us, our bus was supposed to arrive Christchruch at 8:00PM. With 2 hours to go Christina was feeling uncomfortable about the flight details so she asked our English friends for more info. They ended up letting us use their Mobile phone ( for some reason I could no get through on mine) I was on hold for about an hour before getting through to QF. I told them our situation, and they confirm we where on the 8:20 flight. I felt bad for using the phone for so long but our English friends were really cool about and didn’t care…it was a free call for them.
We arrive in Christchruch and there is no won there to greet us, in fact QF didn’t even know about it. We then went over to the Air New Zealand counter. Our English friends and us were the only ones from the bus booked on the 8:20 NZ flight. Whoever did not confirm with QF got f’d!!! Since this was the last flight out to Auckland they had to spend the night at there own expense and fly out in the AM. We are so grateful for the English for letting us use there phone and Christina not trusting QF. 11:00p we arrive at our last Hotel, very plush and cheap. Our trip is all most over.

We swing…

4/29/2009

14:10 our ride picks up at Shotover to take us farther up the canyon. It’s time for the Canyon swing. After a little hike we arrive at the jumping off point, we now see what we are in for…heart beats a little faster. After getting in our harnesses we half to decide who’s gunna go first…there’s five in our group three girls, two guys. The first to go was the other guy…He asked us if we ever done anything like this before, I said no, and he hadn’t either…He went off backwards. Watching him disappear into the canyon was weird…The whole event takes a little over a minute…the freefall is 4 seconds. Next was one of the English girls, who were really scared, the funny thing is that the day before they jumped out of an airplane. After they went, it was our turn. Christina went then me.
The swing is a really well engineered contraption. A lot of cables and safety devices.
My turn, I chose to step off the platform…the girls sat down, letting one the swing guys “pull the pin” Stepping off was kinda scary. I just couldn’t talk my legs into taking that first step. The guys joke and make small take while you’re standing there, I suppose to try and put you at ease. Finally I go…nothing fancy I just kinda fall off the platform. The 4 second freefall went by in the blink of an eye. It was real smooth, only a little wind noise. The whole thing only lasts about 2 minutes, your back at the top before you know it. Would I do it again…YES, but with a bit more style…Video coming soon?
After that we went to Minus 5. One of those Vodka Bars in ice. You get 2 drinks and a half hour inside. After Minus 5 we spent our last night in QT at our favorite Pub, Winnies. Queenstown will be missed; I can’t wait to come back again.