Telluride day 1

Thursday morning was our official  first day of the Telluride Bluegrass festival. Since the festival takes place on a large grassy field, the way seating works is every morning people line up before the gates open for what is called the tarp run. The most dedicated, and there are quite a few, line up as early as 4:00 AM to obtain a number which determines the order they're allowed in once the gates officially open.  When the gates open these dedicated masses run in with their tarps, eventually staking down, and creating their own, highly respected space, even if left vacant for an entire day.  Seeing that we were only a party of two and really not that committed to viewing the sweat of the performers we decided to take our chance's with our two chairs after the gates had opened.

From Mountain village we rode the free Gondola up to the peak, then down into the town of Telluride.   Our fist ride was accompanied by a group of young guys heading off to hike. The leader of the pack was quite the wealth of knowledge, whether or not any of it was truthful wasn't too much of a concern, because they were pretty entertaining and a fun way to start our adventure. From the gondola stop the entrance to the festival was about 4 blocks east and 1 block north. We picked up our wrist bands, which would be worn for the ext four days, and headed in. After a quick survey of the scene we headed toward the rear of the section closest to the stage, keeping our eyes open for an empty piece of grass between tarps. We found a spot that would work and asked the man sitting on the tarp where our feet would inevitably reside if we could squeeze in.  Thankfully his hospitable attitude was the norm with most anyone we squeezed in between during the festival.

The first performance that we listened to was a bit "new grass", aka a 75 minute semi bizarre jam session between two banjo players, however since we were on vacation and quite content to be settled we awaited the next performers, Della Mae.  Della Mae is an all female group and darn pleasant to listen to.  After some good, more classic bluegrass music, quite a bit of toasty sun at 9,000 ft and a tasty lunch, we left the festival to tour the town. Originally a silver mining town, Telluride has blossomed into a town listed in the National Register of Historic Places thanks to a significant portion of the town being an official Historic district. Many of the buildings on the two main drags have been beautifully preserved as well as the residential streets lined with great little Victorians.  

Before we headed back to the festival we walked to the river giving Jonathan the much desired opportunity to dip his toes in the crisp mountain waters.  As much as I appreciate the cool crispness of the snow melt, cold water isn't really my scene so I left the river walking to Jonathan.

 When we returned to our seats, we were greeted by a seat rambler.  Not having a chair, nor a tarp our newly acquainted  nomad left our chair when asked and planted himself in a chair sitting on the tarp to our right.  He admitted he was a seat floater, which I found quite interesting and very fitting for the festival.  Upon realizing it was time for an adult beverage Jonathan went to get a beer for himeslf and a cup of wine for me.  When he returned, he had one of the funniest adult beverage containers I've ever seen. A literal wine sippy cup, straw and all.  After my initial chuckle I adored my wine sippy and appreciated its reduced price for refills. 

Enter Warren.  Warren, a wily 4 year old, and his family happened to be the group tarped behind us and boy was he a handful.  Sure his parent were attentive, but luckily for me he was more interested in Jonathan than myself.  Throughout the afternoon, and into the early evening we heard the name "Warren" called and reprimanded countless times in the prevention of zealous water bottle spraying, toy return requests and general misbehavior.  Not having to deal with Warren for more than a few hours I found him quite entertaining, and enjoyed my time observing this little wild monkey that would be heading home tired and crabby with his own family.

Our Thursday festival experience came to a close with a performance by Allison Krause and Union Station, who are the main contributors to the multi-Grammy winning O Brother Where Art Thou sound track.  As much as we were looking forward to their performance we were both a little disappointed in the poor sound management and the overall lack luster effort seen in their concert.  For a good 2/3rds of the performance they didn't seem to want to be where they were and at times were hard to hear over the audience banter.  Eventually, when they sang Man of Constant Sorrow, the crowed pepped up and so did the remainder of their performance.

After the concert we joined a lengthy line for the Gondola and made some temporary buddies who just so happened to be from Montgomery Alabama.  We chatted in the line, which we waited in for a good 50 minutes, and along our Gondola ride back to Mountain Village.  We thoroughly enjoyed our first day and were looking forward to another 3 adventurous days in Colorado.