Thursday, June 19-22, 2014 - The Bluegrass Festival
We had purchased camping rights at the high school athletic field, about .7 miles from the event area. Though t-shirts for the town will boast of an elevation of 13,250 feet, the town itself is at roughly 8,725. Still, that's pretty dang high considering my home town of Spokane is at about 2200. So the air is a bit thinner here and also with the sunshine, easier to get a sunburn, which I discovered the first day. We got there early enough to be able to set up our tents away from both the entrance to the field as well as the port-a-potties. Those banging doors can be annoying. The camp is designated a family camping area and thus a quiet one. We found it to be that way every evening. No complaints at all about our camping. The weather cooperated and we had no rain to speak of and though it was warm during the day, it got to near freezing temperatures every evening.
That first day we walked around town to see it and familiarize ourselves so we could get to and from the venue. City and school busses were available if we didn't feel like walking, though we walked most of the time. You can find out a lot of the details of the festival by going to the website so I'm not going to repeat it all here. But there are acts performing all day starting 11am the first day and then around 10am for the rest of the festival. I counted 31 separate performances during the main festival. There are also nighttime performances that start at 11pm. We didn't buy any tickets for those and I'm glad we didn't. They would have been awesome, but I was tired enough as it was.
For me, every day started at about 6am when I woke up and walked into town for something to eat at the "Baked in Telluride" bakery. I'd head there with my phone to charge it up, read the local paper, and have a little breakfast. Afterward I'd walk back to the field, grab my stuff and take a shower at the school. Eventually the three of us would head toward the venue and begin the day listening to music.
We didn't stay for every single act and that's part of the beauty of the event. You're not going to necessarily love everything and you're going to need a break now and then anyways. But we were there for nearly every one. Food venders were set up so we had choices of several different types of food to eat. Tacos, burritos, gyros, burgers, fish, oriental - a pretty good variety. The festival store was also there for souvenirs and other odds and ends. For $29 you could buy an insulated steel beer pint cup and then you'd receive $2 off the price of every beer you ordered.
Tom Clark
I'm a Senior Software Engineer at Intellitect, living in Spokane, Washington. I also do a little development work on the side. And I love riding motorcycles all over the country with my friends.
