Telluride is a picturesque town in a scenic box canyon, surrounded by mountains, lush and green, snow dotted, even in June, with waterfalls sluicing vertically down the slopes. It is home to the Telluride Bluegrass festival, an event that’s been going on for over 50 years. For as long as Larry has known music, he’s wanted to attend this festival, but it’s not an easy one to get to, especially from the east coast. This year, we made it a priority to attend the festival. We bought our tickets in December and we made our plans. The festival runs Thursday through Sunday, but our research told us that if we wanted a chance at a decent campsite, we would do well to arrive on the Monday before, so that’s what we did.

Many people tent camp, and many others rent homes or hotel rooms. But we were excited to really put Louie through his paces. Dry camping for a week felt like a challenge. Would we run out of water? Would we run out of electricity? Would our tanks fill or any systems fail? We did a lot of careful planning and prepping, and we were loaded down with a lot of provisions by the time we rolled into the campsite. The campground we chose (The Mary E Illium campground) was about a 15 minute shuttle bus ride from the town, and the shuttles didn’t start running until Wednesday, so we knew we would be hunkering in place for at least the first couple days. We were fortunate in that the campground had porta potties, potable water, and even for the first time, showers. There were also dumpsters for trash and for recycling. I was very pleased to see that they serviced the potties every day, so things were always clean and well supplied.

While we arrived early, we were by no means the first people there. We scoped out a great little spot for Louie. It was between two tall pine trees with enough sun to recharge our solar, but enough shade throughout the day so that we didn’t roast. I maneuvered some logs and stones so that our space was fairly well defended, and that was good, because by Thursday morning there were tents and lean-tos and cars shoved in every semi flat, sort of cleared spot. but we were not over crowded. It really worked well. We really relaxed for the first few days. We read and napped and played guitar and hung out with some fellow campers. We even joined in on the campsite kickball game. And Larry turned out to be a complete ringer for his team. He got me out twice, but I couldn’t say mad at him for long.

Come Thursday, we were ready for the festival! We had our day bags packed and our wrist bands on. We grabbed the shuttle bus (big, yellow school bus) into town. We joined the queue that ran for blocks until the gates opened. We didn’t think it would be possible to process all those people in time for the opening act, Chris Thile. But somehow, they did it. I guess that’s what comes with running a festival for half a century; you figure out a lot of best practices. We were in our seats for the first Ahoy! and from there it was a day filled with great music and full blast sunshine and heat.

This festival historically has rain and even snow, but this year it was clear and dry and windy. It actually got to be a bit much. We were keeping up with water and sunblock, but after several hours of just baking in the sun, we dragged ourselves out of the fest and into town for some of the best Detroit style pizza I’ve ever had at the Brown Dog. After fueling ourselves with delicious pizza we headed back to the Fest. We caught I’m Her, the Traveling McCourys, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, and Jason Isbell. But the weather extremes continued. As warm as we were at the heat of the day, we quickly became equally cold once the sun went down. The first day was a lot. Incredible, but a lot. We got back to Louie, turned on the heat, and promptly fell asleep.

Friday we headed in a little later and left a little earlier. I felt we were better prepared for what we were getting into. We also joined friends as a different section of the Fest, which made for an even more enjoyable time. We saw the Punch Brothers, Lake Street Dive, Tim O’Brien, and Dan Tyminski. Shockingly incredible music under another clear blue sky.

Saturday we opted to head in even later, explore Telluride, and take the gondola up to Mountain Village. We found a speakeasy cocktail bar situated behind a hat and leather store that made good drinks and an excellent olive oil cake. We caught Authentic Unlimited at a smaller stage, and then went in to see Sam Bush and Yonder Mountain String Band before heading back to camp for some music making of our own.

Sunday it was time for us to pack out, as we had a commitment in Boulder, six hours away. Because we were newbies, we didn’t realize that the festival truly lasts through Sunday night. Unfortunately we missed a few great acts and one last full day of the festival, but it’s OK. We both feel like we got our little bluegrass cups filled with excellent music and wonderful people.