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Friday January 4^th 2008

All Aboard - Well it’s that wonderful time of year again, MUSICFEST in Steamboat Springs, CO.  Krissy, Danielle (my co-worker) and I depart Springfield at approx. 5PM. We head into lifeless Kansas and stop just outside of Topeka for a refuel. At this point we have already hit snow on the ground.  About 8 boring hours and a few refuels later we reach Denver.  We ventured on down I-70 to Silverthorne, and took CO-9 north through the continental divide.  We reach the town of Kremmling and stopped at one of the many familiar Kum and Go’s along our way.  The last strech took us through Rabbit Ears Pass just before sunrise. We rolled into Steamboat about 7:00 AM. 

Saturday January 5^th 2008We had arrived to Steamboat ahead of the rest of our party.  My friend Matt and his friends Katie and Jackie were supposed to be about 3 hours behind us, however we got a call from him, and unfortunately the tranny on his truck went out in western Kansas and they were waiting for a repair shop to open.  They ended up leaving the truck to get fixed and renting a van.  My other co-worker Brad was flying into Hayden, CO (about 20 mins away) the next day.  Krissy, Danielle, and I checked into our condo (Storm Meadows @ Christie Base,) and then went to get registered for MusicFest. We then ventured downtown for some shopping and to eat at Johnny B. Goods (a neat little 50’s diner.) By the late afternoon it was starting to snow pretty hard and we were beginning to wonder if Matt was going to make it in that night. Luckily they made it into Steamboat at about 7PM just before they closed Rabbit Ears Pass due to the heavy snow.  Matt, Katie, and I ventured to the Liquor and Grocery stores to stock up on the essentials. By this time most of the other musicfesters had come into town and had the same idea as us.  The grocery store shelves were rapidly disappearing as hundreds of Texans bought everything in sight.  Apparently Texans love classic yellow mustard because the 3 shelves that once held it were completely wiped out.  We got back to the condo, got situated and cracked open some brews.  We decided to dare the weather and go bar-hopping, which turned out to be a bad idea as once again all of the other musicfesters had the same idea and the bars were 1in1out. 

Sunday January 6^th 2008

This was the first day of skiing as well as the first day for concerts. We hit the slopes about 10AM, while Danielle went to Ski school.  This year I bought some Skiblades and new boots to carve the slopes with.  The comfort fit boots are so much nicer than the rentals it’s not even funny.  Krissy and I met back up with Danielle at 1:30 for the first concert of the MusicFest. This was the popular outdoors show featuring Wade Bowen and Jack Ingram. At 30 degrees it wasn’t nearly as cold as last year (-1), but still a little brisk for an outdoor concert.  Brad got in to town about 2:30PM and joined us.  He had some bad luck on the way out as the airline lost his bag and his snowboard, however his luck started to turn within the first 5 minutes of being in steamboat as he found $6 in cash laying on top of the trash can. We took the find as an omen and immediately went to the beer tent and bought the first of many delicious Shinerbock’s (the main beer sponsor of the festival.) We later went over to the Bear River bar and drank the night away listening to Bonnie Bishop, Adam Hood, Ryan Turner, Ryan James, and hanging out with Brady Black from the Randy Rogers Band. 

Monday January 7^th, 2008       

We hit the slopes hard in the morning taking Danielle up to some of the lower mountain green runs.  We went back to the condo after lunch and got ready to go hit the big tent for Ryan Bingham, Jason Boland, and Cross Canadian Ragweed.  After the concert we tried to go catch the last part of another concert in the Grand ballroon, but the line was one in one out and there were about 200 people ahead of us so we gave up and went back to the condo to finish the night off.

Tuesday January 8^th, 2008

Krissy, Danielle, Brad and I went to the top of the mountain and planned our trail route for the day.  We decided to split up and meet up at thunderhead lodge with Mat, Katie and Jackie for lunch. After lunch Danielle and Krissy went back to the condo and Brad and I decided to go do a few more blue runs to end the day. By this time it was getting late and ice was starting to build up on some of the runs.  Our last run was Vagabond, Brad was ahead of me by about 50 yards and I was about ½ way down the last portion when I caught a glimpse of someone (later to be a 15 year old Romanian kid) coming up on my left side.  Apparently he was out of control due to the ice and clipped my back left ski, causing me to either A, bite the dust and fall to my right side down the rest of the hill, or B bear hug the person and take them down with me. I chose option B and fell on top of him giving me some padding for the fall and slowing him down considerably.  We both slide about 20-30 feet and got up and to everyone’s amazement were ok to continue down the mountain.  Brad and I met back up with the others in the condo, took showers and got ready for some more concert action.  This night was the acoustic set which featured 3 sets of artists each doing 3-4 acoustic songs of their choice. 

Wednesday January 9^th, 2008

This was the last day of MusicFest, Brad and I suited up for the slopes in the morning. After going down a few preview runs, it was apparent that the wreck from the day before had a bigger impact on my hip than I had thought, so I decided to take a break from skiing and let Brad battle the slopes for himself.  I met back with Krissy and Danielle at the Slopeside Grill for lunch then onto the Cross Canadian Ragweed Jam Session. I have found this concert to be one of the most interesting of all due to the randomness of it, you never know who is going to jump up on stage or what random songs they are going to play.  At one point I counted 13 different artists jamming out to a variety of songs.   If you ever go I highly recommend this show.  We went back to the condo to meet up with the rest of the group and then traveled back to the tent to catch the concert we had all been waiting for The Randy Rogers band.  I think we all agreed that this concert was one if not the best of the entire week.  The raw energy coming from these guys was amazing, and the crowd was definitely into every song. Krissy, Brad, and I finished up the night at Bear River again and saw Corb Lund and Max Stalling. One last surprise was running into Jason Boland and getting out picture with him.    

Thursday January 10^th, 2008

Today we packed up our stuff, dug out vehicle out of the 24″ of accumulated snow, took Brad to the Hayden airport, and headed back east to Springfield.  We made pretty good time taking us about 13.5 hours with stops for food and gas.  Overall it was another great trip and I think we are all ready to sign up for next year, if you are reading this and would like to go next year we are recruiting new troops, let me know!