I get it, and much more!

Festivarian Events Telluride Bluegrass Festival
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Welp festival is in the books, and as of 4:30am this morning we are back home.I got to say what an amazing time. Thanks to everyone who had hands in making all that magic happen, from PB to the great volunteers, and the other festivarians who truly give this festival life. Wooot!!! Now that my newbieness is out the door, I can answer many of my own questions, but I thought I might share some of my discoveries, and learnings with yall.

First off biking from Mary E Ilium to town is not only easy peasy doable, its amazing! So you have to have a MTN Bike, but other than that any average rider can make the trail. From Ilium head south on Ilium road about a mile, the Galloping Goose trail will cross the road and take that trail on the left side of road. This will take you to Lawson Hill, and the Telluride Brewing Company!!! From there its a paved nearly flat trail into town. The whole ride including a beer at TBC is about 1.5 hours with lots of breaks. Could be done in under an hour if you rode steady.

We participated in a few TP events like the Goddess walk, which we all thought fun, but the wife and girls got bored after the 3-4th stop. We came back for the Beer share on Tuesday and that was sooo much fun, and what an amazing selection of beers from around the country, Well done everyone. Through these events, and from mutual friends, I met at least 6-7 of you other forum regulars. We hosted a second beer swap in our own camp at Ilium and had some great beers show up too!! Over-all we enjoyed our visits to TP, but were so glad we were not camped there.

Ilium was amazing, and ranks up there with some of the greatest festival camping experiences I’ve ever had. Lots of room to spread out and have some privacy but yet the campground was filled, and people where everywhere. Every night there were killer jams lasting deep into the morning hours. In fact the nights we didn’t have nightgrass we left the main stage 2-3 songs into the last acts just to get back to camp as it was more fun than any of the headliners. The buses were smooth and we never waited longer than 15 minutes for one to come, and the rides were always a good conversation starter.

Over-all I’d say the last “headlining acts” every night were pretty much my least favorites of the festival, including GSBG and the House Band. We saw everyband on the main stage thursday, friday, and Sunday. Saturday we only saw Margo Price, which was way more country than I expected and Sam Bush Band, then we split for Elephant Revival, who if you asked me had the best set of the entire weekend on the main stage, followed by Punch Brothers, and Sam Bush and Jerry Douglas Band, and of all the early acts The Cleverly’s tore it up and had more people dancing during the morning hours than most any other bands playing before sunset!

My wife and I only did one hike with the kids up Wilson Mesa, to Lizard Head and that was epic!!! The kids did several other hikes around town and Mountain Village, while the wife and I did more MTN biking. Can’t wait till next year, when we’ll be both more prepared and hopefully get our same sweet spot at Ilium!

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See, that was the problem. The 6th and 7th stops feature to the death gladiator matches; I’m certain the wife/kiddos would be entertained by that.

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One of many magical things that happened to us, outside of the prescription magic, was we went to eat at La Cocina on Bridget Laws recommendation.After ordering our incredible food and equally incredible margaritas, we went to pay with our Discover card, and well they don’t accept Discover, and we left all our debit cards, and other wallet gear at camp. We had only 40 dollars in cash on us, and the bill was almost 50 without tip. I offered to go to camp and get the debit card while my wife stayed. The guy taking the order and making the drinks said, don’t worry took the 40 dollars and then gave us 19 dollars change back!!! Obviously we stuck all that in the tip jar, and then brought the kids back on sad Monday to eat again and make sure to pay full price. I go to get a table on the patio and they are all full. But, a guy sitting alone offered to share his table, and I realize quickly we knew each other from years ago when he was Elephant Revivals first tour manager, and we have many many mutual friends across the country so we had a great little lunch together.

Another magical moment was when the kids told us they were thinking we could just leave them there and they’d figure their own way home. They didn’t do it, but it warmed this old travelers heart to hear they wanted to.

We followed all the knowledge we learned from being on the forum prior to the festival and every day we had a front row spot for our little 5x7 Tarpesty, and every day come sunset we moved back to the open spots where the sunshades had been and enjoyed being able to have room and to enjoy the transformation from blinding heat to nice chill evenings!

We missed ER tickets through the lottery but Bonnie got us on the guest list and we left the main stage early that night. Dispatch was the only headliner I didn’t see, but it was worth it to be front and center for ER’s night grass!!! I’ve known those folks some of them for over 25 years, but have watched the band grow since the first time they ever played together. I have to say Elephant ruled the fest, they played two of the best sets I’ve ever seen from them, and had the crowd in the palm of their hands working their own magic! I hope all of you were able to catch their main stage sunset show, because it was truly amazing!

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I’m sorry you didn’t have a good time…oh well, there’s always next year! :wink:

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not sure how you would think I had a bad time?

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My comment was tongue-in-cheek (for which there’s no emoji), so I used a wink

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It was great meeting you and the family, Todd. You know where to find us next year, so we’ll see you then!

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Bevin, great to meet you and the Duk Tape gang as well!!! Keep us in mind for next year. We’ll be going for sure. We might attempt TP next year, and if we do we’d love to join up with Duk Tape. We thoroughly enjoyed our time at Ilium and would go back any time, but I think we’d be willing to give TP a go at least once.

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Do it! You’ll be hooked even more! :cheers

I did Ilium the first 5 years I was at Telluride. Year 6 was my first year in TP. Unfortunately we didn’t take advantage of all the opportunities that year. Happily, Sugar found RunAMuck the next year, and I got to join him this year. The experience of Telluride is much better without having to fuss with backpacks, shuttles, and camping far away. Being able to hear sets from my tent was amazing.

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Enjoyed sharing some beers with you at TP Todd!