Wyoming, Colorado and a whole bunch of Greg Brown!

I knew that this trip was going to be pretty amazing so I wrote during the trip in order to transcribe it here with little anecdotes from my current vantage point. Enjoy:

August 5: Left Boise just after 4pm, me (kyme) driving, listening to some blues.

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hit a big lightening storm just after twin falls and put in some ani difranco to go with the light show. the desert was expansive, allowing a great vantage point as we drove through eastern idaho. on into utah, saw a deer. put in beastie boys and smacked into a huge dust storm just before ogden. gassed up in ogden after driving for 3.5 hours and 300 miles straight. checked in with our couchsurfing host and we're on our way again. utah has some beautiful mountains. some canned heat and we're through the pass- breaking out the strawberry twizlers and darkness falls, the full moon rises. lots of wyoming and it's too dark to write.

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August 6: cooked breakfast for our great host Jason and his sweet german shepard, kimber! then grabbed a wyoming cache, gassed up and on the road again...in a light rain. we outrun the storm pretty quickly. more bboys, sublime and operation ivy got us through most of wy. then some bob marley to glide into laramie for a quick break,

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lunch and back on the road.
saw a bunch of antelope, interesting rock formations. van morrison and strawberry twizlers and we're almost to cheyenne. left wy and into:

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in boulder after a short rest. greg on the radio now, getting excited for the show tonight. we're headed to replace a tire after checking in with our cs host in boulder and taking a quick nap, then we'll check out boulder before the show. woke up from napping by the very loud thunder of a huge storm sitting right over town. it rained a bit while getting the tires replaced but only enough to cool things down a bit.

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Cheers!

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what is there to write? we wandered around boulder prior to the show. neat town, lots of great little shops and interesting areas. picked up some vinyl at a cool record store on pearl street. ate a nice dinner of burritos out of the back of the truck and shared a peach lambic beer. we went to the theatre just prior to the show and met some great folks. i was able to hook up with and hug a woman i had chatted with on yahoo group forum, as well as forge friendships with those sitting around us. the show was awesome of course- greg and bo are remarkable musicians.

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directly afterwards we went around to the back of the boulder theatre. greg was sitting on a half wall in the alley signing cds. so after the crowd cleared, i sat down next to him.

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we chatted a bit, he recognized us from the bend show last year. i argued with him about fishing in the snake river and had him sign a book of his poems. he wrote "I love ya kyme"- yeah, made my night!

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it's midnight now and we're headed for a map of colorado then bed. tomorrow- crested butte.
August 7: woke this morning thinking my arm was around greg brown last night, was that a dream? the cool boulder breeze floated in through the open window welcoming the sunshine. all blue skies. after bidding farewell to our gracious host shonu and the pups sasha and ben, we're making our way through boulder on the road to crested butte.
Boulder flatirons:

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lunch break at fairplay, a tiny town. last night we made friends with the gentleman sitting next to us, chad. he owns a gold mining spot (outfit, rig, location? what do you call a gold mining operation?) along the river in fairplay. so we stopped to learn how to pan for gold and chat some more with our new friend.

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we had a great time in the sun by the river, found a few flakes but not enough to live comfortably yet. i sucked at gold panning pretty bad, cobi was pretty good at it. back on the road again. we're so grateful for the blessing of our new friend. thanks chad! lots of beautiful scenery as we drove across the southern end of the sawatch mountains. the rockies are gorgeous and we're in love with colorado.

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rolled into crested butte so named for the beautiful butte soaring above town.

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we met the director of the arts center who told us where to wander to in town-elk ave. so we headed down to the historic district (which is really only a couple blocks from, well, anything in town is within about a 5block radius!). stopped at the eldo for a cheeseburger on the sunny outdoor patio, good regae playing, mmmmh.

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crested butte is an amazing place. greg's concert was above and beyond.

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afterwards we headed around the back of the arts center, and met up with greg again. we were able to gift him some idaho wine-and I requested a particular song. the sprinklers came on and got us all wet, it was hilarious. afterwards we met a local friend, scott who took us to his house for a drink. turns out he's a local musician so we were treated to some more music. so we hung out listening to scott play some kind guitar. then went for a walk downtown. had so much fun hanging out with scott. said our goodbyes at the eldo then headed to our couchsurfing hosts' house, a condo on the hill. we arrived to more awesome guitar music-wow-this town is amazing when it comes to arts. everyone here has a dog and a bike, we felt so at home. we were told you could borrow just about anyone's bike, they don't lock them up, or lock their doors for that matter- dogs seemed negotiable too. our hosts are awesome and terribly talented, troy and steve. this day has been extraordinary, blessed, "excited and free". (thanks steve, you sang this right as i was writing and i just had to borrow the expression it fit so perfectly.) Steve played guitar and sang us to sleep. He is a remarkable musician and we hope to hear him again in the future.

August 8: woke to beautiful scenery while having a nice breaky. then headed up into the hills prior to heading out of town. the hills here are so beautiful but...we got a flat tire- not a good tire trip! we were up in the hills and a hiker stopped to help. we gave him a ride into crested butte, spent a couple of hours finding a temporary fix until we get to gunnison. on the road for now. very sad to be leaving crested butte, we felt though that if we stayed any longer, it might turn into years. Nothing could really top yesterday but hey, we're on our way and almost to Grand Junction. Talked to Jana, our next CS host. She sounds sweet and even offered to come get us if we couldn't fix the tire. She's going with us to the show tonight, so I'm looking forward to having time to chill with her. Cobi and I have driven the length of WY and CO in the past couple of days-wow. We've gone from desert to grassy plains, through mountain towns and mountain paradise, now in the rolling hills of western colorado we're so glad to have embarked on this journey which has been nothing short of purely amazing!
August 9: Mmmmhh. morning, coffee! So- we met up with Jana yesterday afternoon. Her home is so warm and inviting we felt comfortable and welcome immediately.
Jana's kitty Helios:

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After some downtime and dinner we made our way to the concert venue. The theatre was really like an old, dark bar but very open inside making it odd and somewhat uncomfortable- like being inside a big black box that smelled of stale cigarettes. The stage was up pretty high as well, so much less intimate than the other two venues. The set started with Bo as usual and he had a good time playing- bit more energy from him than previous nights. Greg came out and played a few songs without any commentary which is not like him. His versions were more automatic- perhaps he was tired? Then...near the end of the set...he sang the song I asked him to sing. It's a song that wasn't on his set list for this tour and he was leary to play it since Bo wasn't familiar. But I asked for it the two previous nights and here it was- a beautiful version of All of those things, sung by Greg Brown, for me! Two more songs and the show was done. Greg got up and said thank you, then looked directly at Cobi and I in the front row and tipped his hat! Afterwards we went out back to visit and say thank you. Bo and Greg both smiled and were so sweet to chat awhile with us. I asked Bo if he had just learned All of those things today. He said 'no'- Greg had mentioned to him he was going to play it for me prior to the set but he hadn't learned it, just improvised. I was so thankful to him! Then the people milling all moved on and I was alone talking with Greg in an alleyway. It was so sweet to just be there hanging out with him. -Cobi had gone back to the club to find Jana. So I said goodnight and Greg said "have a great drive home- I'll see you in Driggs" and gave me a big hug. Greg gave me a big hug-one of those "my life is complete moments"!!
So after yet another flat repair (the third tire issue of the trip for those counting) now we're leaving Grand Junction on a beautiful morning.

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Sad to be heading out of our trip but happy to be heading home. It's now 5pm on Sunday. We're still a 3hr drive from home. Both of us are a bit road weary but some flogging molly and jellybellys and we'll make it home just fine. We have driven almost 2 thousand miles along this trip and what a journey it has been. We just crossed the state line back into Idaho. Cobs and I were talking about all of the extraordinary people we've met and regret not getting pictures of them all for our blog and memory. We will just have to go back when we can.

My journaling left off there. We arrived home sleepy but ate and chatted with Dad before crashing. Our trip was extraordinary, we will never forget it. we covered over 1840 miles, visited fun towns, met great new friends and gathered 35 states in the license plate game!! We can never thank the people we met along our way, our couchsurfing hosts and the strangers who quickly became friends. We truly were blessed and will never forget them. Thank you!

hope you enjoyed reading about our adventures, now to plan the next one-leaving for Driggs next week!