RockyGrass 2009

The BBT, after 65 days on the road and 2300 miles has made its way back into wonderful Colorado. You know I really underestimated the distance of the BBT as I first thought it'd be around 1750 miles, but we're still 300 miles from home and have covered 2300 miles. It's amazing that we've still arrived everywhere we set out for on time.

One thing I've discovered after being on the road for so long is that my culinary discretion has competely gone out the window (if I ever really had any before is up for debate). The above pic shows both of us enjoying hot dogs and 64 oz of sugar water also called Coke at my favorite watering hole, Conoco. This one just north of Fort Collins. These are perfect spots to get off the bike for a spell. Free refills, onions for your hot dogs in a ketchup-like package, A/C, and clean bathrooms at your disposal.
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I have decided that the only way to actually eat like an "American" is to bicycle 70 miles a day. That is what we are doing lately with our ice cream and fast food and soda intake. Luckily we are burning it all off as we cycle. This type of eating can continue for only 2 days after we finish our cycle tour unless we want to gain 5 lbs. a day. But for the time being, it is what we are craving. I feel sorry for folks that eat this way and don't do outlandish exercise to offset it. That is a recipe for disaster.
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We arrived at RockyGrass on Thursday. After we checked-in we set out to set our tent up, seeking shade as our number one priority. It seemed odd to us that where we chose to set up was completely void of others but we just figured we were early, so we set up and headed out to visit our friend who lives in Lyons. I'm gonna make a long story short here. We we got back to our tent at around 8pm it was gone, literally. All our stuff was in too. We were sorta freaked out to say the least. Plus, the sea of humanity around where our tent used to be was completely out of control. You could not walk without tripping on a guy line of another tent. There was no grass left to be seen anywhere. I have never seen a festival camping scene with that sort a tent density. You could step from the door of one tent directly into another tent, I am not kidding. So we were sorta frantic for a bit, but the chaos of people made it so no one really knew (or cared) about the whereabouts of our tent and stuff. On our way to the main info desk, we stumbled on the new location of our tent. Someone (later we learn it was the RockyGrass "tent police", obviously ex-BlackWater employees) had moved our tent some 50 yards from its original spot. The must have drug it, because all our stuff was inside. They staked it out again (sort of) and now we were directly in a sun spot with neighbors about 1 foot on either side. Not our idea of a good campsite. So we decided to take the tent down and move to a more reasonable location. (Apparently we had set our tent up in a location that didn't "open" until like 6:30pm. Live and learn).
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But, as has happened on this trip all the time, our bad luck turned into better luck. We ran into some friends who had some ground saved and they offered it to us. A quick compass calculation showed that it'd be in the shade in the morning (most important for sleeping-in, which I planned on doing) and we had a new home for the next 3 nites.
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The lineup at RockyGrass is really unmatched by any other festival I've been to (except maybe MerleFest or Hardly Strictly). Any one of the many acts here would be the headliner at other festivals. They even had a TBA spot on the schedule that turned out to be none-other-than Yonder Mountain String Band. I was in heaven with all the good music. My favorite acts of the week had to be the Steve Earle, The Wilders (pictured below), Danny Paisley and Southern Grass, Del McCoury, California, Kruger Brothers, Steep Canyon Rangers, and Sarah Jarosz.

There there is the actual venue itself. A river runs thru it, literally. Some folks even put their chairs in the river as their spots from which to enjoy the shows. Here is a pic below of the mass of people cooling off in the river during the festival. The stage is nice because it has an open back that shows the trees swaying in the breeze with is way better'n any tapestry that could be created.

We thoroughly enjoyed the festival and the town of Lyons. There is the Stone Cup Coffee shop that was only 1/4 mile from our tent door that had a $1 cup of joe and an honesty jar. How cool is that, especially since the lines to order specialty drinks snaked out the door. It was truly the place to hang out when not in the festival.
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We won the RockyGrass campground challenge (for Saturday). This is the challenge for the most eco-friendly campsite. We advertised our site as having nothing, and hence the smallest footprint and most eco-friendly and got the most votes. We won a nice prize and got the BBT announced on the main stage which was cool. We also won this award at Telluride BF. It's nice to get a bit of recognition for bicycling to the festival.
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I'm still sorta in shock that the BBT is somewhat over. We successfully hit 6 festivals in 8 weeks without any problems. I'm always grateful when we are able to this on any long-distance adventure, It is never a given since life can throw you many curveballs. Lucky of us, we are both good curveball hitters. Now we just have the 250 miles of riding to get home.
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For those of you that are considering bicycle touring in the future, I'd like to highly recommend it. I can think of no better way to simplify your vacation plans. Life gets so easy when you are bicycle touring. The activity of the day is bicycling. All you really have to worry about is water and weather. Camp wherever you get tired. Save money because your main activity is the biking which is free. Eat lots of food, guilt free. See the country in a way that is not possible from an auto. And each month that your spend traveling on a bicycle you become more in tune with your body and your inner self (you have lots of time to think while you are pedalling). Your happiness will grow in spite of yourself. If there is a downside to bicycle touring, I'm at a loss to think of it.
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Here's a closing pic: Biking about 1000 miles thru Wyoming has helped to deter us for ever wanting to try Meth. I guess that is a big problem for that state. Not sure why it's so bad there. Here is one billboard in downtown Laramie, WY.