Concert tour in the mountains!

We had a nice weekend up in Buena Vista and Leadville. The DCB had two concerts (a third in Fairplay was canceled). I will hopefully put up a few photos soon. Chuck was once again the "roadie" for the percussion section. He also doubles as a band photographer. :) We did vary the play list slightly each night, so at least he didn't have to sit through two identical concerts. BV is about 8,000 ft and Leadville is 10,152 ft. Good thing I don't play a wind instrument...not much oxygen up there!

Despite competing with the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics, we had a good turnout at the BV concert! We played in the Orpheum Theater - our concert is held annually to raise funds to renovate the theater.

The Leadville 100 (as in 100 miles and it starts at 10,500 feet and climbs to more than 14,000 feet) was on Saturday, so we had a glimpse of Lance Armstrong (he finished 2nd....the two leaders finished all 100 in about 6 h 45 min!!!). It was exciting to be at the finish line. I missed a picture as I'll never seem to master the timing with digital cameras. :( The concert was also held in another historical venue, the Tabor Opera House, which will begin exterior renovations soon. The venue has a great history including John Phillip Sousa and even Houdini! Of course, the most important is the annual Denver Concert Band concert. :)

BV is about 2.5 hours from us, so it was nice to get away. You can see several 14ers from BV/Leadville....Mt. Princeton, Yale, Harvard, Massive, and Elbert and more (10 in all in the BV area). The drive up had a 30 minute detour on a dirt road (see, my SUV does get "off road" sometimes!) due to an accident, so it was more adventuresome then expected. The drive home was less exciting, but we had lots of fun carpooling with Tricia and Lyndsey. :) Finding decent coffee and breakfast food in BV at 7am on Sunday morning was a challenge (7Eleven was the BEST choice!) for sure.

Next weekend is a shower at our house for Natanee (baby boy on the way) and a belated bday celebration for me with Chuck's family. We haven't seen Chuck's siblings after international travels (Jeremiah, Alex and Maddie to Europe and Darby to the Bahamas), so it will be fun to catch up!

The house is getting painted this week (let's hope the weather cooperates!) - look for before/after photos later this week!