Leaving Aspen

Today was pack-up and move-out day from the Mountain Chalet.  We had our car loaded before "Goodbye Again" was held at 10:00 am in Wagner Park.  They made some announcements about when the event would be held next year, thanked the key people who organized it.  After singing the traditional two songs, "Friends" and "Goodbye, Again", pictures were taken and hugs given, before going our separate ways.

We left Aspen for another year, heading to Denver via Independence Pass. The weather was beautiful as you can see in the mountain scene on the left.  On the right you can see how one of the avalanches this past winter knocked down wide swaths of trees on the road to Independence Pass.

We stopped at the Colorado Music Museum at Red Rocks Amphitheater on our way.  After taking this picture of Mary holding hands with the JD statue, she enjoyed seeing the John Denver room again.  Two of his outfits are shown on the right.

So tonight we're in Golden, CO.  We have a mid afternoon flight home tomorrow, so no need to rush in the morning.    It's been a great vacation, with beautiful scenery followed by wonderful music.  

Aspen Day 5

What a day we had!  It started at Aspen Chapel's Sunday worship, with music by Mack Bailey and Ellen Stapenhorst (so nice that Ellen sang Mary's favorite "Heart to Heart")!  It wasn't our usual form of worship, but we enjoyed the music.

We then hustled to the Cookhouse Event.  We were among the last to arrive and ended up at a corner table.  We had trouble hearing the music but enjoyed the couple we sat with, who were first-time attendees from Maine.  Chris Collins band, Boulder Canyon, provided the music. The lunch was excellent and the weather was beautiful.  The owner of the Cookhouse is a former ABC Producer.  He  presented a slide show of filming a John Denver movie in Alaska and had several people who helped with the filming flown in. 

The "Jam at the Chapel" event, featuring Mack Bailey, Chris Nole and Chris Banister. was wonderful, with each artist playing a song, round robin style.  But that did not stop the others from joining in on another artists number, either ad libbing a piano accompaniment or joining in on a guitar or singing the chorus.  I'm quite sure that we heard lots of "original music", that is, versions of songs that had never been performed before.  I recorded some special videos which you can access using this link, including Mack taking a turn at the piano and a short number by Mack's son, Hayden.  The musicians  sang for over 1 1/2 hours and were as appreciative of the audience as the audience was of their music.


So tomorrow is Goodbye Again followed by a drive to Golden, Co as our extended vacation is nearing its end.  

Aspen Day 4

We took a car trip to the Grotto's this morning.  This is a pretty waterfall between Aspen and Independence Pass. We took the easy path to the base of the Grottos which gives you a great view from the bottom of the falls.   The water is hard to see in the photo, so I included a second picture of a closeup of the bottom section.  You can clearly see the ice in the falls.  The river had a considerable amount of ice on it as well.

At noon we had the 4th annual Singer-Songwriter concert where 6 singers ( Larry Guild from the UK, Billy Jacobs, Ron Matthews, Dave Stratford, Ellen Stapenhorst, and Mark Cormican) each sang songs they had written.  It was enjoyable to hear their compositions.  The songs were a combination of ballads, love songs, and tribute songs.  But the best of them, however, was Billy Jacobs' lyrics "The Sound of Sinus" to the famous Paul Simon tune "The Sound of Silence" which brought down the house.  I'll leave the details of the lyrics to your imagination, except to say that they rather vividly described the symptoms of a severe cold.

Tonight was the highlight of the week, the John Denver Tribute Concert.  It sure lived up to it's name with great JD songs performed by Mack Bailey, Molly Weaver, Chris Nole, Jim Curry and Allen Deremo. Wow!!  Mack, Molly and Jim sang beautifully on their numbers, and for the encore they sang "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" and "Rocky Mountain High", before closing with "This Old Guitar" that had the entire audience standing while they played a recording of John singing it.

Tomorrow is a busy day with Aspen Chapel (with Mack and Ellen Stapenhorst) followed by the Cookhouse event , and then a Mack Bailey and Chris Nole concert.

Aspen Day 3

Besides attending two concerts today, we walked around town to do some shopping and to visit the JD Sanctuary to take a few pictures.   It was a clear, but cold, day with the temperature topping out at a brisk 42 degrees. On the left is one entrance to the sanctuary.  On the right is a view of Aspen Mountain from the sanctuary.

This afternoon we attended the Jim Horn talk about his memories of being a backup musician to John Denver and many other artists.  The stories he had to tell were very interesting! He related many humorous events that happened on the road as well as tales of eating out late after concerts.  After his talk, he played a bit on several of his instruments, including several types of flutes and recorders as well as a saxophone. The event wrapped up with his playing 3 songs with Ron Matthews on guitar, the final one being the Canned Heat number "Going Up The Country".

The evening event was a Ron Matthews concert. We thought it was going to be Ron and his brother, Dave, but when we got there Ron had an entire backup band (lead guitar, base and percussion)! Dave did join in for a few numbers and took the lead on two songs. It was a great concert with a wide mix of John Denver songs.

Tomorrow we have a concert at noon, another at 4pm, and the Tribute concert in the evening. 

Aspen Day 2

Today was a two concert day, Dave Stafford at 1pm and Aspen Meadow Band at 4 pm.   As you can see from the view from our balcony, we had snow this morning in Aspen and it was rather pretty.  There was not a lot of accumulation, about 3" on the cars and very little on the sidewalks.  On the right is a picture of our hotel, the Mountain Chalet, in the snow.

Dave's concert was very good.  He played a lot of the less familiar JD songs which was very interesting to hear.  He played for a full 2 hours and was joined by his brother, Ron Matthews, for several numbers.  Dave lives in our area of southeast Michigan so we have been fortunate to hear him sing locally as well as in Aspen.

Held later in the afternoon, the Aspen Meadow concert was very energy-filled.  They played for over an hour and sounded great!  The are very good musicians and had the crowd engaged for the entire performance.  At one point people were even standing and dancing.  We were pleased that Jake sang his most-requested song, Yellowstone, which is also the last song John Denver ever wrote.

We went to the Hickory House for supper with our friend Don Larson (also known as The Eagle Man of Eau Claire, a nickname given to him by Mary due to his love of eagles in his hometown in Wisconsin).  Had great food and we saw several other JD friends there. 

Two more concerts tomorrow, including one by Ron Matthews.

Arrived at Aspen

We had a pretty drive across Independence Pass to Aspen this morning, arriving in time for the JD festivities. We saw 3 mule deer (including one stag with a full set of antlers) while heading to the pass.  We also saw two major avalanche sites with lots of downed trees.  We had heard that they had trouble clearing the road this year due to avalanches and now I can understand why.  The picture on the right shows a sample of this road.

Attendance at Meet and Greet (the first event of the week) seemed a bit low this year (I counted about 80) but when first timers were asked to raise their hands there had to be 20-30 people who responded!  That was very impressive.  During the singing, Mary spotted two deer just across the river from the John Denver Sanctuary where the event was held and snapped this picture.  The Meet and Greet was nice time for Mary to catch up with old friends.

We headed to Woody Creek Tavern for lunch (it's a tradition to eat here at least once each Aspen, since it was a JD hangout) then on to the Maroon Bells.  This was the best color we've seen in our many years of coming out here.  Most times only a few trees still have the classic gold leaves, but this year some trees still had green leaves and, as you can see, there was LOTS of gold! The picture on the left is from the road, while the one on the right was taken when walking past the lake. 

We had one concert today, by the Aspen Meadow Band.  This  church-supported group has been coming for many years and gives free concerts and free CDs.  Today's concert was traditional John Denver songs. 

We have two concerts tomorrow as well as a lot of snow predicted.  Good thing that both concerts are in our hotel so we don't have to go out!

Wolf Creek Pass

Today ended the sightseeing phase of our trip as we arrived in Buena Vista, all set to drive into Aspen in the morning to start the music phase.  It's been quite a week, driving 1800 miles across Colorado and Utah, seeing bison, antelope, and mule deer (this happened along the Million Dollar Highway and they ran away, forgetting they were supposed to pose for pictures!), and more scenic highway than I can remember seeing in a long time. If you ever get a chance to drive western Colorado, especially during the peak fall color time, I encourage you to take the time and enjoy the views.  Here are a couple more scenery pictures from today for you to enjoy.

One cute side story.  When in western Colorado on our way to Montrose, we were enjoying all the scenery when we were amazed to see a stop sign!  It caught us by surprise since we had not seen one, nor a traffic light, since leaving Moab several hours before.  Now those are true country roads!

Wolf Creek Pass was nice, but not as spectacular as many other passes we have crossed on this journey.  But it stands out since it sits on the continental divide, dividing waters that run east to the Mississippi River or west to the Pacific Ocean.  Here I am with one foot on each side of the continental divide.  Mary took the colorful picture on right as we drove on toward Buena Vista.  The variety of colors we experienced was amazing.  And our pictures cannot come close to capturing how beautiful these scenes looked to the native eye.

Tomorrow morning we cross Independence Pass on our way to the Meet and Greet event in Aspen that kicks off the JD festivities. 

Million Dollar Highway

Today our main planned activity was to drive the Million Dollar Highway to Durango, then on to Pagosa Springs.  A 12 mile stretch of this road is flagged as a very dangerous highway.  Mary can now attest to that as she calls it  "White Knuckle Way".  The northern end of the Highway starts at the town of Ouray (picture at top left).  I could tell Mary was a bit worried when, as I was driving about 15 mph, she kept repeating "Slow Down!, Slow Down!".  But it was a beautiful drive and we had beautiful weather - sunny with a cloudless sky. We caught much of this area at peak fall color as you can see from the bottom two pictures.

We made it to Durango by 11:00 am and only had a 1 hour drive to Pagosa Springs ahead of us, so we consulted a paper map and decided to visit the Four Corners.  Mary had talked about going there and I was intrigued, so we decided to spend our afternoon on this side trip.  It was a 3 hour drive, but well worth it to check this item off of our bucket list.

So after driving a lot of miles today we'll take it easy this evening to get ready for our drive across Wolf Creek Pass to Buena Vista tomorrow morning.

Heading to Colorado

The drive from Moab into Colorado this morning was beautiful, passing through a wide range of terrains, from scrub grass to forests to valleys to canyons.  One canyon even reminded us of Glenwood Canyon, but with more vegetation and color.  I love driving these 2 lane state highways since they are so scenic.  Driving was a bit of a challenge with many steep grades and tight turns, but also some stretches of open road.  We could see a lot of color on the mountains as you can see in the picture on the left.

We made it to Montrose before 1pm, enjoyed lunch then headed to The Black Canyon  of the Gunnison before checking into our hotel. This was our second visit to this Canyon, but we did not remember a whole lot since the first visit was 41 years ago.  This is a very deep canyon  (1800') as you can see from the pictures on the right.  You can only see the river from a few places, and these pictures are from two of them.

Tomorrow we drive south on US 550 to Pagosa Springs. Part of that road is called the Million Dollar Highway, a very windy stretch of road. I'm looking forward to driving - and seeing - it.