…and relax for a delicate few…
It’s been almost three years since our trip to Colorado. I never wrote the detailed post I had planned about it, complete with pictures and a lot of flailing about music and mountains. At the time I couldn’t write about it without ugly crying all over my computer. At this point, I think it’s best left to the mental archives.
The trip was worth every last one of those 1800+ miles we drove, but neither one of us has been in any hurry to do anything like it again anytime soon.
Until now.
On a MUCH smaller scale.
1.) We went to Bemidji and saw O.A.R. play the Sanford Center. Because Sara needs her live music fix. When we hit the highway on our way to get gas before heading out of town, Two Hands Up was the first song to come on the radio. I took that as a good sign for the trip. And then we got to hear it live a few hours later.
2.) Following the [sometimes drunk, apparently] GPS, it took us about 3.5 hours to drive up. The scenery is mostly trees and trees and trees and trees…and trees…and trees…and cows.
3.) Just shy of two hundred miles from home. Joel the Obstinate and Cursed Jetta was very well behaved.
4.) We stayed at the Doubletree. Expensive and fancy, but new, clean, and they gave us warm cookies at check-in.
5.) The description online when I booked the room said balcony with lake view. I had no idea Lake Bemidji would be right there.
6.) We went to dinner at Hurricane Grill and Wings. I had a chicken wrap and Bob had Mahi. It was good food.
7.) The venue was right next to the hotel. We could have just walked over (about half a mile across parking lots), but it was colder and rainier than we would have liked for the distance. Our seats weren’t bad and for the first time ever I wasn’t stuck behind the tallest person in the building…because there wasn’t anybody directly in front of us.
8.) The opening act was a band called The Wind + The Wave. I’d never heard of them before. They’re kind of that southern-folky-sound that’s all over the place these days. Not quite my style of music, but they were entertaining and put on a solid performance.
9.) O.A.R. was every bit as fan-fucking-tastic as I had hoped. They played a lot of their older stuff so it was fun to see how they have evolved over the last two decades. And if I could only pick one song that I really wanted to hear, it would have been Place to Hide, and I got exactly that.
10.) I would like to take Marc Roberge home with me and keep him and have him sit on my desk all adorable like and sing to me all day long. (Though I’d take any one of them. They’re all so damn adorable.)
11.) Post show, with ringing ears, we settled in bed and watched Game of Thrones and skimmed late night cable before crashing. My brain decided to be a total asshole and deprive me of sleep, but it allowed me a lot of time to have staring contests with Eeyore and plot writing ideas that are still stuck in my head.
12.) We were awake by 8AM so we got ready and checked out of the hotel. We stopped to see Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox like good little tourists. We could have taken time to see more, but it was 30 degrees and windy and starting to snow and we’re kind of lazy.
13.) We had breakfast at the Minnesota Nice Cafe. Bob had a corned beef hash omlet and I had a lumberjack breakfast—eggs, bacon, hashbrowns, toast—and I ate all of it.
14.) We hit the road home after breakfast. Another 3.5 hours later we stopped for gas—we’d been pushing the red line for about the final 20 miles…daredevils, us—and then made it home. Joel averaged about 30mpg on a single tank of gas. Not bad for a 13 year old car.
15.) I posted this picture on Twitter, set my phone on my desk, and barely ten seconds later it buzzed to notify me the band had favorited my tweet. Benj is on the ball with that social media apparently.
Also, I predicted accurately. They’re coming back on their summer tour, but they’re playing the Basilica Block Party. That would be an even bigger nightmare than a small, standing-room-only venue. I made the right call on the road trip.
So worth it.
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Delicate Few O.A.R. |