I was a groupie. Yup. I attended 20 hours of BGU jams and enjoyed every minute. I got to hob nob with the band. And go home with a guitar player (ok, the same one) every night.
Memphis: The rest of the story
Category: Friends & Family
Meet ups with friends & family
Visits with Doug’s kin in Music City
I have two cousins who live near Nashville with their families. They don’t know each other, though.
Missouri – Show Me Sue’s family
My dad was the fourth oldest of 16 siblings. Although most of the family settled and still live somewhere in the northeast and a few retired to warmer climes, two escaped when they were younger. Both moved around quite a bit, and both eventually made their way to Missouri.
Continue reading “Missouri – Show Me Sue’s family”Xscapers SoCo Convergence
The Xscapers SoCo Convergence was amazing!
First, a little background… Continue reading “Xscapers SoCo Convergence”
Leadville CO
From RMNP, we headed south to Leadville CO, the highest incorporated city in these United States, and the westernmost point on our journey. It’s two miles above sea level, and the temps dropped into the mid 20’s both nights we were there – our first encounter with sub-freezing temperatures since we left home. We woke up to snow at the higher elevations (above about 12,000 ft):
Colorado Drive-Thru Blues Jam
Since we were coming through the Boulder/Denver area, I got in touch with a couple of my Blues Guitar Unleashed friends who live nearby. Sue and I had a great afternoon with Chris and Frank. Chris generously hosted us all, providing both lunch and jam space. We played through a bunch of blues standards, switched around on various instruments, and tried a few things out in preparation for “The Show” (that’s my name for it), the annual BGU Live gathering which we will all be attending in Memphis in early October.
Me and My Uncle
Dayton O. Hyde is an author, conservationist, rancher, cowboy, former rodeo clown, photographer, and the founder of the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary in Hot Springs, South Dakota. He is also my uncle. A college buddy of my dad’s, my “Uncle Hawk” introduced his wife’s older sister to my father. The sister soon thereafter married my dad, and a little later became my mom, so that introduction turned out to be an auspicious event for me and my brothers, if nothing else.
Is all my life really a circle?
Yes! In fact, Harry Chapin pretty much nailed it right there. Here’s what we’re talking about:
A day or two ago, Rod & Tanya were at their desks at home in Egan, SD reading a new post on Technomadia about their friends Chris & Cherie’s stay in our driveway back home in Vermont. At that very moment outside in Rod and Tanya’s driveway were The Destinators (aka Doug & Sue), enjoying a cup of coffee in their rig, catching up on the news and a few select blogs – and reading the same Technomadia post. See what I mean?
So Minnesota
Joe introduced me to Mike in 2007. Mike’s company Axia Strategies, a small healthcare consulting firm based in Savage, MN, needed to add a clinician to one of their client teams. That started a nearly 10-year relationship between our respective consulting firms. Mike and I shared a similar client service philosophy and a passion for craft brews, and he shared with me his love for the midwest. Mike’s work travel, a new grand-baby, getting 4 kids off to college, and managing a high-schooler’s sports schedule made arranging a get-together kind of tricky, but we were fortunately able to meet with Mike in Minneapolis for a great lunch. It was so fun to catch up, live, on his turf!
This schedule also gave us a couple of days to explore more of MN. We opted to stay along the St. Croix River where we enjoyed a gorgeous bike ride along the rolling hills near the WI border. We visited Pipestone National Monument, the sacred Indian mines. And since we were headed toward SD, Mike provided local intel on back roads to see MN prairies. And of course, corn…
Thanks Mike!
More photos of So Minnesota and Pipestone National Monument…
On Wisconsin: Pelican Lake and the Apostle Islands
My cousin Jean was 18 years old the day I was born, and she joined the army 8 months later. Two years after that, she married her sweetheart and moved to Wisconsin. Needless to say, I never knew my cousin. We met for the first time at her mom’s memorial service about 10 years ago. We decided we needed to connect and planned to do so at some time in the future which finally happened this week…
Continue reading “On Wisconsin: Pelican Lake and the Apostle Islands”