Nitty Gritty Dirt Band Farewell Tour & Molly Tuttle Concert @ Dillon Amp ~ Awesome Historic Songs & Musicianship 16Jun26

Day 2 led Jim & me and our friends Steve & Donna into the Dillon Amphitheater again. This time we paid to attend and enjoyed a great farewell tour concert from the spectacular Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and the incomparable Molly Tuttle.

NGDB features four band-mates for many decades playing with Jaime Hanna, Jeff's kid, and they even brought Ibbotson out of retirement of 20 yrs from Pitkin Co. Adding to the stoke was that Molly Tuttle was the opener until a power outage stopped her set, just 2 songs from the end. MT sang mostly from the new album but covered 'She's A Rainbow' as she does; she thrashed the double neck with 12 string and 6 string attached on 'Everything Burns,' as she does.

Realize that Nitty Gritty released the iconic 'Will The Circle Be Unbroken' 54 years ago! They have so many great albums and songs and eras. The show was excellent and Jaime's strong voice helped when elder vocal cords were strained... he's good there and on the guitar. On top of the songs and performances, the salmon night sky was sublime. I did catch "Ripplin' Waters" with Ibbotson ~ not a great voice as prior but historically epic as he came out just for the Colorado mtn show.

Speaking of 'Will The Circle Be Unbroken,' Molly mentioned that that NGDB record with Doc Watson and other bluegrass stars was an influence on her. It was a water drip for sure and I knew they'd collaborate later on that song... and they did. And Annie. So good. 

Fruition & Magoo Concert Kicks Off A Week Of Live Music ~ Mtn Music Mondays @ The Dillon Amp 15Jun26

Jim & I are headed to Telluride but took the opportunity to see some great early season artists @ the Dillon Amp on the way. Magoo opened to a packed house in a venue of little comparison. Magoo is an ascending, excellent alt bluegrass jam band from Denver, and they brought their admirers to Summit. They killed it and we all loved it. I've seen their stuff online but it was my 1st time live. We all means Jim & me as typical but we were very pleased to be joined by our great friends S&D from O; Steve was an excellent chauffeur. I usually lead my friends to the center of the stage at the rail above the fixed seating ~ we bring our own chairs for the grass and end up in position A right behind the sound engineers.

While 1st is friends of course, the Dillon Amp venue and sound are excellent, plus Mondays are FREE! While we dislike the necessary queuing 100 min before the shows (to get position A), as they are GA, we are never disappointed with the vibe, sound, or spot. Dillon Amp is owned by the municipality and it was recently rebuilt nearly equivalently to prior for patrons, but for better bathrooms, real artist green rooms, and a fab sound system... nothing in the mountains competes anymore ~ simply, this is the best for many counties around.

Back to Magoo... really great alt bluegrass with Phish/Dead-like jam songs and other tight playing. Wow. Let's go. And howdy did mostly young patrons turn out with Magoo gear, pajama pants and bikinis, and dance their asses off. My sense is that 'free' was good, 'Magoo' was better, and folks came out to pack the house to see them. It was a very strong and fun set and we were treated to a dobro.

I was mostly alone in this crowd, to have come to see headliner Fruition (though sure I appreciated Magoo immensely as opener). 15 mostly consistent years of genre-bending/avoiding songs with a multi-instrumentalist female leader and mad musicianship all around is a lure. They didn't disappoint on non-genre definition, moving deftly from 40's swing, to blues, to Americana with facility. I loved the set but for a bit of muddling in the vocals... I don't know why. I caught some images and some footage.

Heading Over To Shakedown Street ~ Harvest Hosted @ Ascent Brewery 12Jun26

With a pending major trip west with the Crusher and BC20X I decided to make an overnight shakedown run. I used Harvest Host to book a "free" night at Ascent Brewing. I had checked the Crusher Too for alignment and sway and needed to add assurance of camper and Starlink ops. Ascent is cool; Joe & Steph are great hosts. I watched the Paraguay-US soccer match and tried Joe's beers. Sunset was alive from Falcon. The BC20X was fine in all regards but Starlink draws down the batteries a bit more than I want; I need to remember to unplug when not needed. I was back at Blodgett in time for the Catalonia F1 qualification session.

Summit Fun In The Sun ~ Encouraged Kala To The Nest 04Jun26-07Jun26

Kala and I headed to Summit for some days out of the heat along the Front Range. We planned some events and had a great times with Matt visits, the Vail Mtn Games, beers @ ORB, hiking the Eagles Nest Wilderness, watching F1 @ Monaco, and fishing 10 Mile Ck. Our backyard...

Wed 03Jun26-Thu 04Jun26 ~ Visiting Matt In Den  & Hiking "Kala's Trail"... we stopped in the DTC to visit TK on the way. Mostly "hi" and "bye" but we would see him again on the other end. All's well in the tough coding world. We decided to hike on Thu and defer our visit to Vail to Friday. We did a 5 mile loop in the White River NF and Eagle's Nest Wild in our backyard. It was nice being out hiking the wild with Kala again ~ knees did not fail and hip flexor stayed sane. Dillon Rez is very low and will not fill ~ Frisco even closed their marina for this season. I tried to find a way to hike all the way down to ORB but we decided to drive. We stopped at the new Tiki Bar (new operator Steep) at Dillon Marina to check it out - nice and there's a stage now for live music and Steep's beers are approved.

Fri 05Jun26 ~ The Vail Mountain Games... With the weak snowpack the runoff into Gore Ck did not swell the stream enough to host the water sports (which were moved to Glenwood Spgs on the Colorado). Still the games are fun and we especially like seeing the dog events. Big Air champion was a greyhound named Mayhem and Dueling Dogs champ was a black lab named Ace, nosing out a golden named Brianna. We heard a bit of music just walking around the games but chose against seeing bands at the Ford Amp this time. I did catch Kala checking some math with Rocky (Hail Mary reference) during our visit.

Sat 06Jun26 ~ Monaco GP Qualifying & Race... One of the best hours in motorsport is the qualifying for Monaco. This is a tight track with tons of turns and walls in your face... so, there are few passing opportunities during the grand prix, placing a premium on quali position. The pole sitter at Monaco wins the race 70% of the time. It was very exciting to watch on the NestMT, though Apple has added plenty of advertising over prior F1 channel viewing pleasure. Max threw down a blistering lap late in the final qualifying session but Kimi bested him by 4msec to take pole. I slept through the early race on Sunday but was regaled of it's many penalties and race car failures. Kimi basically went wire-to-wire from pole. My un-rebuilt team fell from 2nd to nearly last in Alpine Rippers F1 fantasy league.

Sat 06Jun26 ~ Fishing 10 Mile Ck... My back was oddly blown yesterday but the hot tub really helped so I chose to head out to fish 10Mile Ck during this odd flowing (~100cfs) spring this afternoon. I hit the Copper Mtn area of the stream then went downstream to the Officer's Gulch area. I had a decent outing and caught a number of 10" browns and a couple of similarly-sized rainbows, it was a decent double handled well on the Rodfather True 3 v2. I was all sub-surface but a decent brown hit my bobber. Best flies on the day were the oil can Perdigon, the Wired Ice caddis, and the MHFBPT. 

Sun 07Jun26 ~ Visit With Matt... After the Monaco GP we packed up and cleaned up and headed down to the Front Range. We made seared tuna steaks with salad for us at Matt's place on Hampden, and he provided spicy quinoa! I finally scored my Cars & Canyons sticker for the FlyBox and adorned it.

COS Stuff ~ Aviator With Yoho & Happy Anniversary To Us 28May26-31May26

We spent the week in COS to get through some home tasks and Front Range appointments. After fishing the Ark, I showered for a date. We  got out with Jim & Mary for a tasty yet quirky meal at the Aviator atop the new Hotel Polaris near the north gate of the AFA. Superior cocktails were enjoyed as was the Asian-vibe appetizer-sized nosh. View is great too.

Happy 46th to Kala & me! We chose to hike the Blodgett Open Space and did several miles and plenty of vert over there. On the way back down we observed a murder of crows attacking a hawk in the area... they dive-bombed her relentlessly till she flew off downrange. Sufficient physical investment that we even passed on opening the Kala-acquired Champagne. 

Back In Big Horn Sheep Canyon ~ Quick But Good Day Double 28May26

Though foggy in the Springs it was nice past Canon City on the Ark in BHSC. I was slowed a smidge to 10:15am by construction but got a couple of good hours in @ Pinnacle Rock today. The river was off color from recent rains but I caught a half doz fish by noon with 13"-14" browns and 15"-16" rainbows/cutbows. Every fly worked: MHFBPT, oil can Perdigon, red squirmy worm, and rainbow warrior. I tied on the rainbow warrior due to the low visibility; I tied on the squirmy 'cause of recent rains. The fish are smaller now here at Pinnacle Rock but at least the fishery is back from the Hayden fire.