I recently went to the Telluride Bluegrass Festival and it was one of the most joyful experiences of my life. I have wanted to go for all of the 30 years I knew it existed, but it is not an ADA-friendly festival so for the last decade I had assumed it was one of those experiences that someone like me just couldn’t have.

The festival includes all of my favorite things. Telluride itself is ridiculously, transcendently beautiful. It’s a tiny old town at the base of a valley hemmed in by soaring San Juan peaks and crashing waterfalls. The town has soul. It’s a mix of old mining town and new ski mecca that gives that uniquely Colorado vibe of live and let live, dress in your favorite little black dress or your grungiest sweats, eat great food (as long as it’s camping-clean), see nature, and breathe mountain air. The Bluegrass Festival is one of the oldest summer festivals at Telluride; 50 years of gathering to celebrate the pleasure of live music.

My brother and his family have been going every year for 20 years with a group of friends and this year when they invited me (again) to share in their well-orchestrated dance of festival expertise, I wanted to go so badly it hurt worse than my pain. But my habitual pessimist........

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