10/03/11 Some Mountain, Colorado

There I was packing up my gear, getting ready to hit the long road back to Colorado catching a ride with a new friend, Ben. With our many goodbyes we left with high spirits and drove the truck out of the campground out on the road. Just like any road trip movie, we made it about twenty miles out of Winfield when his truck breaks downs on the side of the highway. With the help of friendly Kansas kin, we landed ourselves
back in Winfield for yet another night to wait out the repair on the truck. Once it was all said and done, we embarked once again on the journey back the following day, this time breaking down forty miles north in Witchita, Kansas where the starter failed and landed us stranded once again. Without the proper time to fix the vehicle we had to push start the car every time we stopped on the way. Not only dealing with car problems, my phone was submerged in water while taking a sharp turn and four hours down the road
to fill up on gas, Ben lost his wallet thinking he left it back in Witchita at the grocery store. At this point I was making a sign to start hitch hiking out of there while Ben here was about to have a breakdown due to the misfortune of the ride out of Kansas. Thankfully, he found his wallet hidden in the car and we set off once again to Colorado, this time with no more issues to deal with.

Back in Denver, I made my way south to Manitou Springs, where I was to get some final repairs on my banjo from the luthiers who fixed her up during the bluegrass festival. Making my home base in Manitou for the week, I quickly found some temporary roof work and worked out some more street performing there in the Springs including busking at the dulcimer shop, and giving out banjo lessons in the square. After a week of the
manual labor and jams, I left north for Red Rocks once again, this time to see the Furthur shows there that lasted all weekend. It was during this time that I met up again with Tye-dye Krista and various Kansas friends to stay at a log cabin nestled deep in the mountains.

After an incredible weekend at the Red Rocks and making some cash with beer on Shakedown Street, Krista asked me if I would like to go back to Las Vegas and California to follow the remainder of the Furthur tour. With an hour to decide to go halfway across the U.S. and back in a week, we looked at each other and with the thumbs up we set off to gather a rental car and there we were once again on the road back to the west coast.