Have you ever had that perfect trip? The one where everything just seems to fall into place and everything goes perfectly, even with hiccups and all? Well, that was “From Bonnaroo to Boulder” for me – and it was a work trip to boot!
My program Sustainable Table had a booth at Bonnaroo, the four-day music festival in Manchester, Tennessee – four glorious days in the hot stinking sun (and I hate the sun) – but we met so many amazing people and had such a great time that it was all perfect. You can read all about it on the Sustainable Table Tour Journal - we (my colleague Dawn and I) journaled our way across half the country.
From there we drove for 2 1/2 days through Tennessee, Missouri and Kansas to get to Boulder, Colorado for the LOHAS conference. And what a drive it was! This country is big – we decided that miles are longer in Tennessee and Missouri – it took much longer than we thought! But we had previously emailed out our newsletter list (around 35,000 people) and asked for tips on where to go and what to do as we drove. We ended up touring a St. Louis Whole Foods with a manager who has championed the buy local movement through the Whole Foods stores, had brunch in Columbia, Missouri, with a woman who gets the newsletter and who, it turns out, we have a lot in common with – people, passion, etc. We even got to tour a heritage turkey farm outside Denver. What more could you ask for?
And Boulder – I met the most amazing people at the conference, from Shamans to Directors and the Coca Cola company to people who work making those “natural flavors” we always wonder about in our food. And everyone was just so nice!
We drove through the Rock Mountain Nataional Park – saw elk and moose and played in snow in the tundra. I’ve never gone above tree level before, so it was totally cool. And it was snowing up there and in the 80s in Boulder!
As I said, it was the perfect trip. Anything that might have looked like an obstacle before presented itself as an opportunity – and we went with it and had fun. I hope every day can be as perfect as each day on this trip was.
You can check out some of our photos on Flickr:
Boulder and the Rocky Mountains
Heritage turkey farm in Colorado
Missouri and Kansas
Bonnaroo Day 4
Bonnaroo Day 3 and Rock the Grill!
Bonnaroo Day 2
Bonnaroo Day 1
and
Moopheus at Bonnaroo!!!
