Labor Day Weekend

This weekend, some friends and I flew to Washington state to see the Dave Matthews Band at the Gorge Amphitheatre.  Tami, Marcie and I have attended the DMB shows over the last few years here in Los Angeles.  This year, the band didn’t tour, but did set up the DMB Caravan which is a 3-day music festival visiting four US cities.  Tami moved to Idaho earlier this year so we decided to meet up in Washington to see our Dave and each other. 

 
After flying to Seattle, we had to fly on a plane with propellers.  Oh my!  I didn’t even know they still made planes with propellers, and I was kind of a nervous wreck.  Flying isn’t my most favorite thing in the world, but more a necessary evil for traveling to fun places.  My nerves were a bit more rattled boarding this plane.

The plane was quite small, but the ride over ended up going quick because there was so much to look at.  Since we flew closer to the ground, the view of the Northwest was quite spectacular.  

 
Tami picked us up in Pasco, WA, and we drove to Moses Lake to our hotel.  After freshening up a bit, we headed to the Gorge, which is in George, WA.  The drive to the Gorge was much different than the drive into LA that we usually make to see concerts.

The Gorge is in the middle of nowhere basically.  There wasn’t an ounce of traffic in or out of the venue. 

Even though the music at the festival began at 2PM on three different stages, we didn’t arrive the first night until just before DMB went on.  It was very crowded, but found an empty spot on the lawn and watched the sun set behind the stage.

       Excitedly waiting for Dave to go on stage.

The pictures came out rotten in the dark, but I think they show the massive amount of people in attendance.  There’s something kind of cool about all these people singing along to the same songs.  On Friday night the band played some of their most known songs like Tripping Billies, Crush, American Baby, but they also played some of my favorites that I’ve never heard in concert before like Proudest Monkey, Don’t Drink the Water and Satellite.  Dave also did a couple of songs with just him and his guitar…sigh.  It was a great show.

The next morning, we leisurely got up and went for coffee before starting out on our next adventure.  Tami is from Yakima, WA originally, so her parents drove North and we met them for lunch in Othello, which is one of the smallest towns I’ve ever been in.  We stopped at this funny Mexican restaurant. 
 

We planned on going to the one next door, but it was closed.  We were in for a treat.  The toothless elderly woman took our orders, and we checked out the decor while we waited…
 
and waited!

Our lunch plates came out one at a time, as they were cooked, however none of the plates were what we actually ordered.  My order was a cheese enchilada and a chicken taco, no rice. 
This is what I was served.  I’m not sure what this would be called in Mexican cuisine, but I accepted it anyways to be polite.  The five of us snickered a lot during the entire meal, but we enjoyed our visit. 

We said goodbye to Tami’s parents and headed back to our hotel to get ready for night #2 of DMB.  Instead of arriving at dusk, we got there a little earlier and enjoyed more of the festival.  
There were quite a few more people on day 2.  We managed to find a spot a bit to the side, but a little closer to the stage.  The view was good, but it was on more of an incline.  My toes are still sore from curling them into the grass to keep from toppling down the hill.  

Dave played a longer set that night.  Some of my favorites – Bartender, One Sweet World, #41, and Jimi Thing.  After several contact highs from all the pot that was smoked around us and a couple hours of some cool winds we headed back to the truck after the final encore. 

Sunday morning arrived quickly.  We packed up the car to head back to the airport.

I took this photo to show two things.  One, that I was able to pack everything I needed in one small carry on.  I usually pack my entire house, so fitting everything (including shoes) into this one bag is quite impressive if I do say so myself.  I also found it amusing that Tami’s new license plate mentions Idaho’s potatoes.  Is that funny to anyone else?

Unfortunately, this trip had three legs, and all three legs entailed us flying on one of those propeller planes.  Ugh!  The ride was uncomfortable because the planes are so small, but again the views were pretty amazing.

The snake-like Columbia River

Cascade Mountains 

Views of Seattle

May or may not be Mount St. Helens

Santa Rosa Wine Country  
 
Home Sweet Home

Thank goodness we had today off for the Labor Day holiday.  I spent most of the day in or close to bed recovering from such a fun weekend!