Jennica & Matthew Geddert's Ramblings

Oct 10 Eventful Fall by Jennica

We went on a number of great trips this fall. Two particular highlights for both of us were the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival and the Calypso Festival at Curtis Wineries.

A couple of years ago, Matthew and I went with a couple of our friends to the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in Golden Gate Park and had a wonderful time. We saw Buddy Miller, Joan Baez, and Gillian Welch perform amazing music. This year we were very excited to take in the festival a second time. This year the highlights were the Mekons and Gillian Welch. Partway through Gillian Welch's concert, Emmylou Harris showed up and together with David Rawlings standing in for Alison Krauss, they sang "Go to Sleep You Little Baby" (featured in the movie O Brother Where Art Thou?). It was amazing and we were glad we were there.

The parts that were not cool about the trip were the enormous crowds that did nothing for Matthew's agraphobia, and the bee that stung me. That hurt. A lot. It was a very uncool bee. It was good that I was stung rather than Matthew so the incident didn't involve a trip to the hospital or death, but we both agreed that paying for a concert may be worth it if we don't have to navigate those crowds.

On the drive home, we also saw a strange sight. As we neared the bikers, we questioned each other, "Is that a coffin? 'Cause I think that's a coffin." "Yeah. That looks like a coffin. Are we sure it's not a weird trunk?"

Yes. We're sure. It was a coffin.

Friends of ours are members of a winery club at Curtis Winery and invited us to join them for a dinner at the winery. We dressed up like pirates and watched the sun set over the vineyard while munching on delicacies and sipping the new vintages. It was a lot of fun. We drove around the area recognizing different places from the movie Sideways and came home with a couple of bottles to save for special occasions.