I only met Bob Weir once. It was backstage at the long gone Gathering of the Vibes music festival located on the shoreline of the Long Island Sound in Bridgeport, Connecticut. It was the summer of 2009 and I was 24 years old, myself an aspiring journalist for a now-defunct music magazine. 

Hello from 34,000 feet. I’m currently on a United Express flight from Asheville to Denver, Colorado. Probably somewhere over Kansas at the moment. Who knows? What awaits me is another adventure, this time to the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. My first time there. Lifelong dream. 

Hello from the Merritt Parkway in south-central Connecticut. It’s bumper-to-bumper traffic and has been since we skirted New York City and headed east. Exit 60 is Hamden, Connecticut, a town that I called home during my years attending Quinnpiac University.