Solid Sound Festival 2017

The Solid Sound Festival occurs every two years in North Adams, Massachusetts, and we look forward to it so much!!  This is my 3rd Solid Sound. It's put on by the band Wilco, and it's just a REALLY great 3-day music festival.  It has such a relaxed vibe, and it's super family-friendly (lots of kids everywhere!), and it's just people hanging out.  There are a bunch of different stages where you can go see bands or comedians, and the venue that it's always at (Mass MoCA, which stands for Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art) also has a bunch of buildings full of art that you can wander around and look at!  It's so awesome. Plus there are a bunch of food trucks and beer tents (Lagunitas is there with their beer called Wilco Tango Foxtrot (WTF) which is soooo good!).

So, this year was amazing.  The group we were with this year was me and Kevin, Kevin's sister Mo, Timmy, Fro, Fro's boyfriend, and two of Fro's boyfriend's friends. We found an AMAZING cabin on AirBnB that was only about 10 minutes from Mass MoCA, which is the closest we have ever been BY FAR!!  We've always been at least 30 minutes away in the past.

One comedian that I was REALLY looking forward to this year was Nick Offerman!!  I loooove Nick Offerman so much (any Parks and Rec fans out there??), so I was really excited to see his stand-up.

That's Nick Offerman right in front with the mustache, just in case anyone doesn't know! He's so funny. 

We actually didn't end up getting to the venue early enough to see his stand-up though (that was at an indoor stage, and it was filled to capacity VERY early!), so I was pretty bummed. BUT, I ended up seeing Nick Offerman 3 other times during the festival, so then I wasn't bummed at all!!  We were watching the band Nancy and Beth (and Nick Offerman's wife Megan Mullally from Will & Grace is one of the two singers... not sure if she's Nancy or Beth...), and they were a LOT of fun!  They have choreography for most of their songs, and the music was really fun too.  Well, towards the end of their set, I saw Nick Offerman playing a drum!!  Then he started walking and dancing around the stage while they were singing. It was great :)  THEN the 2nd time was when Kevin, Mo, and I went to see this other comedian, and they ended up bringing out Nick Offerman for an interview and to play a game on stage with some other comedians.  Nick Offerman won that game, so he of course took off his shirt and twirled it over his head. And the THIRD time we got to see him was when we were wandering around one of the art museums on the last day, and they were starting to rope off one of the art exhibit areas because they said that there was going to be a special "pop-up" musical performance that was a surprise, and they couldn't tell us who it was.  They looked SUPER excited about it though, so we figured we'd grab a seat and wait to see who it was.  Well, it was NICK OFFERMAN!!  He was HILARIOUS, and he sang some super inappropriate songs that were sooooo darn funny!!  So, that was amazing.

That's Megan Mullally!  We didn't have the best location for taking pictures, but it was a great show! 

And there was Nick Offerman, playing the drum!  Towards the end of the show he walked around on stage with it. 

There's Nick Offerman playing the game during the other comedy show. 

And he won! So this happened. 

Yep, this is how close we were when he was singing in the art museum! 

Show's over!  He played for about 30-40 minutes I think. 

 

Wilco played Friday night and Saturday night, and both of their shows were amazing.  On Friday night they played TWO of their most popular albums in their entirety!  And one of the albums is even two discs!!  So, that was beyond amazing.  And on Saturday night they played a normal show, and that was also amazing! We saw the singer (Jeff Tweedy) walking around the festival a few times, so that was exciting.  One time was when we were walking into the venue, he was walking with just another guy, and I think he saw all of us grinning at him like idiots, so he was smiling and said hi and waved.  It's a VERY chill festival though, so it really isn't the kind of place where you'd run up to someone and ask for a picture/selfie with them or autograph or anything.  Everyone just gives all of the singers, comedians, etc their space and they'll maybe say hi or wave at them or snap a quick photo, but that's about it!  It's really laid-back. We saw Jeff Tweedy another day when we were watching a band that his son (Spencer) plays drums for, and we saw him standing to the side watching his son play, and he looked like SUCH a proud dad so I had to take a picture.

This was the first night!  We were right in the crowd on the first night, but the 2nd night we took it easy and were towards the back. 

This is Tweedy watching his son play drums! He's the one in front. 

There he is again. 

The 2nd night! 

Still the 2nd night! 

And here are a few pictures from when we were walking around looking at art:

That's Timmy, enjoying these upside-down growing trees. 

There's Mo, trying to get a good picture of the beautiful art! 

This was a net of about one zillion tiny beads that were all strung together. 

Chandeliers!

And you could climb a ladder and look on top of the chandeliers. There was SO much weird stuff up there. I went up right after Kevin (only one person could go at a time), but I didn't take a picture while I was up there because I figured with my luck I'd drop my phone... 

Timmy looking at some art. 

These things were CREEPY!  They're like crochet or knit. 

Here are some more of those crochet/knit things! 

This one kinda looked like something from Labyrinth. 

This one was super creepy.

That was Solid Sound 2017!!  It was such a fun time, and I can't believe we have to wait two more years to go again!  

Washington Trip Part 5: Our final stop! Seattle!

When we arrived in Seattle on Day 7, we drove straight to the Space Needle (and the Chihuly Museum is right next to it). We bought a timed ticket for the Space Needle, and we picked a time that would give us plenty of time to wander around the Chihuly Museum that was next door! The Chihuly Museum was SO beautiful!!  It's seriously amazing what can be done with glass.  Here are just a ton of pictures of the Chihuly Museum:

This is just a portion of Dale Chihuly's vintage Native American blanket collection!  There's a whole giant wall filled with them, and they are stunning.  It makes me want to get one for our bedroom!

A giant glass sculpture (this went all the way to the ceiling) and it had a sea theme. 

One of the ceilings (kinda similar to the Chihuly glass ceiling at the Bellagio in Vegas!)

This filled a whole room!! 

There were a bunch of these "chandelier" type glass sculptures hanging from the ceiling.

This was an atrium area on the way out to the Chihuly gardens. 

Chihuly glass AND the Space Needle!!  How cool is that?!

It's seriously CRAZY what can be done with glass!  This was enormous, and it looked like little feathers or something. 

This one looked like a giant rock candy stick thingy!  I have no idea what they're called, but hopefully you know what I'm talking about. Haha :) 

 After we wandered around the Chihuly gardens for a while, we went in the museum again and had lunch at the cafe, and then it was about time to head over to the Space Needle!  We got right in and went up the elevator to the Observation Deck! Soooo beautiful!!

Yay Seattle! 

The view! 

So pretty!! 

After the Space Needle, we were able to check into our AirBnB (right near Pike Place Market) and use our free parking spot! So, that was amazing.  We parked, got our bags into the apartment, and then headed back out because we needed some caffeine!  And I heard about an amazing coffee shop that was right above from Pike Place Market! It was seriously amazing, and such a comfortable place, and it wasn't very busy since it's kinda hidden! 

After our caffeine, it was time to walk around a bit! We checked out Pike Place Market and saw the fish throwers, and wandered through the market. It was fairly busy since it was a Friday, so we didn't spend a ton of time shopping in there or anything. 

I've been to Seattle a few times, but one thing I hadn't done yet was go see the Gum Wall!  So, we decided to go check that out.  I thought it was going to be cool and kinda charming, but as soon as we got to the alley I was pretty grossed out. I don't know WHY it hadn't occurred to me that it would be really gross... but it totally was.  So, we didn't hang there long at all. Haha :)  People were taking lots of selfies in front of the gum and stuff (and SO close to touching the walls!), but we did not hang out that long. SO MUCH GUM stuck everywhere!! 

 So, that was gross. But I'm glad I've checked that off the Seattle list now. We wandered around the city a bit more, and one thing I remembered loving was Beecher's Handmade Cheese!  We went there to see if they were making cheese at the moment, and sure enough they were!  So we watched that for a few and tried some cheese.

Cheese curds! 

 We spent the rest of the evening checking out more of the city, and we also made it over to the waterfront area to go to a restaurant there for some food and drinks!  They were having fresh oyster specials, so we actually got a seat right at the oyster bar and watched them shuck oysters while we ate and had our drinks. Those guys are IMPRESSIVE with their oyster shucking!! It was entertainment while we enjoyed our meal.  We had a lovely evening in Seattle!

The next day was our last day!  Our flight would be leaving that evening, so we still had some time to check out more of the city that day. We walked to a cafe by our apartment and got some coffee and breakfast to bring back to the apartment, and after we were finished with that we got all packed up! We were able to leave our car in our parking spot until we needed to leave for the airport though, so that was really handy!  We put all of our stuff in our car, and then walked over to the Museum of Pop Culture because they were having a special Jim Henson exhibit!!!  Kevin and I both loooooove Jim Henson, so it was really cool. We were SO excited!!!  There was a ton of history on Jim Henson, and it kinda took you through a timeline of his early life and all through his career. It was truly awesome.

Of course Kermit was there! 

They are pretty much the reason I became a scientist.  Haha ;) 

Muppet Babies!!   I used to love this cartoon.

Muppets of Jim Henson and Frank Oz! 

Fraggle Rock!!!  AMAZING. 

A funny sketch. I like the "Beard (much preferred)" part. 

The outfits from Labyrinth!!  David Bowie wore that! AHHHH!!!

 

Yep. 

We did the Jim Henson exhibit first, and I'm SO glad because we were pretty tired after that!  We spent the majority of our time in that exhibit (it was amaaaaazing!), but then we wanted to check out the rest of the museum too!

So many guitars! 

They had a big Star Trek exhibit, so I made sure to take some photos for my dad!! :) 

Tribbles! 

This was HILARIOUS... There was a hole in the floor with Data's head (from Star Trek), and it was covered with thick glass, but this woman near us was NOT paying attention where she was walking and then she happened to look down when she was about to step on this glass tile and she FREAKED OUT!!  And then she did this weird lunge thing because she thought it was just a hole with a head in it and she didn't want to step on it. 

Princess Bride!!! Love that movie. 

AHHH!!! 

From The Shining!!

Mork!!

Terminator! 

Back to the Future!! 

After we had wandered around there, we took an Uber over to a Fremont Brewery!  It was a lot of fun and had a very relaxed vibe. They had some delicious beers.  And that just so happened to be near the troll!  We had to go see the troll for sure. 

That's a VW Bug by the kid in the red hat!

After the troll, it was pretty much time to head back towards our car and then head to the airport! We had a red eye flight (it landed at 6am in Philly). Well, the flight is where we ran into Bump #2 for the trip!!  That flight was the worst flight I have ever been on (and I have flown a LOT) because the woman that was sitting behind Kevin (he had the window seat, I had the middle) was sick the ENTIRE flight. As soon as we got on the flight she loudly yelled, "If I don't have cool air on me I'll throw up!" so everyone was like, "whoa... ok....". And then shortly after that she yelled again "If I don't have ginger ale, I'm going to throw up!".  So, the flight attendant brought her ginger ale, but then the woman spilled the ginger ale all over the guy sitting next to her (that POOR guy, seriously...). Then she started yelling "Oh no!  Oh no!", and that's when the vomiting began.  And it continued for FIVE hours. Every time she threw up she'd hold on to Kevin's chair and shake it violently. The flight attendants were asking her some questions about whether she'd taken anything or if she had an illness, and she said that nope, this is just what happens to her every time she flies.  So, that REALLY just pissed me off... I mean, if she KNOWS this is what happens, why wouldn't she prepare?  Like, have your doctor give you some good meds?  There are some AMAZING anti-nausea meds.  Or like ginger candies... OR her own ginger ale... and WHY would she pick a WINDOW seat??  Why not pick an aisle seat so she could try to get to the bathroom??!!!  I mean, so many questions... and she basically did NOTHING to try to prevent the situation. So, for those many many hours the flight attendants were taking away her "filled" bags and bringing her new bags, but then towards the last 1.5 hours or so she refused to give them her filled bags and wanted to just hold on to them. So... I think something was wrong with her.  I don't know.  But, it is the biggest understatement of the century to say that we smelled HORRIBLE when we finally got off that flight.  We were so beyond exhausted (who could sleep with that going on?!), and my gosh we smelled disgusting.

So, that was an unfortunate way to end the trip!  But, we got our bags, drove home, showered about a MILLION TIMES WITH THE STRONGEST SOAP WE COULD FIND, and then we passed out for about 5 hours. We were happy to be home :)  It was an amazing trip though!!  Our favorite parts were North Cascades National Park and Olympic National Park.  It's such a beautiful state!!