On Saturday of Hangout after Skrillex, my friend Maggie and I were exhausted. It had been a long couple of days in the Alabama sun, dancing to tons of great music. During the last act of the night, Zach Brown Band, we decided to sit near the back and enjoy the music while relaxing. While we were sitting down, a group of 5-6 people sat down next to us and introduced themselves. They were a group from Denver, Colorado. While there was just 6 of them at the time, they explained to us that they had come in a group of 200. They rented 6 houses off the beach in Gulf Shores and were having a great time. WOW. Talk about some serious planning and coordination. We began to discuss favorite acts of the day and I mentioned mine being Odesza (of course). They explained that they had skipped Odesza because they were planning to see them in 2 weeks at Red Rocks. I shot up and said “I’ll be at that show too!”, and immediately we began to discuss my road trip as well as my pit stop in Denver.

Without hesitation, someone in their group invited me on their 35 person party bus, on which they had 2 open seats. That same person even offered their house to me saying “I just had a roommate move out, you’re welcome to stay at my place!”. Call me crazy, but I accepted both. I called my friend Patricia, who was to join me on the Denver portion of my road trip, to let her know we had a whole group of people to hang out with in Denver.

Fast forward two weeks, and our plans remained unchanged. We showed up to my new friends house where we were welcomed with hugs and grilled chicken. He let us know that he was heading out to China in the morning for work, so he gave us the door code to his house and told us to stay as long as we wanted and to have fun (how awesome is that?!).

We got ready quickly as more and more people started coming to this awesome 3 bedroom house in the middle of Capital Hill. I only knew about 5 people from Hangout, but by the time we were boarding the party bus to Red Rocks, I had made about 20 new friends. We had a blast on the way over to Red Rocks, and finally got out to walk up and enjoy the show. Odesza started, and the show was unreal and completely magical. After a few songs, Patricia and I snuck our way down and into the VIP section where we stayed the rest of the show. Words will never describe how out of this world the venue was, especially while seeing my absolute favorite musicians. I will definitely be back!

The next day Patricia and I woke up and we had the house to ourselves. We explored Capital Hill a bit before I took her to the airport. I stayed one more day before heading on the road and back to Chicago.

Denver was one of the coolest cities I have ever been in, which I will cover in my Denver blog post. It is absolutely where I will be relocating after my adventures across the globe.

Its pretty amazing that after meeting someone briefly at a music festival, you felt like you could trust them enough to leave them your entire house. As I’ve said before, music can do some pretty great things, and its a big part of the journey I’m currently on.

Special shoutout to Seth, Millie, JT & the Denver crew for showing Patricia and I one hell of a time!