On The Road To New Orleans Jazz Fest

The first time I visited the electric city of New Orleans I knew I’d return some day. Three years later, that promise became a reality. The humid thick heat of New Orleans, although familiar, is not my cup of tea. Yet experiencing this city during one of their biggest events of the year is well worth the effort if you can manage the climate.

My journey began three days ahead of the start of the festival in order to make the 1,700-mile drive from Salt Lake City to New Orleans. Three full days driving through Durango, CO, Santa Fe, NM, Amarillo and Dallas, TX finally landed me in the Crescent City for Thursday’s unofficial kickoff to the first weekend of the festival.

On the road, somewhere in Texas

Santa Fe street vendors 

First things first, I had to find a bike for the weekend. Biking around a city or surrounding countryside is the best way to experience a place. Biking around New Orleans during Jazz Fest is the best way to get around for a number of reasons:

• Driving around, finding parking, and, most importantly, getting parking tickets becomes a non-issue.

• Increased mobility. Whether staying with friends or in a hotel, you have the mobility to be on your own transportation schedule to go off and explore on your own.

• Flat as a pancake. The city of New Orleans is completely flat, making biking a breeze. The combination of heat + humidity + hill climbs could ruin a perfectly fun weekend otherwise.

• Save money. It costs enough to get there, purchase tickets, secure accommodations and enhance the experience of being in a culinary dance party like New Orleans by eating and drinking everything in sight. Biking can cost next to nothing if you have the right connections, while potentially helping off-set the daily beignet habit you acquire while there.

Heading toward the fairgrounds

Actually acquiring a bike can be easy and cost effective. I pride myself on having friends who live in desirable locations across the country and world for me to visit. As such, I have a few friends who live in New Orleans and were gracious enough to not only let me crash in their spare bedroom, but also furnished a bike for my use throughout the weekend. However, options abound even if you are not as lucky to have friends in high places. Bike rental shops are located across the city, several of which are situated right in the French Quarter, where you are likely to frequent while in New Orleans. Bike Nola is one of the more reasonable and convenient shops, offering a 2-day rate of $50 with options to rent per hour or for a whole week. Once the wheels are yours, so too is the city.

New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival runs for two weekends with a mid-week “break,” affectionately known as the “Daze Between”. The break in between can become as relaxed or as jam-packed per one’s taste as the entertainment continues throughout the week. Well-seasoned veterans know the ins and outs of staying both weekends, but as a beginner to Jazz Fest, one weekend sounded like plenty for the health of my liver and bank account. After surviving the first weekend of Jazz Fest I’m already planning how to do it better next year, staying both weekends and taking a mid-week mini trip to the beach in Mobile, AL or as far as Pensacola, FL to recover from the first weekend and re-set for the second weekend.

"Dude, in India, whole families ride on bikes like this. The mom holding her 2 kids on the back while the dad rides them through town..." explained Keree before we took off...

Trying to look good for the camera... slow motion tip over

The first weekend of Jazz Fest packed a huge punch of eclectic acts from traditional New Orleans style big brass and jazz bands, to mainstream acts like Phish, Eric Clapton and Robin Thicke. The festival, itself, is held between the fences of the Fair Grounds Race Course, while the hundreds of bonus acts and events happening after the festival ends at 7pm each night spill over into the surrounding bars and venues across the city.

Street brass keeping the show going after the festival let out

Both weekends of the festival run from Friday to Sunday. I decided to purchase two “any day” tickets to the festival from NOJazzFest.com, leaving one day open to explore the city outside the festival grounds. Friday was spent biking around the French Quarter, eating beignets, these amazing square-shaped pieces of fried dough covered in powdered sugar specific to New Orleans, popping in and out of shops in search of a floppy brimmed hat to keep the sun out of my eyes while at the festival all day (a vital article of clothing for any summer concert festival), and watching street performances. It’s not unusual to see a section of street barricaded from vehicles with street performers from dancers to fiddlers to full brass bands playing for passers by. Doing the touristy thing in any city you travel to is somewhat necessary, yet tourists beware when traveling during a busy weekend in a city. As always when traveling, beware of your belongings, have your wits about you, and do your research before booking a rental house or finding a used bike on craigslist. Staying away from Bourbon Street, the a-typical street you think of when imagining New Orleans and Mardi Gras, is a good idea. Kitschy bars with expensive (albeit strong) drinks and shops selling neon sweatpants with “NOLA” on the butt may be to some tourists delight, yet I prefer to hit the local thrift stores for vintage souvenirs like the 1980 Mardi Gras Marathon t-shirt I scored at the Goodwill upon my arrival to New Orleans.

Beignets and coffee from Morning Call Coffee Stand, a great alternative to the classic tourist trap rip off, Cafe Du Monde. Morning Call is located in City Park and is open 24 hours a day!

Beautiful architecture in the French Quarter

Bourbon Street, had to do it

My day of sightseeing segued into a night of dancing and taking in the sights on Frenchmen Street. Brass-a-holics played at The Maison bar and music venue on Frenchmen while DJ’s and more bands played simultaneously at every bar on the block. JazzFestGrids.com is the Bible for Jazz Fest patrons, listing every act at every bar starting as early as the Tuesday before the first weekend all the way through the second weekend including all the “daze between.”

Music highlights include Phish on the Acura Stage closing out Saturday of weekend one followed by incredible street brass bands spilling out of the festival onto North Lopez Street outside of Liuzza’s Bar, followed by DJ Soul Sister spinning late night at Hi Ho Lounge in the Saint Claude neighborhood downtown. As if Saturday wasn’t bursting with entertainment around every corner, Sunday included some of the best music all weekend. Meschiya Lake & The Big Little Horns, Rebirth Brass Band, Galactic, and Newbirth Brass Band rounded out our final day of the festival. Yet I can say with confidence that the icing on the cake was a show we almost missed due to an unexpected cover charge at the door of Chickie Wah Wah, a storied bar and music venue in mid-city. I We stumbled upon the 21st Annual New Orleans Big Blues Harmonica Show featuring Johnny Sansone and Sunpie Barnes, two of the best blues harmonica players in the game. Exhausted after a long hot weekend of dancing I could’ve easily called it a night instead of paying the $20 cover and going inside to see some music I wasn’t even sure would be any good. Yet in the spirit of Jazz Fest and being in New Orleans I swallowed my pride, paid the cover (which I was able to negotiate a two-for-one deal with the doorman for me and my friend) and witnessed an intimate gathering of friends and fans serenaded by the most rockin’, soulful blues music I’ve ever heard.

Phish

Meschiya Lake & The Big Little Horns

Keree and I walking across the fairgrounds to see Eric Clapton

Johnny Sansone ripping on the harmonica

After sweaty, sunbaked days and dancing all night for three and a half days straight I was ready to rest and recover. Reflecting on the weekend I feel confident that with a good rest during those “daze between” I could rally and do it all again for the final weekend. Having local connections and a comfortable home base made all the difference in creating a fun filled first Jazz Fest experience. Yet whether you have a couch to crash on or a suite at the Ritz-Carlton, arming yourself with a bike, your travel savvy wits about you and jazzfestgrids.com, the possibilities are endless. 

Salt Lake Shootout 2014

My second year participating in Visit Salt Lake's Ski Salt Lake Shootout photo competition was even more of a learning experience than the first. The week-long photo shoot kicked off with the athletes and photographers coming together to draft the teams and make a plan. My team consisted of photographer, Erik Hostetler, aka, Bro, and fellow athletes Eric Fabbri and Willie Nelson. I didn't know any of them going into the competition, but we quickly became acquainted as the days went on. The two other athletes are amazing skiers, able to huck and spin off huge features. I was slightly intimidated by their talent due to the fact that I hadn't skied super hard yet this season and I especially haven't been hitting any cliffs since probably last year's Shootout. However watching the guys ski and how they were able to work the camera inspired me to step up my game, expand my comfort zone and match their work ethic for the competition. 

We started the week at Snowbird with an early tram to catch untracked snow before the mountain opened to the public. Unfortunately the early light we were excited to capture quickly faded as clouds and fog rolled in as soon as we were ready to shoot. However, we were still able to explore more shots in the trees and came up with some cool photos in the Baldy area that separates Alta from Snowbird. 

Day 1, Snowbird, before the light went away for the rest of the week!

My favorite memory from the entire week was during that shot. As I skied down from shooting on Baldy I had a deep, creamy, untouched powder run all the way to the cat track. This joy struck me as my fondest memory of the shoot since it was unfettered skiing, not in front of the camera.

Photo shoots are cool because you get to work more creatively with an artist to capture a moment in your skiing. However, capturing that moment isn't as glamorous it may seem. The "one turn wonder" comes into play quite a bit, skiing into a section of untouched powder, making one deep turn and then stopping to see what the camera snapped. If that one turn wasn't quite right then you hike up and do it again multiple times or keep making your way to other untouched zones for one turn at a time.

Yet getting a snapshot of one moment in your turn or in the air can tell a lot about your skiing. For me, I saw a stiffness in my skiing. Perhaps the nerves of performing on command got to me. There can be a lot of pressure to get it right the first time. If you mess up, you're not just messing up one turn in a line down the mountain, you're messing up the shot for the photographer who just took time to set it all up. As this was a competition, there may have been even more pressure to get the shot right every time. I also felt pressure to perform in order to hold my own among my team. 

Entering Keyhole on Baldy for some deep soft snow

This week was a lot of work and a lot of fun. I was in a unique situation compared to everyone else in the competition because I still had to work. Asking for time off wasn't even something I considered as I was able to juggle both last year with my team no problem. So every morning I'd wake up early to meet my team at the resort of the day, ski hard for as long as I had, then hurry down the mountain back to school to pick up the kids and drive them up to Park City for training. After training I'd hurry back down the mountain to Salt Lake, contact my team and meet back up for any night shoots they had planned. Pulling triple sessions like that wore me out more-so than I'd been worn out in a long time. By the last day of the shoot I was so worked, yet knew the light wasn't quite at the end of the tunnel yet. I still had a three day race series at Snowbird to work with my own athletes and support them as best I could with what little to no energy I had left. Yet somehow I pulled it off and came out with a second place result in the Shootout and a successful race with the kids. I believe the way I was able to maintain sanity throughout the week was due to the creativity and excitement of skiing in front of the camera with new people, looking forward to a new and different ways to ski. 

Check out the video of how it all went down here: Team Erik Hostetler - Visit Salt Lake Shootout 2014

One of the coolest shots of me from the week at Solitude

One of the only shots taken "just skiing" at Solitude

Getting deep in it at Brighton

Sending off a pillow at Brighton. Side note - I had just jumped off a cliff nearby and got whiplash pretty good, landing flat. Maybe thats why I thought I looked stiff...

Fabbri showing Bro the shot, getting a cool angle from in the tree

Willie making that one turn wonder at Solitude

The guys polling down SolBright trail back to the base at Solitdue

Having fun with the team! Reverse snow angel

Building the take off for Willie to do his signature "Full Nelson" backflip with a double grab at Alta

Night shoot creek gap Bro had in mind for the contest, up Little Cottonwood Canyon at an old mine

Not going so well for Willie, mid air at Alta

Fabbri mid pow turn at Brighton on our last day

Fabbri sending of Brighton's iconic Millie cliffs

First Turns of the Season

The first good snowfall of the season came around Halloween. Alta is nice enough to support uphill travel throughout their resort early season before the lifts start running, at your own risk. About a foot or so blanketed the high elevations while it stayed mild and warm down in the Salt Lake valley. It felt extra exciting loading up my skis and touring equipment while it was 65 and sunny at my house, it was time to break out the gear and see what it was like up there. My friend Marcus and I decided to go for a walk to check things out. We started up the summer road at Alta, headed passed the Sugarloaf lift and up toward Cecret Lake. En route to the Sugarloaf lift base we found some snowmaking whalebacks and a classic manufactured photo opportunity!

My first turns of the season were in fresh powder with no one around. Thank you, Utah!

From Pause to Play

Finally, back in Utah, ready to resume my life here! Since I’ve been gone my roommate, Keely, decided we needed to move to a house from our 2 bedroom apartment. She and my new roommate, Tara, found a great house, right around the corner from our old place. They pulled the trigger, signed the lease, packed up and moved all of our stuff. Since I was back east, I had pretty much nothing to do with the move and I feel incredibly thankful that I have such wonderful roommates that would move all my stuff for me. All I had to do was sign and send over a check!

Moving couldn't have been easier for me!

Skier girls have A LOT of gear!

After my final visits and goodbyes were made back east, finally, off to Utah I went! I made it back just in time to attend the newest Warren Miller film, Ticket 2 Ride, where Keely had a starring role in the Ski Montana segment. The premiere in Salt Lake is always a big scene; all the skiers are there with all the sponsors, promotional booths and media. Keely’s segment was definitely one of the best of the film. She inspired me to want to ski Montana, that’s for sure!

The premiere in Salt Lake kicked off the film tour for the fall, with subsequent showings all over the country, including Bozeman, MT, Keely’s hometown. I tagged along to the Bozeman event to see what all the fuss was about Montana, and boy was I pleasantly surprised. I’d obviously heard a lot about how awesome Montana is, having two roommates who call Montana home. Bozeman felt incredibly familiar to me, in a way, like Saratoga Springs, NY. The icing on the cake was Keely’s dad taking us for a ride in his little Cessna 173. We got up for a sunrise plane ride and flew all around Big Sky country. We flew across Big Sky and the Gallatin Valley lit up by the pink sunrise glow. Absolutely breathtaking and unforgettable!

Gallatin River where Keely grew up

Co-Pilot

Fly and Emma doggies on a hike

View from Storm Castle Peak

Getting ready for take off!

View of Big Sky at sunrise

The Sphynx