an evening at wolf trap

There's nothing quite like sitting outside swimming in your own ass sweat while sitting on a wooden folding seat listening to a summer concert. Of course when it's 100 degrees out, the fun part of sitting outside quickly diminishes. Despite this weekend's heat wave, however, we braved the hellish temps ("it's not the heat, it's the humidity!") for an evening at Wolf Trap on Saturday night.

Wolf Trap is "America's National Park for the Performing Arts." It's located in Vienna, Virginia and is a great venue - you can sit out on the the lawn and bring your own picnic meal (this isn't a tailgating beer-chugging kind of place - instead, people bring gourmet picnics and wine) and listen to music with your toes in the grass.

I've been going to Wolf Trap every summer since I was a small child to see my cousin in concert and listen to the music I grew up with. (Plus music from her new album, Hard Bargain.) It's a great family tradition and it's fun to see all the family while they're in town - even if it is only brief backstage visit after the show.

People often ask me if musical talent runs in the family. If it does, it didn't reach me. (Though I did make All-County Chorus in seventh grade. Does that count?)

I love listening to music though, and I've probably mentioned before that Larry is a lover of music. (It seems there should be a word for someone like this? Musicophile?) Anyway, Larry is like the wikipedia of music trivia.

We've seen some other great shows at Wolf Trap, too - last summer we saw Willie, and we're hoping to see Big Head Todd and the Monsters in September. We first saw BHTATM together at Red Rocks while vacationing in Colorado in 2005, so it's kind of a tradition of ours to see them in concert whenever they're playing nearby.