VSO summer festival tour

With the Vermont Mozart Festival shutting down before the start of last summer (a sad end to a 37-year run), we went through severe concert picnicking withdrawal, so we made sure to go to the VSO's summer festival tour this year.  In particular, we saw the concert at Jay, which was the first time Jay had hosted a VSO summer concert in 40 years (wow), and a couple folks in the audience remembered the last VSO concert there.

It was a fun program, but storm clouds gathered over the mountains throughout the first half, and the skies opened up just as they were finishing the Funny Girl medley** and, as it was now 8:30pm and we had an hour and a half drive home with kids who normally went to sleep between 8 and 9, we decided to head home.  Still and all, it was a good concert, and while the venue wasn't bad -- there is a hill so that everyone has a good view of the orchestra -- it made us appreciate Shelburne Farms all the more***.

Also, since Jay is a bit of a drive, we made a day of it and went to the Pump House**** before the concert.  For a park with serious space constraints (3 of the 4 slides travel outside the building in order to extend their runs without increasing the space that needed to be enclosed), it was fun, with Finn declaring we should go back to the water park "nextday" and Connor needing 5 hours at the park before declaring he was bored.  It was a good day all around!


** sign of the times: Sarahmac noted that she now hears Lea Michele's voice instead of Barbra's when the instrumental parts of Funny Girl are played.

*** Ravinia in Chicagoland has the great virtue of being on the Metra line, but Shelburne Farms is right on the lake.  Shelburne Farms' only weakness, really, is the scrum of cars trying to leave at the end.  Oh, if only there were a commuter train line running through Shelburne and a shuttle from Shelburne Farms to the station so that concertgoers could leave their cars at home.  (note: there is such a line potentially available; but the commuter part was squelched in 2003 before it really got started)


**** my basis for water park comparison is a 20+ year-old memory of Waterworks (now Breakwater Beach) in Seaside Heights.  I haven't been to it in its Breakwater Beach incarnation, so I have no clue why the slides at a NJ water park seem to be MA-themed.  It must be because NJ has no revolutionary era history to draw upon.  As for the Pump House, I could wish that canned music wasn't being blared through the speakers, but really, the music wasn't as loud as the regular noise of the workings of an indoor water park.  I would go deaf or insane, and possibly both, if I had to work there.  Thank goodness it's not as crowded on a beautiful summer day as it apparently is during the winter.