I'm back from my travels. Sorry I didn't see any Catters at the event. Colonel Kearny and the Army of the West was there preparing to go to war in Mexico the year being 1846. I hooked up with the Army Dragoons and the Army Topographical Engineers. We departed Bent's Old Fort and headed down to Trinidad and over Raton Pass into Cimarron in New Mexico and finally the Philmont scout reserve. At the south border is a restored kind of fort called the Riato built by Lucien Maxwell in the 1840's and we set up a Dragoon camp there in the year 1850. As my function there was as a private dragoon in the army I didn't play much music but in the evenings we would repair with the officers to the old St. James Hotel in the town and raise toasts to President Polk and Colonel Kearny and raise the roof with our singing disturbing the ghosts there I suppose as the place is said to be haunted. But then so is the Riato. This Saturday I'll join a Confederate Cannon crew along with 15 others and three brass bands in Clement Park in Denver. For the finale the band will play the 1812 Overture with the cannonade firing in time. Afterward we will fire the cannons in more demonstrations. I guess you could say I'll be a playing percussion for this one.

Rex