I was really high in Colorado
Aspen.
7,890 feet above sea level.
That’s where I was in mid-October. Denver is only 5,280 feet up (hence, the mile-high city). Chicago is only about 600 feet.
What happens when you’re at that altitude – when you’ve been working extra hours and behind on sleep approaching the trip, and then get there and aren’t extra hydrated? You get altitude sickness. It’s not fun. I had a throbbing headache and was exhausted – the whole time. Others have said they experience nausea, which thankfully I did not.
I was in Aspen with the band, playing for a conference. During the Friday morning session (just the second day I was there), I leaned over to Don (our manager and electric guitarist) and said that I needed to lie down. He told me to drink as much water as I could and he would check on me in a little while.
He called my room at the inn at about 3pm, 5 hours after I went upstairs! After I hung up, I remembered he came up at about 10:30am, knocked at the door, and I answered! Yeah, I remembered that after I was asleep all day.
Anyway, there’s really no moral to this story, except that I’ll be better prepared if we go back next year.
That’s what happens when you’re that high in Colorado. I had heard somewhere that this happened to people a lot in April…