After 19 years...maybe it's time to do things

We've lived in this area for 19 years...well, it will be as of December 28, 2011 @ 11:03pm. We spent much of the first 2 years here doing anything we could to get away from this small town putting thousands of miles on our vehicles going places obscure and metropolitan. After all this time we no longer try to get away nearly as often as the nearly every weekend trips we used to make. We got used to small town life after a few years but would still make those occasional trips to larger nearby cities like Lubbock, Amarillo and the nearly four hour jaunt to Albuquerque or Santa Fe. But in that time we haven't partaken much in concerts in those cities just because of the need to drive at least 1½ hours to get to them. There are not near as many concerts or cultural events as back home in the San Francisco Bay Area but there are a few spatterings here and there of interest. Most of the events locally are in Lubbock, primarily because Texas Tech University is there and they have a nice, large arena...I guess that's one of the perks of being a Big 12 Conference. One of the events is the annual concert by the Trans Siberian Orchestra. For many holiday seasons we've said that we'd someday go see this concert but work requirements, school, etc. usually got in the way. The concert was this past Monday, and since I'm actually authoring this post on Monday and scheduling it for a later publishing date, I don't actually know if we went or not... I'm still hemming and hawing on purchasing tickets.  Other events I have my eye on for the future:

Lubbock - Young Frankenstein (actually this weekend), the Nutcracker ballet (Ballet: Lubbock), Mannaheim Steamroller and Cinderella (the ballet).

Amarillo - Stomp On Tour, The Sleeping Beauty (the ballet) and The Nutcracker (The Lone Star Ballet).

Albuquerque - The Lion King, Jeff Dunham, Mary Poppins, TAO: Art of the Drum, Cirque du Soleiel - Dralion and hopefully EWF will be making their annual stop in Albuquerque again (had tickets this year but had a major vertigo attack less than 20 miles from home and couldn't make the trip...lost $300 on that concert between tickets, pre-paid hotel and gas).

Since it's just the old man and myself now, maybe it's time we got our culture on. We've attended the local cultural events off and on when they interest us so maybe it's time to add a little travel into the mix.

Edit: We didn't end up going to see TSO on Monday, I was just too lazy to drive the 1½ hour one way trip and back. Maybe next year.