We got home about an hour ago after being on the road for about… 13 1/2 hours.Â? (Take out some of the time for a nice lunch at Olive Garden in Idaho Falls and stops for gas in various places and dinner in Great Falls and you get about 10+ hours of driving)

I’m headachey and tired from getting only 4 hours of sleep as well as about 60 miles of catnapping in the car.Â? (No worries… Jon was driving.)

The concert was amazing.Â? Well worth the 10 hour drive.Â? She played a couple pieces from An Ancient Muse as well as much of Book of Secrets and some pieces from earlier albums.Â? Two encores and some lovely stories.Â? Her musicians were so cool.

Meeting Loreena McKennitt after the show, telling her I’d been a fan for 15 years, and getting her autograph?Â? Let’s just say that I get seriously verklempt when talking about it.

I seriously *have* been a fan since 1992 when “The Lady of Shallott” was played on NPR and my mom got a tape of The Visit.Â? In the last 15 years, I’ve gone through a lot of ups and downs in life and I’ve literally been to hell and back several times.Â? Through all that time, her music was a unifying factor in my family (my brother and I have replaced my mom’s CD’s several times because they keep “disappearing”) and it was what I listened to when I needed to be pensive and ponder my life.Â? in addition, her research on the Celts (which translates into her music) has been part of my quest to figure out who I am and the poems she has set to music are among my favorites.

So… after reading that she occasionally signs autographs at the stage door, I decided to something incredibly un-Jenlike and try and get one.Â? (I’m actually really shy in person and I also feel really guilty about invading the space of others which includes waiting at stage doors after concerts for artists who really deserve to get a breather after a concert.Â? It comes from living in a fishbowl myself.)

I ended up being the first person she went to when she came out and seriously… I’m still just in awe that I actually got to meet her.Â? She was so congenial and put up with me trying to be articulate despite being a complete fan girl.Â? (She’s also not much taller than me which was kind of cool.)

I’m still honestly very tongue-tied about the whole thing (believe it or not) and although I know she abhors the “cult of celebrity”, I still felt so unworthy in her presence.

So off to bed with me… though I have one thing to say:

For I am thoroughly convinced that Montana is the most beautiful state in the nation and I have no desire to be anywhere else because no other state can compare in terms of sky, land, and water.