You want a journal? I'll give you a journal....

Day 1:
Got up WAY to early even for normal people standards. 3:30am. Walked a mile to rendevouz point with gear-in-tow, because I didn't want to leave a car in some random parking-lot down by the freeway (van down by the river) for that many days. Arms got tired, but I don't really have huge arms, either.
The new airport hoop-la is lame. Paying $$ to check bags is lame. We are flying drums on this venture, to we have LOTS of extra bags. Wanna guess how much we paid to fly all our gear (seperate from our tickets)? I'll give you a hint: $425.
I read awesome short stories by Steven King all the way to Albany, NY. Steven King is a favorite of mine, and I personally think saying he writes horror is like saying Ryan Shupe plays country. Kinda, but not really, and there's so much more to it than that. So Steven, you rock, and your book "On Writing" is also brilliant. The story from SLC to Baltimore was "The Langoliers", about people who fall asleep on an airplane and wake to find everyone not sleeping has completely vanished. Takes place entirely on planes and airports, so I thought it was a fitting read for this trip. Now I'm in the middle of "Secret Window, Secret Garden" (later a Johnny Depp movie), and it's great, too.
Oh yeah, then the gig:
Lake George summer concert series, on a cool covered pavillion overlooking the lake. IT'S HUMID. We westerners forget. At least I do.
The show rocked - two 50-minute sets, with a great audience that danced and clapped and howled.
And, most recently, we checked into our hotel rooms. There's a little bit of drama envolved in that, which is sad, but when there are enough rooms for someone to get their own there's always a wonderously passive-aggressive struggle to see who can be the kindest while artfully claiming his own room. I'm sharing with Shupe tonight; I'll let that speak for itself.
And now I'm going to shower, becuase of afore-mentioned humidiDOOM. Tomorrow promises to have awesome pancakes, and maybe an impromptu visit to MTD where my bass was built. Sweet.
** OK, no shower yet, but I did cruise ther proverbial 'vard with Shupe and Bart in the mini-van. Got Sun-chips and a grape-fruit juice. We are such rock-stars....

Day 2:
Woke up in Lake George and ate the “Colossal Breakfast”, a feat which sounded like a good idea at the time. Piled in the vans and hit the road, at which point in time Shupe spilled a half-gallon of 2% on the floor of rental van #1. I promptly claimed a permanent position in van #2. Van #1 smells like a dairy-farmers laundry basket on a hot day.
Then we visited Michael Tobias, the owner/builder of MTD basses, one of which I own and play. He lives in upstate New York with his wife and dog Bessie. His shop was off to the side of the house, and was exactly what I wanted it to be: smaller than I expected, filled with dismembered bass-parts, one-offs, experiments, and piles and piles of wood. Michael was a gracious host, and even made several excellent culinary recommendations for our journey to the city.
Let’s see… I drank a soda and ate a milky-way bar (best candy-bar EVER), and then watched tree-world transform magically into brick-world as we entered Manhattan. Then, on the recommendation of Bart’s father-in-law, we GPS’d our way to Ben’s Kosher Deli, where I ate a life-changing pastrami sandwich, some soul-altering corned-beef, and two very fine spicy pickles. (I know, you’re thinking “yeah, right, a sandwich is a sandwich” – I thought it too – but I’m am NOT messing with you. Life changing).
Then: wander around New York City. Load in to the Blender Theater. Sound-check. Wander more. See Chrysler building. Wander. Play awesome show in awesome theater to awesome fans. Load out. Wander. Eat milk-shakes at Big Daddy’s (don’t ask) Burger Emporium. Wander. Find vans. Drive. Write journal entry.
Holy crap, I ate a lot of food today.

DAY 3:
I slept until noon today. We decided to drive until 3:30 in the morning (and by decided, I mean there were no hotels between where we got tired and where we needed to be), and our consolation was that we got to sleep in as long as we wanted, because tonight's show wasn't until late, and we could stay in the same hotel for 2 nights in a row, which is nice.
Or so we thought.
In our dazed stupor, we forgot that we actually had free rooms supplied by the venue, and although I slept until noon, check-out was at noon, and you can imagine the rush with which housekeeping (Housekeepeen?!!) wanted us outta-there.
So we got out, and moved to the next hotel.
Where I put up some pictures of the trip so far, and a couple videos, one of which looks really bad for some reason.
Then, off to MAGIC CITY MUSIC HALL!!!!
Oh, it was magic all right. We were the grand finale event to the Colgate Country Showdown semi-amateur-preliminary-qualifying-test-auditions.
I didn't even take pictures, except of the outside. And one of Craig eating a gargantuan fish for dinner.
And, now, typing, then sleeping.
As a side note, Van #1 is smelling way better now. I might switch tomorrow.

Day… uh… 4?
We’re in Jim Thorpe PA right now. Cooooool city. Like a sister-city to Telluride, but with much smaller mountains, way more humidity, and half as many hippes. Maybe less than half.
Any-who, BEST SHOW EVER. We of the RubberBand often say that phrase, usually to emphasize the not-bestness of the show, but on this particular occasion, we mean it. Best show ever. “Ever?” you say? Well, ever is a hard thing to define, but within the realms of this tour, the best so far, hands down. But don’t take my word for it!! One new RS&RB fan (Crosby, you rock!) was overheard describing the show as (and I quote) “the best-incredible!!” I don’t know if that’s a hyphen or a “/” thingy, or maybe just one word, like “Bestincredible”. Either way, great compliment. We loved it.
What else…. Chicken-curry-pita-thing that was awesome.
In the 1930’s the CCC build most of this town out of rocks and mortar – it’s way cool. Go to Jim Thorpe PA when you get a chance. We can’t wait to come back.

Day 5:
Last night I dreamt I was standing on this frozen lake while some random guy kept jumping into a hole in the ice and swimming around, shouting for me to join him, but I was freezing already and new that jumping into ice-water didn’t make that better.
I woke up to find my room freezing, and shivered my way over to the air-conditioning unit which I discovered was set on “Max Cool” and the temperature knob was all the way to the blue side. I pulled that back a little, and changed “Max” to “Lo”, and went back to bed.
I woke up a little while later, FREEZING. Pulled the extra blanket down and put it on me. Turned the blue knob even more to the red. Went back to bed.
Woke up again FREEEEEEEZING.
Turns out, the knobs on the unit were dummies, and the real control was on the wall, set to 40 degrees. I found that the next morning after taking an insanely hot bath and eating the rest of a bag of Sun-Chips for calories. I know - I’m a moron.
Tonight we did a “fireseide” concert for a church here in Pennsylvania. We played a handful of our more inspirational songs, and each gave a little talk about some element of spirituality in the music business, which I think went well. Then we ate “water-ice”, some sort of philly-style squishee (mine was chocolate – not-so-great), and now I’m staying in the spare bedroom of our gracious hosts, Jeff and Vickie. My thanks to them!

Day 6
Woke up in Vickie's "Garden of Eden" bedroom (for the girl she never had) in "the Easter Bunny House" (That's what her boys call it - every room is painted a different color). Had an awesome breakfast, and talked politics.
Then Craig and I drove to the house where everybody else was staying, and watched an awesome submarine movie in the basement while the rest of them ate and packed. Submarines are sooooooo cool. Except for the depth-charges part. That's crappy.
Then driiiiiiiiiiiiiiive. That part is starting to get old, and I'm not even the one driving. Craig is the man of the van in that regard.
So I'm in Lake Placid now - home to two, count'em, TWO winter Olympics. 30's, I think, and 1980-something. I was little. And I'm pretty lousy at history. But the town is awesome, kind of like a Park City (for you Utahns out there), but with a sweet lake right in the middle. I want to paddle/hike around the lake tomorrow.
After I do my laundry. What is this, day 6? I'm running out of stuff, and the proportions of clean-to-dirty is starting to overwhelm the clean just by being in the same suitcase as the dirty. That's all the detail you get.
Oh, and we're staying in The Pines; the first hotel IN MY LIFE where the hospitality is hospitible - she showed us up to our rooms, told us all about the town, looked up phone numbers for us, and even showed us a funny YouTube video.
Now THAT'S SERVICE!!!

DAY 7:
This journal is epic. If you're still reading, I commend you.
Laundry day. Nothing says soul-less time-suck like sitting in front of your spinning underwear and feeding endless quarters into the antiquated wash-bot. A guy can really start to have strange thoughts while killing time in a laundromat. Really strange thoughts...
Then we went canoe-ing! There are tons of lakes around here, and we rented two canoes and paddled around one of them, even paddling under a road to another lake filled with cool little islands. We basked, we swam, we splashed and giggled - it was a good time. Could not have asked for a better day for it, either.
Then we played in another park overlooking another lake for another appreciative audience. Two sets tonight, with all the standard favorites, and a few extendo-jams (that's what we call them).
I forget to say that last night we watched Hellboy II at the local $6 theater. What a great show. We all gave it two thumbs up.
There's a McDonalds double-cheeseburger in my gut right now, and I'm trying to remember what compelled me to put it there. Hindsight is 20/20. Ugh.....

DAY OK-I’M-READY-TO-GO-HOME-NOW:

The following events are real. Names have been changed to protect the guilty.

We left Lake Perfect this morning, and drove a really long time. The person driving (we’ll call him Nhoj), got a speeding ticket. One van stopped at Elvira, NY, to see various religious historical sights. The van I was in stopped at a Sbarro for pizza.
We pulled into Bisonville, and loaded our gear into a bar called “Schlappies”. Even after just loading in, I felt in desperate need of a shower, a change of clothes, and an exorcist. It’s just been a while since I played a bar-bar, and not just a club with a bar in it. This was a bar-bar. For sure.
Then off to see the town. We ate wings, pizza, and saw Lake Eerily. I played Frisbee, and chased “Billy”, who thought it would be funny to spit in my face for some reason. Then on to the gig:
I’ll spare you the details. I could describe the walls and ceiling, but I want you to be able to sleep at night. I could describe the odiferous qualities, but you might never eat again. And I could describe the men’s room, but I can’t have your permanent mental-health on my conscious, no sir.
As is always the case, I was surprised by the handful of die-hard fans that appeared from nowhere and made bizarre requests all night. There was dancing, clapping, and smiles all around. We even broke the 20-minute mark with a super-extendo version of Devil Went Down to Bisonville, which was insanely long and weird. At the end of the night, I dropped my bass face down on the stage. So awesome.
Now we’re driving into the dark night, waiting for a Super Gr8 motel to appear so we can sleep in it. That really will be awesome. My favorite part, in fact, of the whole day.

DAY 9:

We drove all day today. Wait, let me check…

Yup, all day.

Day 10:

Well, last day of gigs on this particular trip. We're in Twin Lakes, Wisconsn (dig the accents!), at COUNTRY THUNDER!!
We did one of these in Arizona this spring, and I did a journal entry on it which I later decided not to post. Maybe someday.....
We opened the main-stage again, early afternoon on a grey dairy day. The first show went great; we play again at 9:30 tonight on a smaller stage. Promises to be a good time.
Right now we're chillin' in the green-room (mobile home) having a meeting about how to do this thing we're calling a career in a way that makes money, is fun, and gets better every year. For the most part, we're on that track.
Tomorrow we get up early to catch a 6am flight, or somewhere in there. As much as I'm not diggin' the early hour, I'm diggin' on the going home part. I'll catch you up on that tomorrow.

DAY DONE:
Sorry for leaving you hanging (Jeremy...), I'll put the button in it now.

Kinda like day one, but in reverse: Got up WAY to early even for normal people standards. 4:30am. Drove to Midway Chicago airport, where we almost missed our flight (what, you never seen a band check 20+ bags before?). But, we made it, and enjoyed an uneventful trip to Denver, where I enjoyed a gourmet piece of $14 pizza. Sheesh! Dropped Shupe off, where his family/car was.
Then on to SLC, where we raced home to change clothes/gear and Craig and I raced back to SLC for a fun little gig with Sam Payne, a dear friend of ours.
I slept like a baby that night. A baby that sleeps through the night without crying. And sleeps in late the next day.
And one that is potty-trained.