Today we embarked on the final drive of our tour, traveling away from the setting sun, toward the Pioneer Valley and some much needed and well deserved rest. If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, then maybe the road to good intentions should give you a glimpse of hell. It offers perspective on the entirety of a situation. Life isn’t without its snags, and to experience them makes the good times seem that much better. In the end, it’s the ability to hold yourself together and deal that inevitably leads you to the greener side of the fence, or rather, acts to brighten the grass on which you stand. You need not dream of a better place to reside, your already there.
Chicago was a blast. Old friends, new bars, and lots of music lovers. The Horseshoe, while intimate in numbers, was warm and hospitable and set the tone for a good run in the Windy City. Opening for Cornmeal was great, and an educational experience at that. It is always good to see bands that have their act together. It pushes you to work harder, play better, and well…I suppose those two cover it.
Michigan and mother nature appeared to have conspired against us like mischievous Greek gods from some bad adaptation of The Odyssey. But even Ulysses wasn’t without friendly encounters, and neither were we. The folks in Michigan were great to us, warranting a much needed return to The Great Lakes in the near future. Leaving Detroit was indicative of the whole Michigan travel experience. The first hour was spent on crazy detours in and out of Detroit and its surrounding suburbs. It is always nerve racking when you need to head south, and you can only head west. Logic and your personal sense of reason start to go at it, and your forced to calmly tell yourself that it is actually good to be heading in the wrong direction. Once we cleared the bulk of southeast Michigan, we started sailing smoothly, and have been ever since. The silver lining to the dark clouds settled over the Michigan leg came in the form of a trafficless Easter sunday. A rather “state trooper free” sunday I might add.
This is where the past and the present meet. It is 11:11 and we are an hour outside of Albany. So far we’ve recieved little resistance toward our efforts to get back home and in bed before the sun comes up. It has been exactly two weeks since we left MA. We’ve traveled over 5,000 miles, driven through 15 different states(some more than once), and played 15 shows in between. I am happy to go home and rest, but if I had to keep going for another two weeks, I know I could. You get used to driving all day and playing all night. It becomes the norm rather quickly. Sleep takes on the role of an unobtainable luxury, like one you only experience through window shopping and quixotic day dreams. Just as snags in the road offer perspective, so does chasing good rest. You almost never seem to get it; but when you do, it is the most glorious thing you can experience at that time. The realization of something long awaited tends to overshadow the means in which it took to get there. It validates the chase, and makes the whole damn thing seem worth all the trouble.

Thanks to everyone who showed us kindness and hospitality during our travels. Thanks to the venues who hosted us and Cornmeal for letting us open. Caz…if your reading this, good luck on the west coast, it was great to see you in Lansing.
That’s all for now. More to come when more piles up. Stay tuned.

Erik Alan
TAF