Miles and Miles and Miles...

I'm riding in The Chief following the great expanse of the Columbia River gorge. Large rounded brown volcanic mountains surround us as we follow the river across it's Oregon run on into Portland. A lot has happened since we were in the deep southwest but the miles have started to take their toll on my memory. I'll now make an effort to link it all together and get everybody from the bottom of the US to the Northwest in one piece. From Tucson, we left our new friends Don and Kay Meyer and drove through New Mexico to El Paso, TX. Moontime Pizza was our destination and there isn't much to say about the gig except to say that the southwest has a lot to learn about the art of pizza making. We had the next day off and spent the morning having a timely conversation in the RV dealing with some of the issues that come up when four, very different people try to live and work together in a big metal box with wheels. It was good therapy and afterwards we took a taxi to the Mexican border and walked across for an afternoon of Tecate's and shopping in Jaurez. It was the first time Ike, Nate, and Betse had been to Mexico and we made the most of the experience. The next day we drove to Albuquerque, New Mexico for a gig at the city's Bio Park. The audience was made up of a lot of families and quickly into our first set, we had a full scale freestyle kid stomp going on in front of us on the lawn. The Bio Park set us up with a couple of hotel rooms and everyone enjoyed a night outside of the RV except for me. We decided before the tour that in cities, one of us should always sleep in The Chief for the security of our instruments. I was only too happy to take advantage of the privacy this "security watch" afforded me. The next day, after another fuel filter change, we left Albuquerque and drove directly north through Santa Fe and on into my beloved San Luis Valley in southern Colorado. My wife, Kim and I have spent many wonderful vacations alongside the Sangre De Cristo Mountains which run to the east of this valley for miles and I happily drove this stretch feeling as if I was in familiar territory for the first time in many days. Quickly we began to climb again and soon we were in Salida, Colorado. We played three sets at Bongo Billy's, a popular coffee shop, restaurant and watering hole tucked right up against the Arkansas River. Our hosts hooked us up with breakfast coupons and were kind enough to let us stay in the parking lot for the night. The next morning we used our coupons to eat a curious Colorado breakfast burrito containing feta cheese-a strange greek/mexican assemblage that left a funny taste in my mouth. From there it was off and over our highest mountain pass yet (11,317 feet) which The Chief strained to get over at a whopping 30mph. Then it was all downhill to Gunnison, Colorado and into the Black Canyon. This amazingly deep gorge is like a bottomless crack in the earth. Once in awhile, you can see a finger of the river far below, but almost everywhere else, it just seems like it drops into nothingness. Ike handled the driving through this crazy corkscrew canyon and although I generally have a pretty good tolerance to the road, I soon found myself a little sick from the roller coaster turns. After a good samaritan stop (Betse will fill in the blanks in a later entry), we finally spilled out of the winding road into Hotchkiss, Colorado and within an hour we were on stage for our first set of the weekend at the first annual North Fork Bluegrass Festival. I'll leave the details of this great festival for a later entry but will report that we were quite successful and left the residents of this cool little town with an indelible image of three Wilders dancing to an old time tune in mexican wrestling masks. After the festival, we drove up the road to Paonia, Colorado and did a little skateboarding and laundry before heading up to an after-festival party thrown by friends of the band, Sweet Sunny South. We ate good food and enjoyed conversations with our new friends before winding back down to Hotchkiss for the night. The next day, we set out on a two-and-a half day monster drive to Portland, Oregon with an overnight stop at the Utah/Idaho border on Monday and a second overnight at a Casino/RV park in Pendleton, Oregon. Nate lost $12.00 at blackjack but won it back from us in a late-night RV poker game before we bedded down for the night. Which brings us, finally, to where we are now. We've just stopped in Hood River, Oregon for lunch and an overdue oil change and are anxiously awaiting our show in Portland tonight. Our booking agent, Mary, is taking the train down from Seattle to take money at the door and we are looking forward to the next few days with her in the northwest. The weather is beautiful and I have to say, it's nice to get out of the hot desert and into some new terrain. We will try to keep everybody up to date with our travels and appreciate the comments our entries have generated. Thanks to everybody for vicariously touring with us through this crazy internet journal. Wish us luck! Two weeks to go on the first leg of the tour...