Sitting in a laundromat in Jackson Hole, Wyoming contemplating the meaning of life...

Ok, I realize that's a bold title but it's hard not to be self reflective when you are stuck at an RV park doing laundry while you are surrounded on all sides by the beautiful Grand Teton Mountains. I suppose I could have got out of bed this morning, made a thermos of coffee and headed right up one of these monsters, but when you are on the road, fresh socks take on immense significance. So while I'm here listening to the machines rattle and whirl, I'll try to get you up to date once again. My last post had us in the Columbia River Gorge heading to Portland. We arrived safely and were happy to see our booking agent, Mary, who had taken the train down from Seattle to collect money at the door. The club was insignificant with the exception of Mike, the owner, who took care of us with a tub of ice cold Pabst Blue Ribbon AND the incredible black velvet pool table that Ike quickly began operating like a surgeon. Many games were played in and around our three sets and we all generally had a grand time. At Mary's urging, we left Portland after the show (around 1:30am) and drove all night to Seattle. She had scheduled a radio show appearance for us around noon and was worried we might not make it if we ran into Seattle traffic in the morning. So Ike diligently hunched over the wheel and delivered us safely into Mary's driveway at 5:30am. Nate, Betse and I had all fallen asleep and when I woke up and looked at Ike's bloodshot eyes, I knew that it had not been an easy drive. We quickly made our beds and got a few precious hours of sleep before the burning sun of Seattle cooked us out of the RV. Yes, I said "burning sun of Seattle". Apparently the city's normal gloomy, overcast and rainy weather took a 24 hour vacation and left a full scale heat wave to watch the place while it was away. Mary made us a wonderful breakfast and we got it together enough to get to the radio station in time. After the show, we returned to her house and soon after, members of the band, Open Road, began to arrive. Mary also books this great bluegrass band out of Ft. Collins, Colorado, and I had been looking forward to meeting and playing this show with them for the entire tour. They turned out to be a swell bunch of guys and we all quickly bonded over a few beers, chewing tobacco and song swapping. Ike told me that Bradford Lee Folk, the singer/guitarist of Open Road, reminded him of our good friend and fellow Rural Gritter, Michael Murphy and I agreed. Bradford is from a town just outside of St. Louis, and he has that dry sense of humor and casual, "I don't give a s*#t" attitude that I find so prevalent in boys from Missouri. Caleb Roberts, the mandolinist and other founding member of the band, reminded me more of myself. He was polite and smiled a lot but seemed slightly uncomfortable with the two-band social dynamic. I felt exactly the same way and made up for it by going into photographer mode. For some reason, when I feel uncomfortable, it makes me feel better to take photos. That way I don't have to talk to people (because, obviously, I'm trying to take a photo) and people don't want try to talk to me because they usually hate having their picture taken. I know this is weird but it helps me get through the awkwardness sometimes. So after a few shots of Bradford and Ike dueting on a Hank Williams tune, it was time to go to the show. We got dressed, piled into the RV and soon were at the Tractor Tavern in downtown Seattle. Open Road did their sound check first and I was blown away by the power of their sound. These guys are not far off in age from us and so they have sort of the same intensity that we have without varying from a traditional bluegrass approach. Bradford is a fantastic singer and I was particularly pulverized by Caleb's mandolin playing which is straight out of the Bill Monroe school- with lots of double stops and tremelo and a hard core blues style that is out of this world. They got the mics checked with ease and then it was our turn. Our sound check was less than stellar but we got through it and went to get a sandwich up the street. The club was pretty full when we got back and, although we were still very tired from lack of sleep, everybody did what they had to do to get their show face on. Betse launched into the first fiddle tune, and metaphorically grabbed the crowd by the collar and put them into her pocket. We wanted to make an impression and I think we either made a lot of new fans or scared the hell out of everybody. In my estimation, we fulfilled the requirements of the perfect opening act in our 40 minute set and got off stage and out of Open Road's way. The crowd was primed for these bluegrass pros and everybody had a rollicking good time. After the show, we hung around the club for awhile. But soon, I began to pressure everybody to say their goodbyes and get everything packed into the RV. For the second night in a row, we had to drive after the show but this time only far enough to be safely out of Seattle's morning rush hour. Once again, Ike hunched over the wheel and drove until the lights of Seattle were far behind us and he started to hallucinate from lack of sleep. We grabbed a motel in North Bend, Washington for the night and were back on the road at 8am for a punishing 10 hour drive to Boise, Idaho. We drove and drove and drove and drove- all day long and still were an hour late getting to the club. When we pulled into the alley next to the bar, several of the locals yelled at us saying, "yeah, the band is HERE!" and "YOU'RE LATE!" We took this as a challenge and quickly changed once again into our stinky show clothes. We grabbed up our equipment and within a half hour, we were onstage again. None of us had had much sleep or food and we basically pulled out our last ounce of energy and gave it all away to the needy punkers of Boise. Which brings me to the source of my contemplation. I think at this point we are all searching for some sort of equilibrium. We are playing our butts off out here in the west. But by the time we get finished, we are so spent that we are all barely able to manage the basic day-to-day necessities of sleep, rest, relaxation and food. Sleep is definitely a luxury we don't get. Rest and relaxation is fleeting since it's so hard to ride for long hours in the equivalent of a rocking, rattling school bus. Food is tough too because there's just not a lot of it. We never have time to actually sit down to a meal and so we end up either skipping meals or eating fast food which really starts to get old after almost a month on tour. Maybe it sounds like I'm complaining but I'm not. I realize that this is an opportunity that most musicians would kill for. It's just that this is a VERY different lifestyle than we accustomed to and we are still trying to adjust. Perhaps if this touring thing turns out to be a long term situation, we will learn how to find the equilibrium we are all seeking and be professional musicians without turning into zombies in western wear.