Saturday, August 28, 2010

Wife Week

As I write this blog, I sit at a picnic table just outside our bus behind the venue at Virginia Beach. It is approaching noon, and the weather is perfect. Sipping my cup of catering coffee, I reflect on the last 7 days. This has been one of the best weeks ever. Amber got to come out here on the road with me and it was a blaster. We got to hang out in New York City for a couple days, catch a few concerts, go shopping, and spend a lot of much needed time together. When we first saw each other, there was this initial feeling of, “Oh yeah… you ARE a real person and not just a voice on my phone,” but it didn’t take long to wear off. Amber amazed and surprised me with a few things: she got her hair done and got her nose re-pierced. Even after flying a red-eye, she still looked smokin’ hot.

The first day was pretty uneventful. We attempted to walk around, but after getting about ¼ of a mile from our hotel we got dumped on by the New York clouds. At that point we decided to go back to our room and order a pizza. Enjoy a picture of us here:

The second day in New York was much more successful. We decided to take the subway everywhere instead of a cab, so we saved quite a bit of money. For the whole day, we only spent $13.50 to get around the city. It was a good thing too, because we needed all the money we could get to keep the muggers from taking our phones and bags. We only got mugged twice, but we managed to talk our way out of giving all of our stuff to them by telling them we had connections to the Chicago mob and that… ok, I’m joking. We didn’t get mugged at all. All we did was walk around, go shopping, share a couple meals together, drink coffee, and go to a concert. A friend of mine sings in a super-duo called The Civil Wars (see video at end of this blog) and they just happened to be playing in the city on our day off. Most of you know that I’m a critical perfectionist so this next statement may come as a shock to you, but The Civil Wars were flawless. Amazing. It was a great day and night with the wife of my youth.

Day three was a show day, and we played at the Jones Beach Amphitheatre. Pretty cool venue, but poorly designed. As you can see in the picture below, it is right on the water. The bad part about it is that the lower level floods all the time, and this night was no exception. Everyone in front of the stage was standing in water. You can imagine how load-in and load-out were. Good thing there is a crew that takes care of that. :)

The weather was still cool and wet, so I had a little hot cocoa date with this hot girl I found backstage.

After the show, Amber did her first overnight bus ride with us. Since neither of us are huge individuals, we decided to try to share a bunk. It was tight, but after being apart for so many nights, we were willing to make sacrifices to make it work. Sacrifices like being able to bend my knees at all while trying to sleep. By the 3rd night drive, we had the bunk sharing down. I should add here that a bunk is smaller than a twin bed, and there is only about 2-2.5 feet of clearance from top to bottom; basically, it’s like sleeping in a coffin. If I had to be stuck in a coffin with someone though, I would definitely choose Amber as my coffin-mate.

All in all, Amber saw 7 concerts while out with us: The Civil Wars, Madi Diaz, Skillet, Creed, and Theft (3 times). I’m not sure which concert was her favorite, but I’m pretty sure I know which guitar player was her favorite. Hopefully Amber will write her own blog on here about her week with us, but I have a hard time getting her to. All of you that have either her phone number or email address, you should bug her about it repeatedly until she does.

To wrap this blog up, I would like to share a something I’ve learned over the years of my travelling: names of places are funny. Every morning when I wake up, I reach for my phone, open the weather channel app and see what the day has in store. The app uses gps to locate where you are to give you the most accurate info, and when I located myself the other day I was in Coxsackie, NY. It’s just down the road from Climax, NY. This reminded me of other humorous towns such as Blue Ball and Intercourse, which are both in PA. Lastly, and possibly the strangest, is a state park in Kentucky: Big Bone Lick State Park. It can be found where Big Bone Road intersects with Beaver Road. I kid you not.


2 comments:

Amber Lemiere said...

This is one of my faves, and no comments?!? Well, maybe I'm just vain :) Love you buddy.

Dani said...

I realize this is an old post, but I just discovered your blog and I'm working my way backwards. I didn't realize you knew a Civil War member. I should have guessed with the size of the music world that it was a good possibility. Joy and Nate came and stayed with me in Rome a few years ago - they rock!