Finally!!!

Well I finally did it.

I'm a full time musician.

We took off last night from Lincoln, Nebraska and were packed in like sardines. Considering gas is the price it is, we chose not to pull our 10x17 trailer and instead stuff everything in the back of the van. That left us 2 bench seats , the driver seat and the passenger seat... for 5 guys. Keep in mind, that's where we had to sleep last night. The back bench seat had suitcases stuffed underneath it so there was no place to put your feet. That's where I slept, wedged between my backpack and a rolled up sleeping bag. To make it even better, Luke's cowboy boot that was wedged up above kept falling and hitting me in the head through-out the night, and the AC was/is broken. Anthony ended up sleeping on the floor of the van for most of the 9 hour trip.

Overall though, I think it was worth it. Now I'm sitting here in a hotel room in Illinois, in my own bed, with a nice cold air conditioner blowing on me. The resort area we're playing this week is pretty nice. It's definitely not a place for people who don't like kids though. There are probably 700 Jr. Highers here as well (as evidenced by the yellow hot tub water, no seriously, I didn't have my phone at the time or I would have taken a picture. YELLOW.)

We're here until Friday and are playing for a great group of kids. Friday night we take off and drive through the night up to Wisconsin for a single date show, then drive through the night again to hit a camp in Montana. I'm really looking forward to that one, It's in the middle of nowhere in the awesome Montana mountains. There won't even be cell phone coverage for a whole week.

After Montana is the killer, a 30 hour trip, across 2 times zones, to North Carolina, but once we get there we'll be spending 10 days in one of my favorite places in the country, Lake Junaluska. Once Junaluska is finished we drive to Georgia for a day, then play a couple dates in Tennessee and finally its back home (more than a month after we left).

That's only the first leg by the way, the easy leg. The second leg will be 23 dates in 23 days over a span of 10 states. Then after that will be the 3rd leg. That one's still being booked.

I've probably done more work in the last 24 hours than I did in a week at my job, and I got paid about 98% less, but I wouldn't trade it for the world. This is the dream I've been trying to accomplish for the last 5 years. Now I just need to make sure and keep it alive.

I'll keep you updated.

Josh