Golf

I've fallen in love with the sport I used to hate the most. It happened a month ago on what was supposed to be a trip centered around music and mountain bikes. I worked on a course doing maintenace (operating mowers) for 4 summers but only played 2/3 of a round of golf. I got a chance to go play my old course and now I'm ruined. I love it. "Pick up golf bag, put down brain," we'd always say.

So, today, instead of riding, I'll be golfing...

Raccoon Mountain SERC #8

David and the rest of the Gone Riding crew have got their act together. Registration was a snap, everyone knew what was going on (nice lady at registration gave me a highly accurate 8 second description of course). I'd not ridden Raccoon Mountain, and I imagine it's a great ride (with some rest stops) but it was a very tough day of racing. Hot, Dry, Dusty and Relentless. I battled cramps in my quadriceps the entire second lap, when I stood, they cramped and I only had one gear so I stood, a lot. I've never experienced anything quite like that. Heat was rough, Tanner took a couple spills, seemed like there was a lot of mild carnage. Trail wasn't tacky at all; every corner involved one or both of the tires breaking free. It reminded me a lot of riding back home on the front range of Colorado. Only with humidity. I couldn't imagine going 3 laps. I'd have quit after one if I'd had two more to go.

I didn't take pictures, I was too busy trying to cram myself into my Biker's Choice Kit. It feels like it's two sized too small until it gets sweaty. Speaking of which, David, sorry I haven't made more races this season, but I've been busy. I contributed to Tanner falling again (in the pre-ride). Sorry about that.

Anyway, today made me happy. I even got to mow the yard, which was nice.

So much to say

It's been a long time. I've been neglecting my blogging, started seeing it less as a duty and more as a burden. I didn't think anyone was reading this thing and as such, I let it slide down the priority list. Of course, as soon as I stopped, I ran into person after person quoting from my blog or asking about my single speed exploits. As such, I will attempt to sum up the last month in a digestible manner with visual aides.

So, in mid-May, the Dusters went on an epic Mid-Atlantic Tour through West Virginia, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Virginia, ending at DelFest in MD. It was on this tour that I hit a personal low point, which was just what I needed to find what I can only describe as a rebirth. It's interesting, as soon as I admitted that I couldn't just go it alone, like I'd tried for so many years, things started getting better. They actually got better immediately. Thanks to Julie and Sarah for your prayers, Jordan for your wisdom, and Eckhart Tolle and W.P. Young for putting words and ideas to paper. I see now. I don't know exactly what I was looking at before, but I see it now, and it's beautiful. The last two nights of that tour, in Charlottesville and at DelFest were amongst the most enjoyable of my life to that point.

Tour ended and I was home for 18 hours before I headed out again, this time on the most ambitious tour of my young career. I took two days to get to Albuquerque, stopping along the way in Oklahoma in Red Rock State Park and outside Tucumcari
to watch the sun set. There are times when things hit you just right and time and time again on this drive that evening it happened. At one point I fired up the iPod, random style (like opening a book and reading whatever is on the page in front of me, I occasionally will spin the iPod dial and listen to whatever comes up) and Mason Jennings song Be Here Now came up. Never has a song captured the moment so beautifully for me. I was racing across the desert, pumping my arms in the air, singing along and crying uncontrollably. This was the theme song for my moment. After that I listened to my wife's record, Say It Louder and really heard it for the first time. Kite is the most honest song ever written.

I picked Anders up at the ALB airport at 10pm, then busted out the nearly 4 hour drive to Durango in just over three and went to bed. We rehearsed for three days in preparation for our duo tour, sliding a ride, a round of golf (at Dalton Ranch the course I worked maintenance on for 4 summers between 2001 and 2004) two radio shows and a dinner party. The Book & Beck duo tour kicked off in Durango on the 28th with a song I'd just finished that day. Friends and family really know how to make a couple guys feel comfortable. Greg Andrulis and Robin Davis joined us a different times turning our duo into a trio. The second set was peppered with guests like Rob Brophy, Mark Epstein, Cindy Trautman, David Smith
(spontaneous tenor on a song we co-wrote via email) and the incredible Jimmy Largent. Truly one of the best nights of my life, capped off with a midnight Spades session with the old crew back at my mothers house.

Anders and I did three more shows, but that was the highlight. I dropped Anders off on Monday morning at DIA and headed to Palmer Lake to meet up with one of my mentors, Tim Watkins. Tim took me out for a single speed ride on some old turf punctuated by a detour over a trail he and another mentor Tom Allen built. I spent the next few days sleeping, reading and riding in Salida, Buena Vista and Palmer Lake. The Stringdusters Tour kicked off in Ft. Collins, routed through Steamboat and stopped off in Pagosa for the festival. Love that place. They say you can't come home again, but when your home is the top of the crest in the campground on Reservoir Hill, you CAN come home, twice a year, actually.

The band played two more Colorado shows, allowing me the opportunity to do another ride following a trail that I half built in high school. Locals have latched onto and finished this ambitious 4-7 miler and it's now completely rideable from front to back. Now it just needs a name...

Last few days of the tour I got in another epic ride with Missouri locals George and Kevin. They've built a 13.5 mile singletrack loop on George's family spread overlooking the Meremac River. We rode it one way, and I couldn't get enough so we turned around and rode it the other way. Truly some of the best riding I've ever done. Thanks to Kevin and George for keeping on me about coming out. Saying yes rarely gets me in trouble and usually leads me to discoveries like that day. Beautiful. Drove home through the rain and arrived safely in Nashville, with 4700 more miles on my Toyota and a whole bunch of dirt splayed across my car, bike and all my gear. Truly an epic road trip.

So, I'm home for a couple days. The band's working on new music and having a band meeting or two. The weather's nice, I got in a good ride through Percy Warner on the Cross bike yesterday, will likely get in another before this weekend. It'll be all running after that leading up to the next mountain bike race at Raccoon Mountain June 28.

I must say, in closing, that it has been wonderful to see and meet so many amazing people on my travels. It was also a blessing to get to play my own music, nearly 15 compositions, on the duo tour. Anders was a good sport about learning my tunes and playing them those four nights. This next Dusters project is going to be great and I hope to record my own record on the heels of that. The sun is shining, the sky is blue and it is what it is, and that's all that it is.

Party Party Party

Last weekend was long. Tip to tail. Sarah's family was in town, so I was on shorty duty on Friday evening. Soccer in the backyard (nicely groomed), grilling, beers.



Sun went down, as it will tend to do. Party moved inside for a little concert.



Then the real party started as the older set started to roll in. Robin's got the guitar slinger thing down...




Panda wanted to play dress-up. I thought all the little girls had gone home, but apparently not. That's my wife's clothes.




The next day Janice and Andy Hall were married. Post ceremony we went back to doing what we do best. This was the best shot of the night (three kegs will blur some photos), the great Stage Rabone on guitar. This jam had it's moments.




A fitting end to this weekend, Tuesday night Bike Polo at Shelby Park. I managed to whack my front wheel so hard I bent up a bunch of spokes and knocked my wheel completely out of true.



Yesterday I trued the wheel up, it went right back into round. Two of the best hours of my life on the bike at Monkey Bell. Managed a full Blue, White, Yellow and two Red loops in under two hours. Can't believe I'm going to miss the Monkey Grinder race next weekend. Pretty sure I'm on form right about now. It's weird, I spent the last week in party mode and still managed to lose about 5 lbs. Maybe I'm just dehydrated. Headed to East Nash in an hour to ride with Jeremy. Road ride this time, must drink more coffee before heading out into the rain.

The next two weeks are a confusing mess of travel arrangements, bike rides, band gigs, duo gigs and golf rounds. Dusters Tour this week. Then immediately upon return I head to Colorado for four shows with Anders Beck as part of our Book & Beck Tour. I'll try to wedge some riding in on my downtime before I hop back into the van for another Dusters tour, dubbed the Clean and Dirty tour. Night of the 14th I'll finally settle in for a couple days.

Disgusting

This is serious business. Disgusting.



Had a nice sized party over at the house last night. Good excuse to get the house all cleaned up. The rain held off until later at night so we were able to spend the afternoon out on the back patio with a huge gaggle of kids playing soccer and grilling burgers. After the sun went down the kids went to bed and the musicians/ping pong players showed up. We moved the table out on the back patio and played most of the night. I should post up some pictures but I'm feeling too lazy and it's not raining so I'll be grabbing a cup of coffee and heading outside instead.

Kindling Stone/Blue Heron

Sometimes days unfold in unexpected ways, presenting opportunities and experiences that could not have been imagined days before. Chris Moore's songs and the arrangements of Kindling Stone have a way of reminding me of this. Sarah and I left the house today at 9:40am and headed to WPLN, Nashville's public radio station to play live on Studio C, a weekly music program. Load the car, dodge traffic, arrive on time and soundcheck. Quick de-briefing by the shows host and we were off. No matter how I try, I rarely feel completely prepared for gigs, even with my own band. Mistakes were made, time ran short, but overall the experience was rewarding. Sarah and I loaded
the car back up and walked across the parking lot to the wetlands bordering the studio and there, hunting in the shallows was a Great Blue Heron. The heron, in all it's prehistoric glory is generally regarded by me as a good sign. Especially so on this day as my favorite Kindling Stone song is in fact, Blue Heron. "Who is it here in my canoe...?"

Steroid shots for my poison ivy seem to be working, though they've left me more agitated than usual. The sun is finally peeking out, Nashville was starting to feel more like Portland and not for the right reasons. In fact, I need to get outside while the sun is still shining and cut the yard. Possibly even work to hack down the "shrubs" that have grown in the wake of my yard neglect. As the sun grows brighter, the lure of the yard grows stronger. Until tomorrow...

Memphis/Poison Ivy

Last night the Stringdusters settled into a nice evening of music at the Bartlett Performing Art Center. Everyone was relaxed, the audience was attentive, if not a little on the quiet side, but it didn't seem to matter to the band as we rolled through 2 sets of mostly original Stringduster music. The attendance exceeded promoter expectation, which is always the goal and we even got out of there by 10:45. Memphis to Nashville usually takes 3 hours, but Jeremy was driving and we made it in under 2.5.

I've been battling a case of poison ivy for a few days now and thought I was turning the corner but for some reason the Benedryl wasn't working (well, it was making me feel very very docile and relaxed but it wasn't stopping the itching) and I ended up rubbing holes through my socks trying to get some relief. Scratching a serious itch can be almost euphoric. Unfortunately, like most highs, when it comes to poison ivy that euphoria is followed closely by intense discomfort. I got in the house and into the shower and scrubbed for what could have been an hour, I don't know, it felt soooo good. Today I have a nasty rash to show for it. If you don't like pictures of body parts in a sickened state, I suggest you read someone else's blog.

The Spring Rain Cycle continues here in middle Tennessee. No mountain biking this week. Todays hourly forecast calls for rain. The ten day forcast has precipitation every single day... It would figure that the only time I'm home this year for more than 5 or 6 days I would have poison ivy and it would be raining. I suppose I should just re-align my priorities, play a lot of music, get out the running shorts and fix the flat on the 'cross bike. It's pavement or nothing.

Back to the ivy. How did I get such a nasty case? I live in a nice little neighborhood in a nice little corner of a nice big-ish city that is seriously lacking in greenspace. I see a lot of towns/cities and generally with a little bit of research (googlemaps.com) I can locate a nearby greenway or even just an empty space on the map that the locals have hacked a trail through. Nashville doesn't really have these. At all. There's a few greenways, but they're all well out of running distance from my home and dispite the river being less than a 10th of a mile from my house, there's no real decent, clean access. Just a boat ramp with an endless stream of gutted fish and beer cans lying around. In my quest for a place to get into the woods within' walking distance of my home, I located a blank spot, sandwiched between two neighborhoods, the river, and I40 West. It seems as though it's been set aside by the city in case they want to build a bridge across the river, but that's unlikely to happen anytime in the next 20 years. Two streams or "drainages" run through the piece, creating a little bit of an island vibe, there's some elevation gain and loss and I've seen some massive turtles. The piece is probably 10-20 acres and it's absolutely full of garbage.

I've taken it upon myself to cut a trail through the property with the purpose of creating access to this nice little piece for myself and the neighborhood, and also as a means to clean up the property. Like I said, it's absolutely littered with garbage. So, I've been heading in there and clearing out brush and sapplings and cutting through endless thorns and bamboo and it was coming along nicely until I broke out with a nasty case of poison ivy.

I'll probably put on long pants and head over there again today since I'm stupid and I really want to make this project a reality. The trail I have mapped out will likely be barely a mile, but it'll be so nice to throw in a mile or two of trail running into my running routine. I also envision setting up a small fire ring and heading out into the woods to watch the sun go down and burn a little brush. I'll take the camera so I can start to document the progress and the trash (already have large piles every 15 feet or so).