Last weekend put us at an interesting junction; and a quite literal junction at that.
We were sitting in the car in a parking lot in Grantsville, MD. We were coming from a show the night before in Frostburg and were headed to Pittsburgh to catch our pals’ set on our night off before heading to Morgantown to play the last gig of the week before heading home. Only problem was that we were trying to do this in blizzard-warning conditions.
Grantsville found us with the interstate shut down east and west bound, the road north towards Pittsburgh blocked by snow drifts, the road west heading into the hungriest part of the blizzard, the road behind us closed, and the road south obviously taking us away from where we wanted to be. Short of options, I started to think about taking the advice of numerous professional drivers stuck with us at the Pilot travel stop on route 219 to snatch up one of the few remaining hotel rooms in town and wait this thing out watching TV with a case of beer. But we had way too many fun things to do during this road trip that I let Hanson finally convince me to buckle up and sally forth.
As we waited in a traffic line for the second time on the same road north towards Pittsburgh (the one blocked by snow drifts), I got to thinking about all of the shows we’d played throughout this winter. And from what I could recollect, there had only been one trip since mid-december when the snow wasn’t coming down causing white-outs, snow drifts, less than favorable road conditions, easily doubled travel time; and covering my car every single time I left it parked for a few hours. Hanson also pointed out that that one snow-free trip was coincidentally the trip with the least amount of driving for us. Ha!
Now we are gearing up for the spring tour that’ll start in just over a week. And I want to thank everybody that dug themselves out over the winter to catch our show; that gave us a warm place to stay off of the road; that kept us company when we were snowed in; and that generally gave us the greatest reason to why we do what we do. Thank you.
Today I feel like spring really is upon us. And that’s good. ‘Cause I think I’m pretty much tired of driving around in the snow.
