Our last night of the tour we played at Henfling's Tavern in Ben Lamond. It was a boot-scoot-and boogie kinda place, with bumber stickers in the window telling us to "Never Forget Ruben Salazar". I knew I would like the place. At first impression, these seemed like tougher folk, and not necessarily the kind of people you would expect to come up and shake your hand. Yet, everyone here was real friendly, and thanked us for playing.
We spent the night in a cabin umbrella'd under giant redwoods in a Santa Cruz rain jungle. These trees were huge, the biggest I've stood under for awhile, and the rain drops seemed just as big. It was a steady assault, land mines of wet maple leaves and water run-off on the muddy street, and a round robin up the hill to the main road, started out the morning commute. Mikey -btw- has done a phenomenal job driving the 'ole Mallard from city to city. And this was the ultimate test. Really lean into it on the corners, test the brakes for maximum deceleration. The drive on throughout the day was pretty wet and windy. The weather broke for a couple hours, and as we passed by the city of Los Banos*, hanging in front of all the angry clouds was a rainbow shining above the city. I couldn't help but smile, it seemed like such a great metaphor for life. I know because I've seen some rainbows rising up out of some different banos in my own life. One of which came rising up out of the RV after Astra and I opened up the holding tank that night, but that's a different story! I guess when you stop and take a look around, there's the beauty of restoration everywhere, in every day. I see it in art. In music. In friendship. And it gives me hope. And it makes me happy to have been a part of something that has lifted others up in such a wildly positive and restorative way - and to have done it with such a wailin' crew. Mikey's choice cooking and sheet metal rock (c'mon Mikey - I know you got something harder than Cannibal Corpse) kept my heart jumpin' and booty bumpin - Janay's drive-by humor and silliness kept my sides aching and helped sedate my fears of generator shut-downs and more police pullovers, Astra's poise and steady handling of our tour manifesto, kept our noses pointed forward as we sloughed out the 2,000 mile, three state, 11 show, 12-day trek. There's a lot of reflection after a journey like this one, and when looking back over these past twelve days one thing stands out, we all knew it would come to an end. But here we are. Still here, anyways. And that's the nature of endings, it seems, is that they never really end. The world sleeps and rises. But the beauty of this world, and the vision we lead ourselves by can go only so far as we believe in ourselves, and only so long as we keep proving, over and over again, that we can dream bigger and do better than our forefathers did - and in our case here, to rock harder than all the other bands on the bill.
Being on the open road with Astra, Mikey, and Janay has filled me with enough memories for at least the next ten years. And I want to say thank you to Astra for letting me rock the box with you on the road, Mikey for opening my ears and gut to new music and good food, and to Janay for setting up the merch table everyday. We never got the curtain call, but all y'all deserve a round of applause - or an apple pie, or something. Maybe applesauce for Janay.
*Oh, and no offense to anyone residing in Los Banos, CA. From a distance it seems like a very quaint place to live, and I see no reflection on the name to which it was given.
Cheerio!
-TIM
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