Tour Diary: Homeward Bound?

(July 10-11) NEW ORLEANS, LA to AUBURN, AL to THE ROAD — Two days of touring packed into one diary entry. This part of the tour was mostly spent on buses across Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia and then north. By tomorrow, I’ll be in Brooklyn.

I left New Orleans in a driving rain. It rained and thundered every single day that I was there. I don’t mind that weather at all, although the walk I mentioned to the Treme for the first of Uncle Lionel’s second lines was a little wetter than I might have liked.

I almost didn’t leave at all. I don’t know if my phone alarm didn’t ring or if I didn’t hear it, but what woke me was a text message sent from the taxi company I’d called the night before, telling me my cab was on the way. I jumped off the couch, changed my clothes and latched the straps on my backpack just as the cab honked outside.

We got to union station at 6:45 a.m. for my 7:45 bus. Unfortunately, for the first time on this long trip, I wasn’t able to board the bus, which was completely full. In fact, about a half dozen passengers who had regular tickets (unlike my pass) also had to wait two hours for the next bus. We all made it on that one, though, and away we went to Alabama.

I arrived in Opelika, Alabama, at 7:45, where my friend Patrick picked me up and took me to his house in Auburn. I chatted with Patrick and Susan and, happily, with Charlie and Jamie, two of Patrick’s sons. They hadn’t fallen asleep yet, and I guess they heard me come in. I was sorry to miss John, the youngest of the McCurry Gang, but very glad to have a chance to laugh along with Charlie and Jamie. They’re great kids.

It was important to me to stop in Auburn on my way north. I made very strong connections there — Patrick and his family; Rachel, whose house I stayed in; and Tina and Maddie, who both work at The Gnu’s Room. I saw the McCurrys and Rachel last night, and saw both Tina and Maddie this morning when Patrick and I spent time at The Gnu’s Room.

At The Gnu’s Room, Patrick and I talked with Zack, a 19-year-old guitarist who is trying to decide whether to go to music school in New Orleans or not. I argued strongly against it and Patrick joined me, although we both acknowledged the reality that Zach would likely end up in school soon. I won’t spell out the entire conversation here, but our general point was that he should just move to New Orleans, get a day job and work on playing music for a year. After a year, he’ll be a Louisiana resident and school will be much cheaper if he still wants to go. He may also find that in that year he establishes himself and finds regular work as a guitarist and that school isn’t necessary right away. We both talked about leaving music school with a six-figure debt and a piece of paper that means nothing in the music performance world.

Patrick then took me back to the Greyhound station in Opelika. I hadn’t noticed it when getting off the bus the night before, but the Greyhound station is actually just a gas station and convenience store. The same guy sells you cigarettes, potato chips or bus tickets. And the bus itself was a slightly longer van, not a full bus. I rode it from Opelika to Columbus, GA, back into Eastern Time. I changed there for a bus to Atlanta, and then barely made my connection in Atlanta for my bus to Richmond. I’m on the bus right now as I type this. I change in Richmond for the bus to New York. The total travel time from Auburn to New York is 26 hours or so.

Oh, and I almost forgot. My pal Clint Mullican in Knoxville told me that when I got to Alabama, I needed to try Grapico, a grape soda you can only get there. I forgot the first time through, but I got some today.

Heading back north is bittersweet. It will be almost like going home, except I don’t have a place to call my own. I’ll be staying with friends, with my sister, in a hotel, and then, when I go to Pennsylvania, in the home of people I’ve never met. They’re friends of a friend and they’re going out of town for two weeks and offering me their home. Amazing, right?

I’ll also miss the traveling, even though I’ve been quite lonely on the road. And I think a few big things will probably get worked out in New York and Pennsylvania that will determine the course of the next year or more of my life. So I’m a bit nervous about that.

On the sweet side, I get to see many people who are extremely precious to me, including my kids. I’ll be spending an entire month with them, by the far the longest stretch of time we’ve spent together in the past two years. And I’ll see other people whose importance in my life can’t be overstated. All of that makes me very happy.

The tour will resume again at the end of August. I’m not sure which direction I’ll go in, although I think it makes the most sense to go through the Midwest and Rockies on the way to the Pacific Northwest and California, then head to the Southwest and Texas and maybe back to New Orleans. That route should follow the nice weather, putting me in the South in the late fall. But I need to figure that out and set up places to stay and people to interview.

I’ll leave you with a photo of my little Buddha statue, taken at Rachel’s house in Auburn, AL.

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