Back in the saddle again. Back on the ole bike. Back searching for decent metaphors. All my way of saying….

We have resumed our tour in lovely Orem, Utah. We had two weeks off back in Nashville. Our dog, Bucky, the little psycho, rejoined the family with very little bloodshed. The weather cooperated while we were gone. It rained just enough so we came back to live plants on the back deck and not, as often happens, to what passes for shredded wheat in colorful pots. The cars started. The computers turned on. The daily paper resumed. We settled into our routine:

Wake
Find excuse why we can’t go work out (back “feels funny”… only got nine hours sleep…)
Return last month’s emails
Nap
Daily Show
Bed

But, like cicadas sleeping beneath the soil to rise one day and cover your back screen door, into our incoming mailbox comes the new day sheet for the first date of the last swing. And just like THAT we switch to our “we’re leaving again” routine.

Hug our plants like Shirley MacLaine huggin’ Deborah Winger at the end of Terms of Endearment.
Sedate our dog and put him into the Fedex crate
Find and pack our exercise bands (make sure they are somewhere we can easily find them when we need them!)

So we land in Salt Lake City and climb on our brand spanking new bus. Hey! We remember you guys! You play bass, right? We drive to Orem and all the reasons why we love this part of the country hit us like the hot kiss at the end of a wet fist. (Listened to Firesign Theater on the way to the airport)

An outdoor show surrounded by majestic mountains. Clear air. A two week break. Those are all the things that pretty much guarantee a night to remember and a night to remember is what we had. The crowds are more and more familiar with us when we walk out. We actually got a nice round of applause announcing that we were about to play Little Victories. That is an exceptionally nice feeling.

We had a huge crowd at the merch table. It’s always very gratifying to have a long line of people that want to say hello and get an autograph even if it means that they will probably miss seeing Kenny play the two songs they came that night to hear in the first place. If it were me in line, and I heard the opening notes of Pooh… I would put the twenty back in my pocket and say, “See you later, suckers!” But these people are hard core Georgia and Gary fans and they would rather have that blur I laughingly refer to as my autograph on their new CD than hear a classic song of their youth sung by the original artist in the original key.

Do we jump on a private jet now? Is THAT how we role? No, we climb on that new bus and drive six hours to Colorado. six… count ’em. Plenty of time to re-learn everyone’s name. There might actually be time to go in the back suite and get a little workout in. Where are those exercise bands? Oh no… I left them in my suitcase and that’s under the bus in the luggage bay. Oh well. Straight to “nap.”