Onward on Tour Summer 2010

Just south of Yankton, South Dakota, in northern Nebraska, is the village of Crofton, Nebraska. A few miles away from that village live my dear friends Rebecca, Austin, Shane, and Makayla Truax. Shane, 13, and Makayla, 12, are Austin and Rebecca's children. I'm staying with this energetic and unconventional family while we prepare to make a CD for Austin, a talented songwriter and singer of his songs. Austin also plays guitar, and I am teaching him to play rhythm guitar to support some of my more complicated guitar, mandolin, and other instrumentals. We have lots of work to do and we are working every day to get it all done!

In Cape Girardeau, Missouri, where I had a nice visit with my cousin and lifelong friend Stan Stough and his wife Jane, I played a fun show at a place called Auburn Creek. I've been playing at Auburn Creek when I come through Cape for some ten years, and it is always an enjoyable experience. Very warm audiences, always.

From Cape I travelled west to the Poplar Bluff area where I played two shows and visited overnight in the remote mountain home of my old friend, great character and good musician Harold Condray. One of the shows with Harold was a nooner at a nutrition center in a small town operated by the sister of someone who sings with Harold; the other was at Our Place, a nice dinner theater-type restaurant in a converted church building in Piedmont, Missouri. This show was especially fun to do, and very warmly received by the audience.

Westward from the Poplar Bluff vicinity, I drove through beautiful mountain country on Highway 60 and then miles and miles off paved roads to another very remote mountain location, the lovely secluded home of friends Teresa and Terry Carel. I met Teresa a number of years ago when she scheduled music shows at a restaurant in Van Buren, Missouri, in the Mark Twain National Forest tourist area. Teresa's parents also live in this hidden forest paradise. Teresa had invited me to do a house concert at her home, so I did it and it was fun. The audience was small but appreciative, and the visit was very nice indeed.

Next morning... onward to the Springfield, Missouri, area, in southwestern Missouri, where my friend and fellow road musician, bass ace John Jackson, lives with his wife Carol. John set up two shows for me, one a kind of a super jam session and show at Don Taylor's Music Barn and Museum (which we did successfully last year too), and one a concert at the Northview Music Hall near Springfield. John put together a really good small band to support me at Northview (John on bass, Donnie Smith on electric lead guitar, Don Taylor on rhythm guitar). The music cooked, the audience was large and very enthusiastic, sound and lights were good, food served at the break for superior, and the whole experience was just first-rate. Very cool experience!

Leaving the Springfield area I spent an entire day driving north and west to the home of my longtime friend Bob Raine in the gorgeous Loess Hills region near Logan, Iowa. Loooooong day on the road---but I did find a way to do it that kept my time on the big interstate highways to a minimum. Skipped the Kansas City area altogether. Yay!! I'm very much a "blue highways" type of traveller. I like to see things as I go, stop for coffee, meet people, swing by to see points of interest, stop at town parks to do my yoga, and so on. Life is very much a journey, not a destination, and I want to enjoy the journey.

I rolled into Bob's place in the evening. Sure was good to see him again! We hung out and caught up with each other. We went to breakfast at the Bunkhouse Cafe in Logan, where proprietor Jackie serves up what are in my experience the very best omelettes on the planet. MMMMM-mmmm...!! Man, are those good omelettes!!! I surely did enjoy my morning walks on narrow gravel roads in the outrageously beautiful Loess Hills near Bob's home. After a good visit with Bob and a couple of fun rides in his bright yellow Mustang sportscar, a trip to a good old-fashioned funky bookstore in nearby Omaha, Nebraska, and making arrangements to provide entertainment for a Democratic Party function in the area later in the year, I hit the road once again, bound northward to my present location on the Nebraska/South Dakota border.

Had a bit of car trouble I had to work on while at Bob's place. While I was at Bob's we learned of the wreck of young Abby Sunderland's boat as the sixteen-year-old adventurer attempted to sail alone around the world. My little episode of car trouble was most certainly no big deal compared to that!! I'm glad to know that Abby was rescued safe and sound by a French fishing ship after a major search and rescue effort by many in the South Pacific. Abby will venture forth again! The rapidly mobilized effort to rescue her goes to show me once again that I'm right in thinking most people of this world are good and want to be good and do good in life. As news of the world flows in, we could sometimes think that the evil monsters who wash up on the shores of politics, horrible mean-spirited radio demagogues like Michael Savage, greedsters like the BP Oil folks, and Christian bigots like Pat Robertson represent a substantial portion of the human race, but I just don't believe that's true. For every Pat Robertson there is a Dalai Lama. I think most of us are actually good people.

This far north it is cool and wet and overcast, making this old Florida boy miss the tropical sunshine of home. Nice to be here, though, with good friends and working on a complex creative project, making Austin Truax's CD.

More as events unfold!!