Holy smoke...

I am WAY behind in writing this blog!! Sorry folks. A lot has been happening, and my access to computers and the internet has been occasional at best. I'm in a very busy time right now, so even this entry will have to be briefer than I'd like it could be. Here goes...

After the Garden Grove Festival in Iowa in early August, I spent the next couple of weeks working on producing and performing on a new CD, Where I'm Going, for Austin Truax of Crofton, Nebraska. Austin is a talented young singer-songwriter I've been helping along in his music. We have some fine musicians on the CD, including Austin, his harmony-singing wife Rebecca, Terry Durr (drums), Wayne Longtin (bass), Jay Kelly (fiddle), David Berquist (electric guitar), Curt Shoemaker (pedal steel), and me (guitar, mandolin, piano). We are recording at the Tesco studio (Tom Sharmin) in Omaha, Nebraska. The CD is sounding very good! Final mixing will happen in November. I'll be coming back to the midwest then to work on that.

On Saturday, August 21st, I travelled south to the Homestead National Monument near Beatrice, Nebraska, to do a concert. I've been doing this one annually for quite a few years. I always enjoy doing this show at the site of some of the last of the midwest plains' original tall-grass prairie. We do the show by a campfire under big trees on the lawn behind the Monument's visitor center. The crowd is always receptive, and certainly was this year. This one is a lot of fun.

The next weekend I did the Wisecup Farm Museum Festival at Missouri Valley, Iowa. This small festival is especially fun, and not least because I get to visit during the event with my friend Bob Raine who lives in Logan, Iowa, not far from Missouri Valley. This year's festival was put together and hosted by Nebraska singer and my friend Jackie Shewey. She did a great job! I'll be there next year! Wouldn't miss this fine festival.

After the Wisecup event I returned to work on the Austin Truax CD. Then, the next weekend, September 9-11 I did the Miles of Memories event at Hastings, Nebraska. An indoor concert event, it featured country singer George Hamilton IV; New Zealand singer and yodeller Roger Tibbs, with whom I toured in New Zealand a few years ago; German banjo virtuoso Andy Glandt, with whom I toured in Germany too; and many others. I was very pleased to do my shows with the support of Jay Kelly (fiddle), Larry Dean (guitar), and Mary Bichelmeyer (bass). Thanks, friends!! During the weekend I particularly enjoyed jamming with Jay Kelly and playing my new guitar rag, Sunshine (Makayla's Rag) with Jay and Andy Glandt.

Today I am in Seattle, Washington. Flew here from Omaha, Nebraska after Miles of Memories to do some shows and meet some folks. All is going well on the northwest coast. More about that later. Getting here was not the easiest thing in the world, and not because of air travel. Driving east from Hastings after Miles of Memories, I got only a few miles down I-80 when my van quit running. I coasted it to a stop along the Interstate, and then walked a few miles to an exit and a farm where I used the telephone to call AAA. To make a long story short, I had the van towed to McCool Junction, Nebraska, south of York, Nebraska, where live my good friends Larry and Karen Doran. Larry has been good enough to undertake having the van repaired while I am on this trip to Washington State. We think the culprit is a failed fuel pump. Expensive to replace!! I stayed with Larry and Karen on Sunday (and played in a little gig with them---they are musicians---on Sunday afternoon, actually). Then on Monday morning Bob Raine was good enough to come from Logan, Iowa, to pick me up and get me to the Omaha airport in time to catch my flight to Seattle. Now, those are real, true friends!! I'm very thankful to have such wonderful friends in the world!!

At this point it remains to be seen just what is wrong with the van. Seems very likely it has a dead fuel pump. We shall see. What will be, will be.

In the meantime, I am having a great time on the west coast. Meet me here next time, to read all about that!!

Life is good!!