Leavetakings I woke up as our new friends were rustling around the hotel room. I'm not usually a very deep sleeper, and they had to step over me as they were getting ready for the day anyways. We went down to eat the complimentary breakfast while the band, taking full advantage of the safe, comfortable and quiet environment, slept. It was one of the swankiest breakfast buffets I've ever seen at a hotel. The huge courtyard, with the soft burbling of the fountain from the entryway providing soothing background noise made a perfect atmosphere to enjoy some scrambled eggs that were probably beaten in some sort of industrial sized paint bucket. After eating, we went back up to wake the boys. Everyone showered, packed up and said our most sincere thanks and goodbyes to the ladies. ... read more

Before the Show When we woke up on Misty Matthews' various couches, we looked around at the disaster scene surrounding us. It was pretty bad when we had arrived the night before, but the extra beer bottles and cans, plus the natural detritus left behind by a group of wandering 20-somethings. We all took this wonderful opportunity to get clean again. Miraculously, Steve also decided that this would be a prime time for his first shower in at least 3 days (and we're talking 3 days of car travel and hard rocking ). He came out in his boxers, air drying himself since apparently Misty didn't have the foresight to prepare guest towels for her random weekend encounters with strange bands. We said thanks to our gracious hosts, and made moves to the van. We... read more

Hot Springs, Arkansas Due to a fairly rough night, despite my best efforts at waking the group up (a few mumbled repetitions of "Guys... guys we need to get up" before falling back to an uncomfortable slumber) we ended up setting out a couple of hours past the ideal departure time. No worries though, as a quick phone call to the night's venue, Maxine's, cleared everything up in a few minutes. Adam took the helm and drove for many hours while we kept our ears open for our bands to play on the radio. Hot Springs is a surprisingly bustling town considering its population of around 40,000 people. Its big claim to fame is being the boyhood home of former president Bill Clinton. This was exciting news, as perhaps this was an environment that fostered and ... read more

Siem Reap The road to Siem Reap was worth the trip in and of itself. A constantly blending and weaving of cars from one side of the road to the other with nary a painted line to direct drivers for the entirety of the recently paved main national highway of Cambodia. After the first few hairy minutes, I just accepted that I was in the car and there was very little I could do to control what was happening so I just relaxed. Despite the fact that there was minimal leg room, and the people in front of us had the seat before the stairway down to the bathroom (and thus tons of leg room themselves) they felt the need to recline their seats all the way. This made the ride extremely uncomfortable, particularly for ... read more