It is back to the Great Highwway, the Road. It's like a river I travel, a world I live in, always different, always the same. I leave Seattle and dive into the flowing stream. I head south first, to meet a dulcimer player in San Fransisco. This year I had used the internet to try and find other musicians to meet up with along the way, partly try to find new places to add to my circuit, and other musicians are the best way to find out what is going on. Also just to visit and jam with other musicians, expand my horizons.

I head out late at night, cutting cross country fom wehre I was north of town a good ways, trying to reach the interstate east. I get lost instead, and finally pull over to sleep till morning. Instead I am rousted almost immediately by the cops, who act like typical pigs. Bekieve me, I respect officers of the law, if I meet them. Unfortunately, I meet few, most are just bullys with badges and guns and bad attitudes, there to abuse you, knowing you can't fight back or protest, in a word, "pigs". But finally, they let me go and I drive, struggling to stay awake, till I reach a rest area over the state line in Mevada, then I sleep. It's been a long time since I've been to California, I decide there and then I won't go back. Life is too short for such a unfriendly place.
The next day I sleep late, and drive across Nevada the next day, snow lting on the ranges and mountains. This basin and range is well known country for me. As I would circuit the country, I came through here on my way from the Pacific Northwest or Montana on my way to the winter season in Arizona. I'd driven most roads here, though mostly going north and south. I end up pulling off the next night at a truck stop, then take a back road up a mountain, careful in the snow and ice,and pull off to sleep. No one troubles me. This is my home.

The next day I make the run into Salt Lake City. Far off I see the air get thick and hazy with pollution. I am there to jam with a band, the Inner Light Orchestra. I set up the recording gear and the video cam and we do. But the next day I am gone, heading east and angling north. Again I am racing ahead of a storm, driving one of my longest single day runs as I race ahead of a huge storm. I reach my relatives in Michigan just as the heavy snow begins to fall.

A couple days wait for the roads to clear and I am headed east and south, to Indianapolis, to Jam with a woman who plays harmonica. She has no space to jam, so we end up splitting a motel room, and I set up the recording gear, and the video gear and we stay up most of the night jamming. Finally, she heads home and I catch a feww hours sleep.

HOME