Hah. Another day, another 600 miles, or thereabouts. It’s a slow-dawning morning in Wilmington, NC, and I have no idea if I’ve slept. My cold has been waning for the past couple of days, but I’ve still got this pressure in my chest that’s made singing a little hard, and made the dry air-conditioned car air harder still. But down here, where the temperatures are still hovering in the mid-nineties, our soft little Northerner bodies just don’t have a choice about that.
Thursday night we drove down and hooked up with Chelsea and Beau in southern Virginia – meeting up with them just as they came back from a gig on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Navigating familiar dirt roads, dodging rabbits in the dark… We actually pulled in 40 minutes ahead of them,much to the consternation of their dog, Mariposa, who came out barking… and ran back inside barking… and ran back outside barking… and ran back inside barking… that took a little bit of careful canine-calming charisma. When she finally settled down and either remembered us or decided we weren’t TOO threatening, she wriggled down on the ground for some good petting. My fingernails never leave these mammals suspicious for long.
Chelsea and Beau came in just before 2am, and though it was really, really good to see them, we were all plum tuckered and sort of stumbled into hugs and then into bed.
The next morning wasn’t that better. Got up, stumbled into hugs… stumbled away due to morning breath… stumbled to the bathroom and eradicated it… stumbled back into hugs… to cars… to I-95.
The magic that my brain associates with I-70 doesn’t extend to I-95, which is comparatively short. It doesn’t seem that way while driving through North Carolina. Endless stretches of North Carolina… and whereas … actually, there really aren’t any “nice” stretches of I-95 – and I can almost say that completely confidently, having certainly driven almost all of it by now. Maybe that should be part of our mission sometime soon. Make sure we drive every inch of it, hunting for some scenic part of it, or perhaps merely settling for a portion that’s not under construction.
In any case, our destination for the day was the Dead Dog Saloon in Murrel’s Inlet, South Carolina. By the time we got there, shadows were long and the water was just a flat stretch of light and dark sines, exacerbated by unseen fish and tiny creatures and occassional frogs. We’d been invited down by Carrie Stone to be part of a Carolina Girls with Guitars event – not from Carolina. Not both girls. (Carrie says she excepts me cause of my hair) – but man we go over well with that crowd. Playing on the water, out in the open air – if the air had been about 10 degrees cooler it’d have been pretty close to idyllic. As it was, we played two short sets in between a bunch of other singer/songwriters. It’s a matter of pride that we held our own despite playing almost no covers and NOT availing ourselves of the night’s bass player or drummer.
By the end of the night though, our mood had kind of dampened. The end dredges of my cold had been exacerbated by the humidity and the tendrils of cigarette smoke, and I’d also been attacked by ants. I’d caught a frog, but I’d lost the frog and we didn’t have any CD sales to show for the night. Heading up US-17 towards Wilmington, it seemed we caught every red light there was to catch, and those monotonous amber tones are something that can bring me down like almost nothing else can.
We pulled into Deanne’s place at around 1am, contended with still more nervous dogs, and watched a Coheed and Cambria concert on television (me and Deanne’s roommate, Scott, kept arguing over what kind of bass the guy was playing – he votes Rickenbacker, I vote Spectre) before bedding down on the couches, at which point I think I totally failed to sleep.
In any case, at around 7am I finally decided to get up and get some writing chores done. (no, the Journal doesn’t count as a CHORE!!! – this is sheer joy!) Emails answered, maps checked, figure out where we’re going today. I’m accompanied by the noisy digestive sounds of a sleepy beagle and the rustling curiousity of some newly acquired avian friends. I discovered their beady little eyes peering at me as I was checking my email. Good morning good morning!
