Oh damn. Here comes the rain. Scratch that. The rain hath cometh. And it brings with it the feeling of retribution. The skies have been holding it for a long, long time and they are NOT going to hold it any longer! I mean – this is like fucking end-time deluge.
I’m grateful to Kristen for keeping us on the road. We’re visiting with our friends out in Huntly, VA and we are distant from any of the electromagnetic semblances of technology – cut off from the world by the ways of wifi and cell signal, and I’m glad to see that our hosts are making it! It’s actually one of those places where if we had to call for hope we … couldn’t.
By the time we’d made multiple trips back and forth from the car into the house we were soaked and our stuff was soaked. The front carpet was soaked. I’d slipped in the mud and scraped up my palms and was DOUBLE soaked. There could at least have been the drama of thunder and lightning, but even that small dignity was held back. It was just cold and very, very wet. Once we were settled we stripped out of clinging wet clothes and changed intro ANYTHING that was dry (this later led to a friend’s finally realizing I was colourblind). Later, as we sit around hot homemade soup, snapping up stink bugs with a bugzooka (I WANT ONE!!) and chatting, it’s all worthwhile, but I must admit there were moments there when I was afraid we were going to have to drive the Hell out of rural Virginia and find ourselves some civilization.
As if to give credence to my concerns our hosts were late because they were worried the river was rising enough to cause flooding at their bakery and moved lots of stuff around. Later, as we were chilling out with some Firefly in the dark, one of our friends FRIENDS came by to wait out the storm since all his paths home were flooded. An hour later one of his family members came out to lead him through drivable shallows.
Today it’s grey with post-storm calmness. Clouds are rolling off the mountains and all the beauty of the landscape that was invisible to us in the cold and the wet is now starkly visible. Grey, low-lingering clouds give the place the soul of a Scottish cottage and I can finally appreciate what’s beloved about being out here. From here we drive to Front Royal and then on to Greensburg where we’ll finally meet back up with Heather for a show at our beloved Pittsburgh University at Greensburg. Tomorrow night we play one last show and then, well after 2am, we’ll be back in our own beds again. I think I’m ready.
We’ve come all this way north just to head west again, but I’ve got no complaints. It looks like we’re on the peripheral of Hurricane Joaquin’s influence and storm-shredded clouds surround us. Sharply delineated swaths of sunlight scythe through the mountains around us and if cattle we cats that’d be racing to these short-Lived, fast-paced patches of gold. The sun is setting ahead of us and Heather’s ahead of us too – we meet in Greensburg, PA and a rocking we shall go.
In Bedford, PA there is a Coverlet Museum. I’m curious, but not $10 a head curious. I keep getting reminded that we’re back home and that gas prices have crept up 60 cents on the gallon in the past 500 miles. I keep getting reminded that I’m colourblind and as my autumn-hungry self excitedly remarks on having come some 500 miles north, pointing out gold and red signs of the coming fall, Kristen repeatedly has to let me down easy “no honey, those are green. And those are green too. I think that one’s just dead.”
Sigh. Halloween decorations are thick in the neighbourhoods and Christmas sales are beginning to poke their frosty heads up. We even watched a Christmas movie a couple of nights ago. Rare Exports. I don’t recommend it. The short film that inspired it? Yes. See that.
Just over an hour out. Driving on into the setting sun.
Kristen just pointed out “exciting tree colours”. They look green to me. Sigh.
ANIMAL LIST FROM THIS TOUR!!!
For whatever reason this last run has included a LOT of fauna. That alone will make the last big trip of 2015 pretty damned memorable, even without finally playing in Florida and our first visit to San Antonio. Since I don’t BELIEVE the Kunklebunker contains any animalia, I think it’s safe to go ahead and tally:
3 toads
1 frog
7 Corgis
1 bald doberman
24 cats
5 kittens
2 very fuzzy caterpillars
2 chickens
3 parrots
3 goats
1 minpug1 baby possum (by association)
1 fish
6 dogs1 African Barkless Dog
a BILLION LIZARDS
and three giant grasshoppers
3 alligators
1 frightening beetle
7 children
1 SNAPE!!!
