Chapter 11 - THE DAY OFF
We'd
done three concerts in a row and now, here we were in Philadelphia
and it was our first day off, a beautiful day. Would we use
this day in the City of Brotherly Love to sightsee or maybe
to catch an afternoon movie followed by an early dinner? Of
course not! We were going to do something really different.
We were going to spend our first day off driving 539 miles
to Dayton, Ohio. It was pretty clear that I was about to leave
a firm and possibly permanent imprint of my butt in The
Chair.
This
was going to be our first long drive and considering what
was to come later in the tour, it really wasn't that bad.
Besides, we really didn't have much of a choice. We had a
concert in Dayton the next evening and we certainly didn't
want to drive that kind of distance and then jump off the
bus and do a show unless we absolutely had to. At least, not
today! Of course, that scenario would come later in the tour.
But that's another story.
Once
we were all loaded onto the bus, we hit the highway. 'Jeff
the Invincible' was behind the wheel with a giganto-grandé
sized café latté from Starbucks, he had AC/DC
blasting on his headphones and he was ready to rock'n'roll.
We were heading into the realm of "Roadzilla" where
road rules take over and the road begins to blur one day into
another. In fact, I already had to check my road bible to
see what day of the week it was.
This
was when the road mode really started to phase in. We were
now living in a microcosmic situation and life necessarily
had to change to adapt to our new traveling circus environment.
Everything is so focused on the next gig that you soon forget
where you were the day before. All you need to know is contained
in your road bible -- when you leave, where you're going and
where you're going to stay when you get there, along with
all sorts of other pertinent information, like how late room
service is available, where's the nearest laundry, where's
the nearest Starbucks, contact numbers for E-mail, etc., etc.
The
next few days were a good example of Roadzilla! After the
show in Dayton, we would leave immediately and do a night
drive to Indianapolis, sleep in, grab a late lunch, then go
to sound check, have dinner, wait, do the show and start the
whole process all over again. Except the next destination
was Hilton Head, South Carolina. Now, since Hilton Head was
approximately 773 miles away from Indianapolis, that meant
we would have to leave immediately after the show and travel
all night just to get there by noon the next day. And of course,
this required us to travel on, you guessed it, our day off
!
All
was not lost though. We still had half a day off, enough time
for a light lunch and a short nap, followed by a late dinner
with the guys and a wonderful night's sleep. As I fell into
bed, it was nice to know there was no travel tomorrow and
I could sleep in. It was also nice to be in a bed that wasn't
moving!