My Golly! Montgomery!

Here's a time on the road trick: simplify your food order. If the establishment serves a BLT, don't mess around. I've been work shopping this in my head all day and have this to offer:
There are only two ways to mess up the BLT. 1- bread that has nuts in it. It's disappointing. 2- forgetting to make the BLT.
I mean... that's it.
Last night we played The Alley in Old Timey Montgomery. In this establishment, you can put on one of the provided fur coats, walk into the freezer room and take a drink from a glass made of ice. Then you throw your ice glass at the wall and it shatters and Lera looks at you through the window with eyes full of disappointment. And then later when she wants to do it, they're out of ice glasses and only have the stupid plastic shot glasses and you just laugh and laugh and laugh.
And Lera. Doing video interviews about being a girl.
It's good. All of this. This is a good report. Heading north. Interstate 85.

Oh! And Ck learned how to drive!

And of course I'm combin Ol' Gomery's pool over here boss.

It's like you get your own bed if you have the same name as the person you share it with.

OoOo LaLa CK!!!  Driving a car!!!!

Me? Carbondale. By way of Paducah.

Carbondale, Illinois.
I like to say Carbondale the way I imagine the barkeep in a Mark Twain book would sound.  "Carbondale?  Me?  No.  You can take a look at them books, but no sir.  The discrepancy is mostly due to my hobby as a beesmen and of course my... untraditional earnings.  Union dollars." said the barkeep to Huck.
-Mark Twain
Illinois.  The land of Lincoln.  My home state.  Last night at the Hangar 9... four Bens played on stage.  Lydia Loveless bass player, Ben.  Hackensaw Boys bass player Ben.  Me bass player and Bennet Lewis on lead guitar (Lera Lynn).
Thoughts about the Quality Inn in Carbondale-  Obvious knife holes in the drapes.  A very liberal use of the word "bed."  Broken clock doesn't help pass time.  Lighting gear left after obvious "illegal" video shoot.  BUT- breakfast waffle iron present.  It's also a good place for a late night mustache party.
Team Lera Lynn just invested in a white board so we can communicate with other road travelers and truckers.  Initial response from Truckers: negative.  I guess as a group they lack a sense of humor.  Cars people though, they love it.  

I'm doing a Dali thing.  Lera- the Gomez.

Bens doing a Charlie Chaplin/ Michael Jordan thing.  Not an Adolf.

Keep on truckin'.

See you in Montgomery.

Louisville Slugger

Louisville.  Louisville.  Home of the baseball bat.
As a general rule, second blogs are hard to write.
On February 17, 2012, Ben Lewis became employee of the month at the Louisville, Kentucky Hampton Inn, which is brag worthy considering we were in Louisville, Kentucky for only two hours before he earned this much coveted title.  Best part about it- employee of the month gets to park right up front in a secure parking spot, which was nice when your vehicle is full of music equipment.
Side note, the Hampton Inn has a make your own waffle bar in the morning.
Made a new friend at the Red Roof Inn before Hotels.com messed up our order and sent us to Hampton.  Good for us.  Would have put her on the guest list, but her shift didn't end until 1AM.
The thing about Louisville, Kentucky is that as wonderful as it is... my heart still belongs in Bloomington. I wonder what all those kids are doing now... probably picking apples and makin' pies.  Smokin' hand rolled cigarettes and havin' them a picnic. Fishin' with cain poles and pretty much everything else they do in Mayberry. Fife.

pictured: Ben, Ben and CK (Gomer Pyle).

not pictured: Lera Lynn

pictured: Lera Lynn

pictured: Employee of the Month (Feb. 2012) Bennet Lewis

Bloomvegas

This is the first blog entry.

Bloomington, Indiana.  I think you're great.  I do however suggest that you print a shirt with your name on it so that I can wear one every day and think about my new favorite city.  I mean seriously.  I looked in like, four different stores.  I'm not going to buy/wear/support hoosier clothing...  but a Bloomington shirt... Yes.
I digress... Bloomington.  It's like Bizzaro world.  It's exactly Athens, Georgia but new to me.  It's great.   As said in Chester A. Arthurs' autobiography, "Bloomington is pretty much exactly like Athens with more options for Italian American cuisine and Thai food."
Another difference, Bloomington gets more expensive as the week progresses while Athens is just always cheap.  $2 Tues. 3$ Thurs. and I can only assume $4 Friday.  Oh, and girl I met with tattoo pants had never had PBR!  What!?!?!?!  She looked like Cheetarah. ThunderCats.
Like Athens, the good people of Bloomington, Indiana love buying shots for strangers and inviting said strangers to sleep at their homes.  Good people.  Salt of the earth.
Bloomington, Indiana is also home to my new favorite band The Calumet Reel.  Four part harmonies and Country music Johnny Greenwood crazy guitar awesomeness.  I mean... how could that possibly miss?  They were great, and helped with a great turnout of folks.
I saw a submarine yesterday.  An assortment of large wheels.  We almost got killed by a dude who didn't fasten his sheet metal properly for transporting. 

Ben's Driving.  Lera's sleeping.  I'm shotgun.  Pretty sure Ck's back there somewhere.

I65 South to Louisville.