Highways and Hotels

The worst thing about being a writer is that the things that happen in life that you want to write about are most often the times that words simply can’t express. And while it’s kind of a “had to be there” kind of a thing, I hope I can still explain the last week of my life to you in an interesting way..

Can’t believe these last few days have been only DAYS. Feels like a year instead of a week. First week of touring with HotChelleRae, an amazing band and friends of mine that I’ve known for years. The tour manager Britton and I drove the van from Nashville up to New York and met the band boys at the airport after their mini-tour in Australia. :)

Then we got started on one of the craziest rides I’ve (we’ve) ever put myself (ourselves) onto.. Warped Tour. I’ve done similar things, for a day or even a week out of the summer, but never to an extent like this. I don’t know that I’d go and say it’s absolutely awfully hard work all the time, it’s fairly simple, just the conditions are not always favorable. The hot, sunny weather we’ve had every day has been unforgiving. Finding the right stage and getting the gear and the merch to it every morning hasn’t always been easy, in some cities it’s purely super-human strength pushing me from somewhere beyond. :P The days are long at each festival, and the nights are long getting to the next city on the list.

In fact, as I write this, we are in the van on the way to Florida (and probably as I post this, sitting in the hotel in St. Petersburg..) after our show this morning in North Carolina. Last night I pulled an all-nighter, choosing to give up the 3 hours we actually had at the hotel to sleep, for me to use instead on doing merch paperwork, editing pictures, and visiting the swimming pool. ;) The night before last, I got about an hour of sleep after getting everything done for the next day. “Sleep deprivation” doesn’t really begin to say it all. The band is toughing it out too, half of them being sick, and all of us just trying our best to enjoy what we can, since it’s what we all want to be doing, and make it though the parts we hate, because it’s just part of the ride.

And the ride has been amazing so far. Funny to think that my first week of being 24 is crazier than my whole year as a 23 year old. I’ve met some great new friends and bands on the tour so far, enjoyed getting to know some friends again from years gone by, seen some cool things I never have before, and just having good times with the band. There certainly are enough times that have us at the end of our ropes, wanting to either pull our hair out or just drop and lay face down and out. But I think the hardest part is over, which is breaking into the mold of figuring out WHEN the hard parts are STILL gonna come, since they will, and learning how to deal with them. You really toughen up quick on tour and learn a lot about yourself and what your limits are.

So let’s see what the rest of this tour will bring along with it. And with only an hour of the last 2 days being spent on sleep (yeah, you’d better believe that just before writing this blog, I spent about 2 hours writing a rambling story about a man who went into ‘cloud-watching’ because 3 colorful cloud creatures promised him 3 things to benefit his life. Haha. Don’t know if I’ll be posting THAT one..) I think it’s about time I call it a night and use the few hours we have at this hotel to get in some good dreaming, before I have to wake up.. and realize that lots of my dreams have already come true..