Let me preface this by saying sorry to those at home. Sorry I'm not there. However, I'm here chronologing my current epic roadtrip. Usually I take a bud or two along with me (summerfest anyone?), but this trip I flew solo. First, props to my parents for letting me use the car for an "finite yet unspecified amount of time". New Years in Marathon County became a disaster, or was looking to be one, due to the massive amounts of people who were NOT around. Who knew if AJ was going to be back from Chicago... Eric and Ryan were going to go to Colby, and all the band kids were going to be in Flordia (high school that is) and the choir kids. Which left only a few people.
Meanwhile... My gf Gina was offering a new years party in MN. Now, she didn't promise anything special, but she'd be there which counts for something; being able to kiss your gf at midnight is worth it. So. I grabbed the honda, and headed out!
I got to Owatonna MN after 4 hours of driving. I left at 8, and stopped at 11:30 to find a church. Why find a church? Because if you can find a church... you can find a cafe/diner. And thats what I did. I turned off the main highway, in the middle of MN, and found the town of Elco, population under 2,000. I saw that church steaple, and I knew a bowl of the "soup of the day" was in the area. Sure enough, a quaint little diner right next to the church was there... open on new years day... tempting me in. So I walked in, and ordered a bowl of the soup of the day without looking at a menu. It happened to be beef barley. But the friendly waitress gave me FOUR packets of crackers! I was so happy!
They old man next to me was friendly too, we had a nice "good mornin' " exchange. And then I read the newspaper. It filled me up, and so then after about 45 minutes I got back on the road.
In Owatonna, Gina and I mostly just hung out. New Years was "fun", and Gina had a "good" time. We watched a bunch of movies, played some mario cart, and hung with her parents, which, while some boyfriends would shutter at spending time with the parents, was actually fun. They are pretty cool, and past their "protect their precious little girl from the evil boyfriend" phase. All their kids are in college, so they are more low key, and it didn't feel like an interview or anything.
On Saturday... the plan was for me to go to the twin cities, and hang out there for a few days, however, god intervened. First, he gave Liana a concussion, which took out my main tour-guide in the twin cities. THEN, god poured sleeting snow and rain down on the north. So traveling north wasn't really a good idea. And staying at Gina's... while I'm sure I could have, it didn't seem like a good idea. I can't stay forever.
BUT... I looked at a map, and I made some calls, and I realized the smarter option was to go to Madison! I could probably avoid the worst of the weather, and I needed to go to my house to get the neckplate for my guitar that I'm building that I foolishly left in Madison because I'm a dumb ass. Also, I want to back up my computer... its been a good 20 days now, and my HDD could fail at any moment. I do beat the shit out of this thing.
So my buddy Dan Collins is letting me crash at his place. I'm typing on an air mattress while facebook chatting w/Gina and listening to Chopin. Strange? Yes. Do I love it? Yes.
Tomorrow we might go to into Madison, grab a few instruments of mine at my house, and do some recording. That'd be a shitton of fun. I shall give you more updates as this trip becomes longer and longer.
Its been a nice trip so far... However, I need to increase the "epic" factor by about 25%. It'll happen. For example... trying to find houses w/out directions! Awesome, yes I know.
Thanks from the road,
Guthrie
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