Playing Catch Up: Duluth, Georgia

Ok so I've been really awful about keeping this thing current and have been sufficiently scolded for my shortcomings. This is my attempt at redemption.

We have Duluth, GA, Pittsburgh, PA, Glens Falls, NY, and Portland, ME to catch up on.

DULUTH, GA

After a rather enjoyable (to say the least....) final night in Bowling Green, Steve and I were up early to shove off for Duluth, GA. My one regret was not exploring the river and rock formations tucked away in the wood of the campground. Oh well, a rock's a rock when you're looking at someone else's pictures, right?

Ollie took me up on my offer of a ride to Duluth which helped the drive go by much quicker. We covered a broad range of conversational whatnots and bounced our backgrounds and philosophical hubub back and forth for a while.

At one point Steve totally left me hanging as he exited for fuel an hour and a half outside of Duluth (Duluth is about 20 mins outside of downtown Atlanta). Ollie and I got off at the next stop to get fuel and wait for Steve. I learned yet again that conversation and driving can yield retrospectively amusing results. Case in point, we exited and pulled up to the off ramp intersection to make a left hand turn. I checked both ways and proceeded out into the intersection.

At first, I was a bit perplexed by the look on Ollie's face until he said "Uh, you know you just went through a red light, right?". Oops.

Anyway, whatever. We managed to time our drive perfectly so that we would be right outside Atlanta in the midsts of their horrific Rush Hour. Brilliant. Atlanta on-ramps (which occur every freaking half mile it seemed) are two lanes. There is a traffic light for each lane that alternates between yellow and red at 2 second intervals. I suppose so every one takes there turn and "merges politely".

The arena we played at in Duluth brand spanking new and part of this ginormous freaking complex. It was nearly a mile of winding roads and parking lots from the entrance to behind the arena. Parking was a bit tight but tolerable.

I can't remember if we opened on a Thursday or a Friday. Whatever day it was, Nicole Feld (the show's Producer), visited along with the VP of Circus Operations to see how things were going.

It was a packed house and the band freaking rocked it. I'm pretty confident my job is safe for the time being.

One highlight of Duluth was meeting up with my friend Jen from high school. We were marching band dorks together and hadn't really kept in touch in the 10 years since high school. The management threw the show a BBQ party Saturday night to say 'thanks' for being patient when we were running away from Gustav post Biloxi and then had to go back to Jackson from Memphis for the shows. It was a swell time.

There was this extra trailer on the lot which belonged to these dudes from a 'drumming circus' or something....I never got the whole story. They looked like a cross between Dragon Ball Z characters and Rufio from Hook.



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Jen represented appropriately the next day at the show sporting a Steelers Jersey.

That night I met up an awesome songwriter, Measly, for my last night in town. We sampled each other's music and once again Chalk Outline Party got a legit and sincere two thumbs up. Her friend was seeing some dude who just moved there from Pittsburgh. As I found out, he also has a thing about constantly talking up Pittsburgh....so it's not just me.

After a fun night, I was more or less a Zombie the next morning for our 10:30am......yeah.....10:30AM Monday morning show. WTF? Anyway, we got through it and packed up for our 1000 mile + jaunt to Glens Falls, NY which any good child of the 80s would know as the hometown of Hacksaw Jim Duggan.



Hoooooooooooooooooooo!