I woke up at 2:30 this morning in a motel along Route 66 in Gallup, New Mexico, with this line going through my head – ‘Our love ran hot and cold/ like the window unit in a cheap motel.’
It might help to say this was after a late night of red chili enchiladas and more than a few Margaritas, helped along by some good Irish whiskey when we got back to the room. We’d shared the dining room earlier with a half dozen bikers in tattoos and colors, boots (with spurs) and impeccable German/ Dutch accents, having traveled from Europe to rent Harley hogs for a 3,000 mile ride down Route 66 and through the American West.
Ain’t life grand?
Now, having unloaded our bags into a little B and B in Mesa Verde with the snow-capped Rockies just outside the door and a chance of snow overnight, still full from Navajo tacos we got at a little spot in Mexican Water, New Mexico, I had a few minutes to think about this.
We played a gig in Panama City, Florida, last week. Next thing you know we were eating Texas Red BBQ at Rudy’s in San Antonio then on to Boerne, Texas, went to a Johnny Clegg concert in Albuquerque and now we’re in Colorado. Next week we’ll be home long enough to put our things together before we leave to play at the Florida Folk Festival in White Springs over Memorial Weekend.
Our own mini-concert event, Maggie’s Farm, is under serious construction at our seven-acre farm in the Florida Panhandle and our new studio is complete. By Earth Day next year, Lucky Mud will be hosting a regular Barn Concert at the house, replacing the once-monthly home music series we began two years ago.
The thing is, time flies. Music has a way of lifting us, holding us up even when we think we’re too busy, too distant from it.
Without a passion we’re carried along by the wind, I think. Whether it’s playing, or listening to music, it’s my salvation far more often than my undoing.
This last week and the next, our first vacation in over fifteen years where we weren’t gigging – didn’t even take a guitar – has been dust storms and boot shops and great little restaurants and everything from the Petroglyphs to Canyon de Chelly to a side trip through Roswell, New Mexico, to tour the UFO museum where I got some great new stickers for my guitar case.
Freight trains, bowls of posole, wonderful people all along the route, that’s what I’ll remember.
I’ll say it once again….it’s music that brought us here. It’s music that opens doors.
