3/25-3/31 Nashville, TN

   Sorry I'm getting so behind! It's been pretty crazy lately, hours upon hours of driving not only between states, but from show to show within those states along with internet issues at the hotels. Ok, here's what happened these past few days. Immediately after our show in Farmington, we drove three hours West to Albuquerque to drop off Buck at the airport. Buck had to be in Nashville by Monday morning so he had to fly there. From Albuquerque the rest of us took turns driving a total of twenty-three hours. Well, actually we drove about twenty hours to Memphis where we stayed at a hotel for the night then drove the rest of the way on Monday. We met up with Buck at the recording studio where we watched him record vocals and the studio musicians record their parts. Reba McEntire's drummer and Easton Corbin's guitar player were only a few of the great musicians that recorded on the new album. We got the rough cut back to listen to and it already sounds great without being mastered yet.

This room is for recording vocals, the other room is

much bigger. This is after the studio musicians finished their parts.

   We played a few nights during the week at The National Underground and Honky Tonk Central. Both are new bars on music row and are pretty nice places. Honky Tonk Central I believe is owned by the same person that owns the famous Tooties Orchad Lounge famous for many big country artists in the past such as George Jones, Patsy Cline, and others. It was great to finally see all the historic places that so many of the country singers I look up to have played and to see artifacts they have signed and hung on the walls.

 The Ernest Tubb Record Shop on Music Row

 Tootsies Orchid Lounge on Music Row

Walked from the studio to Music Row one day. It seemed

much shorter distance when we drove in the truck.



 Honky Tonk Central 3rd Floor

Randy, Buck, and I before playing Honky Tonk Central

   I got to meet up with a good friend of mine, JD Myers who I met a few years ago at the Hemet Elks Bluegrass Festival. I kept telling him one day I was going to go visit him and it was pretty funny meeting up with him and his wife Mandy. We played the same time on the same night so neither of us got to see each other play, but we did get to meet for dinner afterwards and hang out a bit before they drove me back to my hotel on their way home.

Hanging out with JD Myers and his wife Mandy

   Another highlight of the trip was getting to play fiddle with Kristy O. If you don't know who she is you should check her out. She's probably most well known for writing the song "Cheater Cheater" recorded by Joey + Rory. I met her during Thanksgiving when I entered a song writers contest at Stoney's Inn in Sacramento, she was the industry special guest that night. She just so happens to be a good friend of Justin, Buck's drummer. We went to her show one night and she pulled me up on stage, handed over her fiddle and wireless pack and had me play with her band while she grabbed a banjo and played along. I had so much fun playing with her band that night for a few songs.

Playing with Kristy O and her band





3/20-3/24 Farmington, New Mexico

     We drove about four hours from Albuquerque to Farmington , NM where we played at the Top Deck, a club in the area. We arrived at the club and waited around for a few hours until somebody showed up (the owner answered our first call, said he would call us back, then wouldn't answer again). We played catch with a football in the parking lot, searched for lost jewelry and money, and checked out some local drunks before the paramedics hauled them off.

Our drive from Albuquerque to Farmington

How they cure a hangover in Farmington...kidding they were still drunk

   The first couple nights were kinda slow at the club there in Farmington but it picked up later in the week towards the weekend which is pretty normal. I had a really great time hanging out with my dad and his new wife Najayyah. We had so much fun driving around, showing me the town, learning more about my dads side of the family, and cooking. We went and checked out a tack shop there in Bloomfield called Quien Sabe and they had a bunch of the things I'm into from the Buckaroo style riding and cowboys of the Nevada, Oregon, Idaho, and California regions so we picked up a couple documentaries and looked around.

My dads donkey "Gypsy"

Lunch with dad in Durango, CO

 

   Top Deck

Top Deck

      Durango, Colorado is only forty-five minutes from Farmington so on one of my days off, my dad drove me up there so I could finally get to see the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad which I've wanted to see since I was a kid. It was so great to be around steam locomotives again, it's been a few years since I ran live steam down in southern california. When I used to drive the stagecoach at Knott's Berry Farm, we had one of the sister engines there to two of the engines still used on the D&SNG so getting to see engines 41 and 42 was really cool. We checked out the museum, talked with a few train crew members (this is not a volunteer railroad, it's privately owned fully operational railroad with paid employees), climbed aboard a few of the engines and old cars many of them over one hundred years old.

3/10-3/19 Pinetop, AZ/ Albuquerque, NM

     Sorry, it's been awhile since I updated this thing. From Reno, NV we all went home for a few days off before really hitting the road. We all met up at Buck's place and drove ten hours down to Imperial Valley, CA where we played a George Strait tribute at their mid-winter fair. We had a great time playing for a ton of country fans who knew their George Strait songs! My mom and her husband Eric drove down to the show so it was really great getting to see them again, too bad they couldn't bring my dog though!

Buck, Mom, and I on stage in Imperial Valley, CA

   From Imperial Valley we drove eight hours to Pinetop, AZ and played for five nights at the Hon-Dah Casino which is operated by the White Mountain Apache tribe. It was a little slow the first few nights and there was absolutely nothing to do at that place, but the last two nights picked up a little bit (fri/sat). They don't allow the bands to drink during or eight hours prior to their shows so it made for a boring day especially because this town literally had nothing to do, almost every cafe/restaurant was closed up and the only thing to really do was to walk around Walmart or try to pet the wild dogs hanging around the parking lot. We BBQ'd one day in the parking lot and another day we drove to Cooley Lake and had a BBQ there which was beautiful; the weather was about 70 degrees that day with some snow left, but very sunny. Overall it was pretty cold most of the time there.

  Our wild dog friend "White Fang". He likes tri-tip...

St. Patrick's Day in Pinetop, AZ

 Friday night was interesting, met some Apache folks that came to our show and they convinced me to hop in the truck with them and go to the bar in town...I made it back alive, but that's all I'll say about that decision. Sunday morning we left at 9AM and a bad snow storm hit the town just as we were leaving, we barely made it out in time. The rig, truck, and trailer did plenty of sliding down the mountain (7,000 ft elevation) and had a couple close calls, but we made it. We did have to pull over a few times because the windshield wiper blade on the rig broke so we jimmy rigged that on a few times. We stopped in at a local cafe in New Mexico about 35 miles from I-40 to eat where we found out that I-40 had been closed due to the bad snow storm. Finally got back on the road after an amazing breakfast and within an hour we had hit snow, rain, and straight into a dust storm just before getting into Albuquerque.

Just before the storm got bad leaving Pinetop, AZ

Buck standing in front of the truck when we stopped

for breakfast when I-40 closed down for a couple hours.

The ice covered the front so well that you could barely

hear the horn blow standing right in front of it.









3/1-3/2012 Grand Sierra Resort- Reno,NV

     What a weekend! We played four nights at Mustangs Saloon at the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno. Spent a lot of time during the day in my hotel room practicing for 4-5 hours trying to learn all these songs. It kinda reminded me of music camp with Rosanne years ago, so glad I learned back then to stay focused and work on songs repetitively to ingrain them in my mind so that they will (hopefully) come second nature when it comes time to play them on stage. Each night I felt a little more confident in the fiddle parts and by the last night (saturday), I was having even more fun playing with Buck and the gang. The more relaxed I am about it the easier it is to get the parts right, seems like the more I think about it the more I screw it up so Buck telling me to just have fun up there was good.


    The last two nights I didn't go to bed until 6:30am with the sun rising, it was a crazy few days to say the least. I've never really done the casino/reno/vegas thing so I was out to make it count. I had about ten of my friends show up from the Sacramento area which was really cool. My friend who I'm staying with in Loomis and her parents came. I was glad to see them, her parents are big Buck Ford fans and it meant a lot to me that they came out. Couple friends from Quincy came too that i haven't seen in awhile. It's been awhile since this particular group got together and tore it up, I think the last time we were all together was last year at Greenhorn Creek Ranch during the FRC Tough Enough To Wear Pink rodeo. Wouldn't trade the memories we make for the world, even the ones we only remember when we look at the cameras the next day.


   Today we all went to a buffet breakfast after checking out of our rooms then the long windy drive back home through the sierras to Loomis for a couple days off before we really head out on the road with the band. As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing that better shows God's true beauty in his creations than the Sierra Nevada mountains. There was still a lot of snow although the roads had already been cleared and it's starting to warm up. It was cool going over Donner Pass and seeing the old snow sheds that were built to keep the tracks of the first transcontinental railroad clear of snow (the plows couldn't keep up with the harsh winters of the sierras). The snow sheds were built between 1865-1869 when the central pacific railroad from Sacramento started building it's lines to the east where they met in Promontory Point, Utah where they drove in the infamous golden spike. One section of snow sheds was 30 miles in length and eventually when steam locomotives became bigger and more powerful, creating more exhaust, they had to design a locomotive with the cab in the front because the crew would asphyxiate from the build up of exhaust in the sheds. It's a pretty amazing thing to see these snow sheds covered in snow knowing they were built 150 years ago by hand and how so many lives were lost in building the rail system that would connect the west to the rest of the country.


   Buck and the band are off for a few days now, we will meet at his place on Thursday to rehearse for a day then heading down to the Imperial County Fair to play a George Strait tribute. I think a few folks from home are going to be there so that'll be nice to see them again. Just a couple more days until we're on the road for two and a half months! Sure miss my beagle though, I hope she doesn't think I forgot about her or abandoned her. When the tour is over and I get a job up here and my own place I'll be able to bring her up here with me. Ok that's all for now, have a great week everybody!

Buck Ford Pure Country Band

 Buck Ford Pure Country Band

 Buck Ford Pure Country Band

 Buck and I after the show

 Sarah and I, she's a champ

 Karley and her boyfriend Jacob came down too.

She's a big Buck Ford fan.

 Somebody thought tequila was a good idea.

 Jordan thinks tequila was a bad idea.

He's a horse shoer buddy of mine, haven't seen

him since last year, always a good time charlie

 "I've got friends in low places..."

   Just can't keep these guys off horses.

2/29/2012 Grand Sierra Resort- Reno, NV

     Hey guys! Just got done checking in at the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno, NV. We got our rooms, loaded instruments and equipment into Mustangs Saloon and Dancehall downstairs where we'll be playing the next four nights, and getting settled in. Ran to Walmart and got food to keep in the rooms because buying food here is way too expensive. I went for the $.92 Mac 'n Cheese and sandwich stuff...and don't worry Tony and Fred I got Miller Light too.

      The trip here was pretty interesting going over Highway 80 and Donner Pass. There was about 20-25" of snow and a few places had a white out so it took awhile driving here at 40 mph through the Sierras but we made it without any problems with the F-450 dually in 4WH.
The rooms here are really nice, nicer than anything I've ever stayed in. I'll post a few photos. My window over looks the pool (creeper? sure why not), planes landing at Reno, and also the snow covered Sierras. We each get our own room too which I wasn't expecting. Our rooms are mini suites so we have a fridge/freezer, microwave, chairs, desk, big flat screen tv, marble bathrooms, pretty cool.

     So far I've had a pretty good time. Buck took me out with some of his friends the other night after we rehearsed a few songs, went to BJ's then drove around, went to Walmart, had a good time. Him and his family/friends have been really cool and I've been staying at his place the past few days so I don't have to drive back and forth all over with that truck. Pretty cool that they've been helping me out so much with music and a place to stay, it's especially nice when you're 400 miles from home and everything is going 100mph, so much going on in just a short time.

     We played at the Gold Country Casino in Oroville last week which was fun. Buck's fiddler Ronnie helped me get through some of the songs and teaching me the specific licks that needed to be in some of the songs, especially the George Strait stuff since we'll be doing a George Strait tribute in Imperial next week. Last night I played by myself with them for the first time at Strike's in Elk Grove which was fun. Miranda, Aubrey, Sarah, and Jason all came to that one so it was nice seeing my friends and feeling more comfortable and relaxed. So much to learn in such a short time so I'm kinda stressing about it but all I can do is my best and hope I don't let them down.

     Well I'm going to run downstairs and steal some forks from one of the food places down there so I can eat my 92 cent Mac 'n Cheese. I'll let you guys know how the week is going and keep you posted throughout the tour. Thanks for all your thoughts, prayers, and words of encouragement, I appreciate every one of them. It's a big leap for me so I'm trying to just have fun with it and not stress about it too much, just enough to get me in gear and learn the stuff.