Tyson's Buck Ford Tour: 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!