We hit the road Saturday afternoon, sat in extensive traffic on I-4 and then regrouped at a gas station in Lakeland after we all got separated in the chaos. We took a whopping three vehicles for this journey as our good friend Tiffany decided to make the trek to come have some fun as well. Doug and I have always joked about taking $5 after every show and spending it on scratch off lottery tickets in an attempt to double our money. Since we were 10 miles ahead of everyone else, we did just that. Since I have the worst luck in the entire world, I really shouldn't have been the one to scratch them, but that's just the way it goes. Out of 5 tickets, all I won was a free ticket. From that free ticket I won a dollar. When I went back into the gas station to redeem it, the aged lady naturally assumed I had a gambling problem and rather than give me the dollar, she gave me another ticket which quickly proved a bad decision since I didn't win anything. Better luck next time.
Once we finally made it Sarasota we checked into a Best Western hotel near the venue grabbed some food and then headed over to the venue which was completely empty and blasting booty-shakin' tunes. I grabbed a beer and chilled out with everyone else and waited for the sound guy to set up the stage. We were told we were opening the night, so we quickly loaded in and started soundchecking. In the middle of the line check, some girl ran up to me to say that she had spent a dollar on the jukebox and we had played over both her songs. She suggested we play the songs she had paid for as compensation. We didn't know the songs so I jokingly dedicated our set to her. I never did see her again. Perhaps she was offended.
We played a good 30 minute set on the tiny stage (and played well) then took some chairs for the second band called aNDY who were really quite good. They mixed some good old rock and roll with some unintentional stand up comedy. Good times. aNDY are good people and we hope to play some shows with them again in the near future. During their set, their energetic guitar player was jumping around like a mad man eventually losing his balance and crashing into his guitar amp and coming close to crashing through a window. Good times.
We were tired and looking forward to a good party so we cut out midway through the 3rd bands set (Sorry guys, we normally don't do that) and headed back to the hotel where we quickly realized that every plan we had to supplement fun was shot down. Couldn't hook up our videogames to the hotel TV, couldn't get any decent television stations, and the one dollar deck of playing cars JoAnna had purchased earlier in the evening turned out be made specifically for Pinochle and only had a quarter of the deck necessary to play any other game ever invented. We entertained oursevles with silly conversation, terrible jokes, and general mischeif which we won't get into just in case a representative from that Best Western happens to come by this blog. Bert had to work early in the morning the following day so took off for Orlando around 2am.
The night was plagued by a temperamental car alarm and sharing a bed with Doug didn't help me to fall asleep any quicker.
I awoke to find Douglas gone, and no money on the nightstand so I hunted him down via telephone only to find out he was just outside the door. Crafty fellow. After a quick breakfast stop at Bob Evan's we hopped back on the road to Orlando.
The high point of the drive home was pulling up behind a van that read "Jumbo: The Magic Clown" and upon pulling up alongside the vehicle we were greeted with a disgruntled looking fellow actually dressed up in clown garb. I'm telling you, it doesn't get much weirder than that.
Got home. Slept. All in all, a great experience. I'm sure you guys will see some crazy video from it all one day.
Next stop: Daytona Beach on Friday, April 14th.
_Wes
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