Friday, July 13th 2007
Howdy everyone! It’s hard to believe that we’ve already gotten home and the week has flown by! We’ll be leaving out again this evening for Grundy, Va. Our last trip out was a little bit grueling, but it was also extremely pretty with all of the beautiful sights of Utah and Colorado.
I managed to keep “bloggage” notes on my phone as we traveled to capture moments, sights, ect. So here we go!

Wednesday, July 4th 2007
“4th of July in Ashland, KY!”

All I can say is that Ashland, KY. Really knows how to celebrate 4th of July and their fireworks were unbelievable!
This gig was extra special to us because we actually got to take some of our loved ones out on the road with us for the trip. So early that morning, we all met the bus at Trenna’s and made the 5 hour trip to Ashland, KY. It was so much fun having hubby’s and family on board with us. It isn’t very often that we get to do so, but when we do it’s so nice! Because so many times we’ll be out on the road and see something totally amazing and wish that our significant others, or kids could see it and share the moment. So it was really special to have our family out with us to share the 4th of July with.
We arrived at the venue and was working on getting soundcheck together when a huge storm started to roll in. We got in a little bit of a line check, until the wind started blowing furiously and causing the sound crew, electricians and us to scatter and take shelter. The immediately had to cover up all of the gear of both ours and Diamond Rio’s along with all of the speakers, soundboards ect. The rained poured and poured. No end in sight! We did still manage to do our radio interview with Scott of WKTC! It rained so much that there were 5 inches of standing water outside our bus door! You had to take a major leap to get off, and even then you still got your feet wet. The weather did clear and other than fool with our pre show meet and greet and take about 10 minutes off of our show, things ran smoothly. There was some drizzle off and on, but that didn’t stop us or our dedicated country music fans!
The fireworks happened shortly after and what a show they were! Diamond Rio took the stage afterwards and did a stellar show. Afterwards we got to hang out with lead singer Marty Row for a while.
We were then off to the hotel to get our showers and left Ashland around 2am.

Thursday, July 5th 2007 Travel Day

We rolled back into Nashville around 6:30am and we had to drop our loved ones and gear off back at the meeting point, Trenna’s house. We then had the bus take us out to the Nashville Airport to get ready to fly out to Salt Lake City, Utah. We did manage to get some breakfast at Cracker Barrel before hitting the airport. My fun moment came when we’d gotten off the bus to go into the airport and I’d realized that I’d left my cell phone plugged in on the bus in the lounge! My heart skipped a beat and panic struck me! I dropped everything I had in front of Eric’s feet and raced back down the escalator and back out the front doors of the airport. The bus was no longer out front where it had dropped us off! I then looked to my right and there it was, sitting at a red light just turning green about 50 yards away from me!
Now I’m quite the “gym visitor” , I go religiously every morning (except weekends and even then I’ll walk or run or something), but it immediately hit me that I’d been training seriously for this very moment that had awaited me! So I took off full tilt in pursuit of the bus. I figured that it would at least have to shift 4 to 5 times before it could get up some real speed from the light and leave me in the dust defeated. I ran like the wind and waved my hands furiously like a coach in a bad play call in a football game! Thank God the bus driver took a glance out his side mirror and spotted me! Jumping back on the bus I told him “I’ve been training 6 months for that.” He smiled, I grabbed my phone and “walked” back into the airport, hoping no one knew who I was.
We went about our way to Salt Lake City, Utah!

Friday, July 6th Layton, Utah
“Hot, hot, HOT!!!
We were in Layton, Utah and it was burning up! The West has been suffering major drought with no relief in sight.
Our day started off with some phone interviews and some down time. I took some time to go walk around a little bit and get some sushi for lunch. The temperature reached 110 degrees with little or no humidity.
We went and did sound check around 3pm and I could tell that the heat zapped my energy a little. Sound check went on for a little while longer than usual due to some gear problems, but we all pulled through. We went back to the hotel to get ready and cool off. I actually ended up snoozing for about 30 minutes.
On the way to our show, I saw a bank thermometer that read 104 degrees. This was at 7:30pm, 30 minutes prior to our outdoor show! We drank a lot of water and the eager crowd kept us charged up! We had the honor to meet Art Cameron, Brigadier General, USAF Commander of the 309th Maintenance wing of Hill AFB Utah! Thoughout our stay in Layton, I had the joy of watching F-16 fighters fly maneuvers over the city. I’ve always had a fascination for fighter jets and flying and I have always wanted to go up in one. Even before flying on the fiddle, I’d dreamed of becoming a fighter pilot. So needless to say, along with the other girls knowing this, we had to try to hit him up for a ride for moi! He couldn’t make it happen on this run, but said that perhaps next time if we come out and do a show for the base. Hook us up, secret agent man! Ha!
We also got to meet the mayor, Steve Curtis. Thank you all for having us and taking such great care of us out there! Thanks for driving us, Alice!

Saturday, July 7th
Travel to Meeker, CO. Show with Aaron Tippin

Today we loaded up the 15 passenger van with our coffee, gear and ourselves and headed out to Meeker, CO. to do a show with Aaron Tippin.
We traveled through the huge mountain passes, what a beautiful countryside and even though the temperature was soaring once again down in the valley, you could still see some snow on the mountaintops. It doesn’t seem like it’s that far up, but the snow proved differently.
We would love to come back to this area for a vacation (Skiing, snowboarding, glider rides ect.)!
Debbie got a kick out of all of the miles and miles of white fences and horses. There were a lot of gorgeous mountain homes with huge windows that supplied the owners with a panoramic view of the beauty around them.
We passed through many cute mountain towns, but also passed through many areas of huge stretches of land in which whomever lived there would’ve had to have been pretty self sufficient in order to survive.
We got into Meeker, CO. at 4pm. We dropped our gear off and had to run right to the venue for sound check. We ate some really nice home cooked food prior.
We had started doing our sound check when a lot of dark monsterous clouds started rolling in along with lighting. We immediately had to pull the plug, and that was a bummer because we were having issues with Becky’s backline keyboard. We had to run back to the hotel, change and come back for the show. It didn’t seem to rain much (bummer, since that area could really use it) and in spite of the rolling clouds and potential threats, the show went on. Once again, the crowd hung tough with us! Thanks!
Aaron Tippin went on not long afterwards and we got to watch his show. We were particularly intriqued by his performance of “Working Man’s PHD.” As the band started the song, he brought on stage a small work table, and a BMX bike in a box needing assembly. The man managed, while singing the song, to put together the whole bike within 3 minutes (by the end of the song)! We were stoked!
WE visited with Aaron for a short while, but had to be on our way shortly afterwards. We had an extremely long travel day back (7 hr van ride and then 7 hrs. of plane flights) and were exhausted.
We want to say thanks to Mc Kenzie of KEKB for having us, and a very special thanks to Janet Marcus with “Denver Snowy Western Wear” for all of the beautiful shirts and for the wonderful “Bling!” Your continued support means so much to us. We’ll being wearing that stuff a lot!

Sunday, July 8th
“Heading Home!”

We were off to the races early the next morning, with a lot of coffee and our comfy clothes, ready to spend the day traveling back. I will say that I was really tired and part of me really wanted to sleep the entire 7 hour van ride back. But the beautiful, breath taking sights kept me awake the whole time! I could easily wake up out here every morning with a hot cup of coffee and a camera to take pictures of the endless, exquisite scenery. I found myself trying to snap wonderous rolling mountains and landscapes with my ditsy little camera phone! D’oh! Debbie went on about owning horses, Kim was plugged into her computer listening to music, Eric drove like hell, Becky scanned the radio for signal and Trenna slept.
Another trip wrapping up and another book full of memories! Catch you again soon!