Saturday, July 14th gig in Grundy, VA. Opening for Trent Tomlinson

Hi there! We left Nashville last night around midnight. It’s so nice to be back on the bus again after such a busy week.
Today we’re in Grundy, VA. We awoke to surrounding hills and the bus parked in a small valley in the town. It made me miss my West Virginia hills! We had a few rooms at the comfort inn, and the interesting thing about this hotel was that they had the cutest little rubber duckies sitting on the bathtubs of the rooms.
What an interestingly cute thing to wake up and arrive to. This was extremely adorable compared to some of the other places that we’ve found ourselves staying at (places with bullet holes in the windows, huge menacing bugs, over all creepiness etc….)

Sometimes, while out on the road, (and it may be due to boredom), but being cooped up on a 45 foot bus rolling down the road, fatigue that plays with your head, leading to extreme slap happiness or just for the hell of it, you do things for basic entertainment at the expense of someone else, just to get a rise out of them.
Trenna and I were the first to get back on the bus after cleaning up for the gig. We tend to be the two that cause the most ruckus and practical jokes on the road. She came up to me giggling with that devious grin on her face hiding something behind her back to surprise me with. I wasn’t sure what to expect! She had went to the store and bought of all things: a whoopee cushion! The feeling of deviousness and sheer joy came over me and we immediately realized that we had to plant it somewhere before everyone else came on board! Quickly, we scrambled around the front lounge of the bus trying to think of a perfect most “effective” place to hide it. We placed it under one of the seat cushions (which was a little bit hard because they’re attached to wood) and waited. The first place we put it is where Eric, our road manager, tends to sit a lot and wouldn’t you know it, he was the first one to come on board. We sat down out of the way of the planted prank and patiently waited for Eric to sit down in his usual spot. Trenna started suggesting to Eric to “Take a seat,” “Stay a while,” “Take a load off,” etc. The anticipation was killing us! In the middle of his usual rundown of the day, he did take a seat, however instead of getting the huge sound of sick flatulence that we’d so longed, hoped and prepared for, instead we received a little “Poot,” that was barely heard and totally unnoticed. We frowned as we were unsuccessful in our venture for entertainment, but that didn’t stop us there! If anything, it drove us even more to get that perfect whoopee cushion performance, and someone’s hind end was going to make it happen!
As everyone else started coming on board the bus, we desperately tried to secretly hide it in a more “strategic spot”.
One strategic spot was on an area of the couch right next to me. Our next victim was Debbie. She lugged her suitcase on board and came up to the front. Once again, Trenna having a harder time keeping a straight face, urged Debbie to “Take a seat,” “Make yourself comfortable.” Debbie did, right where we’d placed the cushion and still……. no luck!! The bus was starting to roll, and still we secretly tried to stash it somewhere! We tried it on Debbie several times, -I was getting more entertainment out of Trenna’s reactions to the failure of the whoopee cushion and her various ways to distract Debbie so I could replant it, than the actual cushion itself! Our laughter gave us up and the lot was uncovered. The whoopee cushion met its fate less than an hour later when Trenna sat on it on top of the bus table, blowing a hole in it. It sounded like a car backfiring! The end result; a very flat and dead whoopee cushion. Ha, ha I’m laughing with tears in my eyes right now.

We took the bus up to the venue. The roads were really windy and narrow. They were so windy and narrow, that a small pickup truck from the fire dept. had to take the lead and as we made our way up and around the hills, and had to urge on coming cars to pull over to allow room for us to maneuver the bus. It was very pretty though, and once again I missed home.

When we got there, we walked around the fair. We got to go through a funhouse, go down a huge slide, and go into a haunted house. We then got to have some really good catering!

We did our show and had a great time and Trent Tomlinson rocked the house. We’re now heading back to the hotel for showers and will meet back with the bus and get some sleep. We’ll get back to Nashville in the morning!