Road Trip

Summer is almost here and it reminds me of some great times in my life. But some of the most fun I've had during the summer months has been taking road trips. Back in July of 1999 the Counting Crows started a small Summer tour and the closest place they were playing to Nashville was Toledo, Ohio. The tickets went on sale just a few days before the show so I had to scramble to make arrangements for someone to cover me at work as well as a hotel room and transportation. Somehow I managed to secure all these things in about a day and a half. My friend Andy took the other ticket I purchased and we were set to go.

I borrowed my parents conversion van and on July 15th at around 11:30 pm we gassed up the van and hit the open highway. I'm here to tell you that the best way to drive through Kentucky is at night. There's hardly anyone on the road and you're not forced to look at the boring scenery. Just outside of Louisville we stopped to get something to eat. Of course we stopped at Waffle House. the locals took interest at the two of us simply because we were different. That was a long, uncomfortable meal. Once we were done we hit the road to Cincinnati. Since Cincy is only ninety miles from Louisville we figured it wouldn't take long to cross over into Ohio. That was the longest ninety miles I have ever driven. We finally crossed the river into Cincinnati just in time to see the sun rise. It was a beautiful site but damn were we tired.

A few hours later we were in central Ohio and starring at endless fields of corn. Ohio may be second on the list of boring scenery behind Kentucky. As we neared Toledo we expected to see the city soon. The signs kept counting down to Toledo but we weren't seeing any signs of an actual city. Finally at about three miles out we started to see something. Then we realized it was an industrial park, not a city. As we rounded said industrial park Toledo finally burst into view. Apparently Ohio has a different definition of what a city is.

For those of you who have never been to Toledo let me give you a visual. Their tallest building was about ten stories tall and the entire downtown area was little more than the size of East Nashville. That's right, Toledo is the size of a neighborhood.

We were actually staying outside of "the city" but we rolled through this sprawling metropolis to find the Toledo Zoo. They have a small amphitheater inside the zoo that seats about 1500 people. So after we found the Zoo and made a note of how to get there we headed to the hotel. Once we were checked in we discovered that we were in deed in Hell because the telephone prefix was 666. We slept for a few hours and then went to the concert.

I'll save you the details of the concert and our return trip, but there are a few things that really stand out about that trip. That was when I was first introduced to Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. That was also a few weeks before The Blair Witch Project came out and Andy had a a copy of the new Rolling Stone that featured an ad with a time line for the movie. I remember him reading the history points while we were in the middle of Kentucky and both of us getting a little freaked out by some of the stories. Probably the coolest thing we did that trip was to bootleg the show with a hand held tape recorder. I traded that tape with some other people around the country and copies of that recording that we made are still in circulation on message boards and on ebay. But most of all it was a good time with one of my best friends. Ten years later we still talk about that trip. It's great to think back on a time in my life when the biggest worry was if I was gonna get back home in time to get a couple hours sleep before I had to be back at work. That was a great trip and a great show. I think I'll listen to that show tonight.