Whew! I am quite ready for winter to be over- especially after what happened in the last 2 weeks:

BAS was playing in Taos, NM 2 Saturdays ago. Our drive to the gig through the San Luis Valley was extraordinarily gorgeous. It was even more meaningful now that I am doing work to help save this valley from the insatiable appetite of the oil and gas companies.

Baca Wildlife Refuge Benefit Concert (Download PDF)

On our drive home in the middle of the night, it started to blizzard. Aaron was behind the wheel when our trailer caught a patch of ice; it fishtailed and sent our van crashing into the side of a mountain that fortunately was packed in 3 feet of snow. In the whiteout condition, we managed to flip the trailer back on its wheels and reattach it to the van and went on our way. Nobody was hurt. The shelfing unit was destroyed. The bass broke a bridge and there was minor damage to drum hardware and protective instrument cases. I took the wheel the rest of the way white-knuckling it through total blizzard condition until we hit Colorado Springs. A 5-hour tour turned into an 8-hour gauntlet.

Yesterday, as I was driving home from Austin, TX with the Hell Yeah Church Band, following our debut at SXSW, we got caught in a similar snow storm. Our windshield wiper quit somewhere between Raton NM and Trinidad CO making the drive even more treacherous. A 16-hour drive turned into 19 hours!

This transitional time of the year also brings with it the flu and all kinds of virus and yummy germs. Of the 8 years that I lived in Colorado, I have yet to experience a winter without catching a cold or even worse, getting hit by a stubborn virus, which happened to me 2 weeks ago.

I woke up one morning barely being able to open my left eye. It was angry red and swollen and felt like someone had poked it with an ice pick the night before. One week later, the swelling had gone down but the virus has decided to make my belly its playground next and proceeded to make my life completely miserable for yet another week as I lived in the bathroom. And of course, Ellen got it from me a day later and the both of us withdrew from society, lived on Campbell canned chicken noodle soup and wallowed in self-pity.

Mr. Spring, are you here yet?