First Overnight Trip Tonight

Fourth of July yesterday. I forgot to call my family today to see if they were gathering, to tell them Happy Fourth to tell them I was thinking of them. Even so, being surrounded by heat on this perfect, blue-sky-day, did trigger plenty of Texas memories of my grandparents and the extremely long parade in their home town where we would wait, cooking our bodies in the noon-time sun, just for either my uncle to ride by on horse back with the sheriff's department, or my cousin to throw us bubble gum from her softball teams float. I don't know if I'll ever sit through another Belton, Texas Fourth of July Parade, but maybe next year we'll canoe out onto town lake in Austin and watch the city's fireworks show displayed on the black sky above our heads.

We started our day yesterday in Portland, Maine, where Lyon had a gig. He played a rockabilly festival where the headlining act was Sleepy Labeef. This guy: http://cuthut.com/A2G. It was pretty sweet. I love Portland, it's so beautiful and seems like a great mix between young people, artists, rich people with second homes and crazy homeless people. After Lyon's set we took a break from the festival and hopped in the car to drive around Portland looking for high ground so we could watch the sun set. We made it. Pics later this week.

For now, it's 7:40am and our goal is to be on the road in 20 minutes. We're riding to October Mountain State Forest which is in Lee, Massachusetts, not far from Lyons parents. It's about 40 miles and the high today is 94 so we're hoping to get an early start. We'll set up camp and then somehow make it to Tanglewood to see James Taylor with Lyon's family. Then we'll head back to Northampton early morning.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Alice