Florida

Hoo boy. We slept overnight in the parking lot of the Village Tavern in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, then woke up and started the 310-mile trek to Gainesville. We drove our asses off that day because the show started at 6 and decided that 200-250 miles a day is our cutoff for the next tour. Too much driving just to get somewhere and unload stuff and play right away is sort of a bummer. We did stop at this cute little fruit stand to get some citrus and Trixie met her brother from another mother. He was kinda shy though so I didn't get a great shot.

We pulled in to the Kickin Devil around 430 and Alex's uncle Todd had just pulled up. He was the one that helped us set up the show, and he and his son Spencer helped us unload everything and bring it in. Alex decided to hang out for a while since nobody was really there and he thought he was going to play until around 8 or 9 before the blues society's open jam night. So we had about half hour of chill time, then the wardrobe change and setting up. Oh! And Bo Diddley's saxophone player, Nick Savage, called Alex up before the show and said he was really excited to come to the show that night! Woah! So Alex asked him if he'd like to sit in, how cool is that???

Todd and his buddy Ron were super into it!

Alex started around 530 and at about 615 the owner showed up and told Alex he'd have to stop at 630 because the blues society jam started at 7. The blues jam dudes were super rude and passive aggressive and they started setting up on stage while Alex was still playing.  While Alex was tearing down, one guy kept asking him if he was a professional musician and said “We should have been playing one minute ago!” It was completely ridiculous to see grown men throwing a tantrum because a touring band wanted to play, unlike any other experience we've had on tour or at home. Also, it was totally the owner's fault for the lack of communication with those guys and Alex because she told us he could play til 8 and I guess totally forgot to mention that Alex was playing to the blues society. We definitely didn't make any friends there! Except for Nick, of course.

After we got loaded back up we got the hell out of there because screw those guys. We followed Todd out to his house about 30 miles out of town where we slept for the night. We hung out a for a little bit and Trixie met his two labs, then Alex took a shower (I refused since there was no door on the bathroom or on the bedroom that the bathroom was in, and I'm too prudish for that) and we all went to bed. In the morning we went to town for some breakfast and hit up a thrift store for a few more movies. We stopped by Todd's girlfriend's house so I could shower, do laundry, and use the internet. Also, we went to the auto parts store for a gas cap because Alex left ours somewhere in North Carolina. Then we went back to Todd's and let the dogs run around while Alex and Todd changed the oil and flushed the radiator on the Beast.

Todd and Spencer made dinner for us, the best part of that was when Todd asked us if we'd like a napkin and reached into his cupboard and pulled out some old holey t-shirts. And he wasn't kidding! After dinner Spencer lit up a huge fire out back and we sat out there for a bit while Alex played some tunes.

The next morning we set out for Panama City to stay at St. Andrews State Park, which was only about 200 miles north and west of Gainesville and we had 3 driving days to get to New Orleans.