A cold morning in Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania

The winter 2005 leg of my adventure on the road arrived on the scene much too quickly. It gets harder and harder to say goodbye to my family and leave my home in which I'm very content for 5 weeks of hotels and bumpy bus rides.

But, off I go, reminding myself how blessed I am to have a wonderful family and home to which I'll be welcomed back soon. It is supposed to be hard leave so I know something is right, even though it feels wrong. It will be good seeing fans again and hanging out with my buddies on the road.

I spent MLK day hopping from plane to plane which hopped from city to city before depositing me in Newark, where we boarded our tour busses. We motored the final two hours to Wilkes-Barre. Everyone was tired, hungry and thirsty and a little dissapointed there was no food or water on our bus. We survived.

Just about everybody in the band could be found in the hotel restaurant last night. Everything on the menu was a little pricey but no one wanted to venture outside. I had dinner with Pedro Eustache, David Hudson, Hussain Jiffry, Ramone Flores, Walter Rodriguez and Zachary Carettin.

This morning I awoke, rotated open the shades on my hotel room window to see sunshine defracted through an ice-laden bush. No, it wasn't a dream. I really am back on the road again and the temperature here is 6 degrees! I noticed in the USA Today this morning that northern Minnesota had a record low yesterday of -52 degrees, so +6 feels warm.

I bundled up and took a short walk outside but it is really too cold to be enjoyable. I snapped a photo of Laurel Run Creek which is near our hotel.

We have a rehearsal scheduled for this afternoon at Wachovia Arena.
¶ 11:47 AM