January 29, 2004 - Pre-Tour

First I want to say that although there will be a journal entry for every day of the tour, they won't be posted every day. I'm traveling in Mountain and Pacific time and Toné back home on Eastern time. By the time we're done with the show and finished and packed up it's usually between 4 and 5 in the morning back on the east coast. That's just too late to have Toné up typing these entries while I dictate over the phone. So most of the time we try to do them at some point the following day. We've also decided to add a picture to each entry, but because I'm not computer literate Toné will have to add them after I get home from tour. So be sure to check back after Feb. 15th to see what pictures we add to the pages. So now, on to the first entry!

I've been anticipating going out to do the west coast tour since I've known about it. I love traveling on the west coast and I like those big underpopulated states like Colorado and Montana. I've been packing all week just slowly getting stuff together as it came to my mind. I'm generally good at packing and not forgetting stuff. Fortunately my student Francis Luong reminded me that I wanted to bring my envelope generator. If he hadn't reminded me I would have definitely forgotten it. My former band mate, John Lusky, jokingly reminded me to not forget my toothbrush. When he said that, I realized that was the only thing I had not packed up to that point. I got a lot of nice calls and emails from students and friends wishing me a safe trip. All of my friends are very supportive of me and what I do.

Toné and I had a great week together. Fortunately, the snow on Sunday caused the store to be closed on Monday and Tuesday and since I was flying out Thursday, I just canceled my Wednesday students too. Toné and I got to really spend some quality time together.

Adam Nitti asked me to 'watch' his 3 of his musicdojo classes while he was on vacation with his wife. I had a lot of fun interacting with his students.

Toné had to work early Thursday morning, so while she was working I slowly finished up packing and answering emails. When she got home from work we headed out to Dulles Airport. I had a 5:00PM (Eastern Standard Time) flight. I talked to my buddy Terry Day on the phone. He'll soon be heading to Brazil for Carnival. I know he's gonna' have a ball.

Toné & I said our goodbye's at the airport and then my next thought was how was I going to deal with these basses that I had with me. I had 3 basses with me. I had 2 basses in a double gig bag and I had one in a single bag - I knew they weren't going to let me take both of them on the plane. When I got to the ticket agent she actually preferred that I took both gig bags on the plane, but she made me check my backpack along with my suitcase. I was glad that I was going to be able to bring both gig bags on the plane. I always hear people saying that airlines won't let them take gig bags on the plane, but I've never had any problem with getting basses on the plane. I think so much of it pertains to the agent that you're dealing with and your attitude. I think if you act like you shouldn't be bringing a bass on the plane, that's the reaction you're going to get from the agent. I was also surprised that I was able to get both gig bags into an overhead compartment on the plane. I had a very uneventful 4 hour flight to Denver. I landed at 6:45PM Mountain time. So although it was a 4 hour flight, I landed only an hour and 45 minutes later - funny how that works.

As soon as the plane touched down I turned on my cell phone. I immediately got a phone call from Danette and she let me know where the tour bus was going to pick me up at. I then got a phone call from Victor. He, Joseph, Regi, Derico and Kurt had arrived from Nashville at the same time that I arrived. I met them at baggage claim. It was great seeing them all and everybody looked well rested. We grabbed all our luggage and went outside the airport and the tour bus pulled up. Danette greeted us at the door of the tour bus. She looked beautiful. Her hair was very nice and she had a twinkle in her eyes. You could just sense that we were all glad to be together again. When I looked on the bus to see who was driving, to my surprise it was Jeff McCardle - the 'naked bus driver!! As soon as I found that out I started smiling. I knew it would be a fun trip with him 'pulling' us. He told me that Britany Spears was looking for a bass player and that he told her about me. I got extremely excited and then he said he was just joking. That's Jeff for you - always being funny! We had to wait for Divinity and Ted's flight to arrive but couldn't stay parked where we were. So we had to do a complete loop around the airport. Denver's airport is so big that a complete loop is over 10 miles. When we got back around we picked up Divinity. After another loop we picked up Ted. It's about an hour trip from Denver to Boulder in the bus. The whole time, Victor and his brothers told stories about their musical endeavors growing up. They have the funniest stories in the world! We were all laughing so hard that we were crying.

Even though it was around 7PM when I landed, it was almost 11PM by the time we arrived in Boulder, but it didn't seem that long since we were having so much fun. When we arrived at the hotel Victor, Regi, Derico and I decided we would walk to the Denny's around the corner and get something to eat. It's amazing to me how the memories come back once I start walking around in a city. I started remembering things about Boulder before I even saw them. Joseph joined us later at Denny's. The weather here is great. It's actually a lot warmer here in the mountains than it was at home. It was below freezing when I left DC and it's almost 60 degrees in Boulder. When we got back from eating I got a call from Hilary Lauer. She teaches some nature classes at Victor's camp. She lives in Boulder so she came to visit me in my room for a while. After she left I called my wife and then I went to bed.

peace & blessings

anthony