You never know what the road will bring you when you drive on it. I drove west last week.
When I got there I found my older brother, mom and dad. I found friends from all over all seated in a venue staring up at me while I played songs.
I found help by the name of Richard who drove all the way back to the venue after the gig was over and all was locked up when I realized I had left my luggage in the green room.
We found mountains and sky and music in the form of I'm With Her with a sold out crowd but even so Richard found us some tickets and we enjoyed a great evening of music on a stage I had been on once. This time I was in the audience and it made me happy to be there.
We found a theatre in Arvada still playing "The Greatest Showman" that I really wanted to see on the big screen. If I had been on my own I would have cried a lot more. I loved it.
Even more I loved walking out into the daylight to find well wishes from friends upon the news being a New Folk finalist for Kerrville.
There was a visit to Red Rocks, there was a stroll in downtown Golden, there was an amazing show in Boulder featuring some incredible artists that made me think that coffee shops of America are holding treasures unseen and that if you want to find gold, go listen to an artist you've never heard of before and feel what it's like to be astounded. And I'm not talking about the $20 cover coffee shop artists. I'm talking about the playing for tips with their hearts on their sleeves songwriters so hungry you feel the impact of every word and every chord.
As much as I loved I'm With Her and their perfect songcrafting, they would be wise to get themselves to a coffee shop and see how hungry those folks are back in the corner of crowded room and killing it no matter who is watching or how much they're making. Shanna in a dress, Paul Kimbiris and Andrew Sturtz. So so so good. I was not expecting that kind of music and I'm so glad I found it.
And then we drove home. We made it back to Nebraska and Cinderella went back to the cafe on Monday morning.
There's something else that happened on Sunday night but I'll tell you in the next post. Let's just say, we live in a world of wonder and it, for some reason, smiled on me. The funny thing is that it's smiling on you too no matter if Ed McMahon shows up with a huge fake check or not. Trust me. It's smiling on you.