The journey has begun – coast to coast. Today is the first day of two months on the road. This is the longest leg of the tour and it will take us from new Jersey to California.
It was a bit of a challenging day to be our first. We left home early this morning so we could get to West Orange, NJ in the early evening. As we started down the road and pulled across the Maryland border, I realized that I had left my wallet in my jeep as we were moving luggage from one vehicle to the truck. At least that’s what I hoped had happened. I called a friend who went over to our secure parking area and checked. When Chris called me, he said he couldn’t find it in the jeep. As we talked, he continued to search and found it wedged between my seat and the center column. He’s fedexing it to me so I don’t have to cancel any credit cards!
Only 15 minutes after I realized I lost my wallet, we were driving up Interstate 81 and one of our trailer tires blew out – LOUD! In 20 years of touring, I’ve never had a tire just blow out on me and this was a relatively new one. We always carry a spare but now we had to find a place to mount it for us. A few miles into Maryland, we found a truck tire place and they had it on the trailer in less than 15 minutes – after about a 90 minute wait for them to finish up the truck in front of me. That put us about 2 hours behind.
Still, we made it to New Jersey around 6pm. David got us checked into the hotel and we settled in for the night. Tomorrow, we’re at the South Orange Performing Arts Center for one performance. We’re hoping for a great crowd! But it’s still cold here!