Blog

Hello from Charlottesville, Virginia! We made it down here on time and had plans to go to The Festy for the night to catch the Stringdusters and other artists, and for the guys to get a sense of the place (I was there last year)… but around 9pm local time here, we got an urgent text from Fred.

Here’s the Backstory… Fred’s sister got married this weekend up near Boston, so he had to hop off the tour for the day today (Saturday). We booked him a flight from Boston to Baltimore for tonight after the wedding, so he could fly down and join us in Virginia. The plan was that he’d fly into Baltimore around 8:30pm, pick up the rental car that we’d rented for him, and drive to Charlottesville, getting here around midnight or so, right as we were ending our night at The Festy.

Instead – we get the urgent text from him at 9pm – “guys, please call ASAP. they won’t give me a rental car and I’m stuck in Baltimore.”

Hmm… okay. So I (Russ) called him to see what was going on. As it turns out, the standard policy in the rental car business with paying for the cars is that the person paying has to pay with a major credit card AND has to be there in person, in front of the rental car employee, signing for the car. Our plan to pay for his car with our business credit card was not going to work, and Fred doesn’t carry a credit card himself (Dave Ramsey would be proud). So – as he said – he was stuck.

I had him hand his phone to the clerk at Enterprise, Budget, Avis, and National… each time I spoke with them saying that I was his ‘boss’ and that we needed to pay for his car with our corporate card, but none of them would do it. I offered faxing a copy, Skyping them so they could see my face, and on and on… no luck.

So from 10pm to midnight, I was searching online for alternate solutions… Amtrack from Baltimore to Richmond, puddle jumper flights, busses, taxis, etc. Nothing would get him here on time without costing us an arm and a leg. I finally found a transportation service (personal driver) who would pick him up in Baltimore at 6am tomorrow and have him down here in Charlottesville at 10am, ready for us to pick him up and head to The Festy right on time at 11am when gates open. The next trick was the hotel. I called 10 hotels, all of them saying that they’re 100% booked and that “everyone around us is full, too.” Excellent.

Finally found one place a bit of a ways from the airport in Baltimore… they had ONE room left… a smoking room… but it was the “only room anywhere around.” I took it.

Called Fred, gave him instructions to find the hotel shuttle at the airport, and told him that all was paid for, all set to go. Then I headed back to hang with the guys… no Festy tonight, but still a chance to relax with each other for an hour or two.

And then my phone buzzes again – text from Fred, “Dude – call me ASAP. I have no room.”

Hah.

Called Fred and found out that he got all the way to the hotel (it’s now after midnight), went to the front desk, and they told him that his room had been given away, and that they had no options for him. He told them that I had paid for it, etc., and they said, “we didn’t charge him, the room was never available to sell.” Evidently he wasn’t in the nicest part of Baltimore, either. The front desk person made a few phone calls and found a hotel nearby that had 2 rooms available. The shuttle driver agreed to take him there. Fred arrived to find “super sketchy people walking shirtless in the lobby.”

There was an international businessman in line in front of him, taking 1 of the 2 available rooms. Fred stepped up next and the woman was starting to check him in when the businessman came back down to the lobby and said, “umm – there are people in my room.” The woman said, “please go check again, it’s listed as ‘clean’ here.” The guy went back upstairs, and as he left, the woman told Fred, “if his room really is occupied, I need to give him this last room and you’re out of luck.” Fred somehow kept his cool, as the businessman arrived back at the desk to confirm that his room was, indeed, occupied. The woman then gave him the keys to the last room at the hotel and told Fred, “tough.” It was now about 1:30am.

The business man was starting to walk away and then turned to Fred (having heard everything) and said, “there are two beds in my room – you’re welcome to the other one if you’d like. The room is paid for.”

Fred couldn’t believe it… and took him up on it.

We all love Fred, but he’s a big guy with a shaggy beard and by this point was looking fairly tour- and travel-weary. That this guy was willing to share his room with him is pretty unreal and unbelievably generous… and a good sign for our species, methinks.

Fred will catch some zzz’s tonight and hopefully everything goes smoothly in the morning with the transportation service. Our next update to you all will be from The Festy if we can get internet access, or afterwards if not… and hopefully Fred will be in the photos!

G’night, all…

Howdy, all! We’re in the van headed South to Virginia. Left Boston fairly early this morning and we’re hoping to get to Charlottesville around 8:30pm tonight. Everyone is feeling pumped for playing The Festy tomorrow – we’ve been rehearsing and timing our setlist for over a month now and we’ve got it nicely dialed to almost exactly the 1-hour mark, so we should be able to get some great music in during the 60 minutes we have on stage. Today is a relaxing drive – nice weather, no traffic at all so far, and the night off tonight to relax. So far we’ve crossed Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, and we’re almost to West Virginia. By the end of this tour we’ll have put about 4,500 new miles on the van. Woooot. More from Virginia later… thanks for hangin’ with us here on the Road Journal.

Hello from the “Mass Pike” (I-90)… we’re making our way to Boston slowly but surely. We thought we’d have plenty of time to get to the city this evening, but for some reason there’s a huge traffic jam way out in western MA, and as a result, it looks like we’ll be an hour late for load-in. Yay.

The foliage is beautiful, though, so we’re enjoying the scenery. The history of this area is super neat and the landscape and homes are so different from Colorado that it’s really fun to visit. The old stone walls, the square shingles homes built in the 1700’s, the white steeples of old churches in the town centers… awesome.

We’re psyched for the show tonight. There should be some friends and family in the room, and the venue is supposed to be pretty cool. It’s right in the heart of the action in Davis Square outside Boston proper. Cambridge is right there, tons of bars and restaurants, etc. Fred is going to record the show, so we should have some stuff up on the Backstage for y’all shortly after the tour.

More later!