Wyo.

Anton and I (Russ) just returned home from flyering down in Denver tonight for our upcoming shows. It’s been a super busy week getting ready for the Red Rocks show on Sunday… we got together for our normal rehearsal and spent the entire night running through the set to make sure that it fits the 30-minute time slot we’ve got. We ran it three times, and it came in at 28 minutes, 29 minutes, and 28 minutes… so we’re all set. Can’t believe that the next time we play it will be on the main stage staring up at the rocks. Woo-hoo.

This past weekend to celebrate the Red Rocks thing and to clear our collective minds and do some writing, the four of us headed up to the cabin in Wyoming (for those of you who’ve been reading SoundRabbit road journals a long time, you’ve heard of the place on many occasions). We took acoustic guitars, an acoustic bass, and some percussion items and hit the woods. Weather was absolutely gorgeous, and Anton had his fancy new camera to take some footage for y’all to enjoy:

The weekend wasn’t without adventure, either…

We had a few 4-wheelers and a boat to play with in between playing music, and we decided to take the boat out on the lake up there. Keep in mind that this lake is very big and this place is very secluded… there might be one or two other boats at most on this very large lake on a typical day. We took the boat out on Saturday evening and pulled it up onto a sandy beach, tied it to a tree, with plans to take it out on Sunday morning… then went back to the cabin and cooked some food, lit a fire, and played music all night.

The next morning, we returned to the beach to take the boat out… and the wind was howling. I’ve never seen the lake as choppy as it was… beautiful sky, but the waves and wind were pretty intense. We shoved off the shore, all four of us in the boat, and attempted to start it – with no luck. It wouldn’t even turn over… battery dead. We floated for a little while and used the one oar we had on board to make our way back to the beach. Problem is, we had to get the boat started and get it across the entire lake to be able to trailer it and pull it out at the end of our stay… so Jason and I went up and got the truck at the cabin, along with a long (15′) set of jumper cables, while Anton and Chris were tasked with somehow getting the boat close enough to the shore that we’d be able to drive the truck down to jumpstart it (without getting the truck stuck in the mud).

In what we all acknowledged (as we were doing it) was an absolute Darwin Awards moment, we got the boat pulled into the shallows of the lake shore in a muddy area covered with moose hoof prints and bear paw prints (seriously)… and pulled the truck down onto the beach as far as we could without getting it stuck… and then Jason and Chris stood in water up to their knees and hooked up the jumper cables to the truck battery, while Anton and I sat in the boat in the water holding the other end of the jumper cables… and “zap!” the boat got started… we unhooked the cables, shoved off… and the boat engine died again. We got one attempt at restarting it before the battery died… “vroooom… vrooom… sputter..sputter… dead.” Back to the drawing board, re-hooking the jumper cables and risking life and limb in the middle of nowhere in 50-degree water… all in all it took us 4 separate “unhook-start-die-rehook-jump-unhook” series before we finally got the boat started and Anton and I raced it across the lake to the dock where Jason and Chris drove around and met us to unload…

Chris and Jay getting word that the boat requires another “jump.”

…aaaand we’re off!

But not before finding ourselves (Anton and I in the boat) directly below a giant American Bald Eagle. He was perched in a tree on the shore above us… then he took off flying and we followed him in the boat, Anton snapping photos the entire time. We’ve got a whole series of pics of him, but here are a couple to give you the idea…

All in all, a fantastic weekend up at the cabin… we all came home refreshed and ready to rock it this weekend at Red Rocks. Can’t wait to see y’all there…