so i spent the week after that vigorously fighting for my family to stay well. but everyone else got super sick. flu sick. in fact, i wouldn't be surprised if we had a bus-full of the swine flu. that alone made the rest of the tour hard. but we also had a beat-down, crappy bus that never felt like home and was definitely never comfortable. so that didn't help. and it used to be Anna Nicole Smith's bus when she was touring for TrimSpa. wonderful.
we need t-shirts that say "we survived Swine Flu 2009 and Anna Nicole's bus"
pretty much I hid inside the bus and hotel rooms for a week trying to keep ndi warm, but here's the places that we went:
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Farmingdale, NY: this was on Long Island. we decided we couldn't spend the time or money to go into Manhattan on our day off there, so we headed to Huntington Village, which was only a 10 minute cab ride away. it was a really cute town and we had a nice evening there with the other bus family.
Philadelphia, PA: by far the worst day for me on the tour. i was really excited to go here since i lived there for about a year. philly is my "spiritual birthplace" and forever holds a dear place in my heart. everyone was at their sickest this day, it was cold and raining the whole time so i couldn't walk around the city as i had planned, and i didn't get to see one person that i knew there. i didn't even feel like i was in philly:(
Granville, OH: home to a small college called Denison University. i didn't go in the show but apparently it was the greatest show ever, and the guys realized how fun it would be to go on a college tour (i'm in favor of that as well...)
Charlotte, NC: yep, we stopped in good ole charlotte for a day, but didn't even get to spend the night. they played at the Lowe's Motor Speedway before a big NASCAR race. they had been invited personally by the owner of NASCAR, Marcus Smith, who had been listening to PT for about a year and invited my man to lunch one day to meet him. my sister-in-law and her family got there bright and early that morning to spend the day with us. it was SO good to spend some time with them, we love them so much! somehow i always feel like i didn't get enough time with them, though. especially her. she is amazingly wonderful--such a special woman. my mom and step-dad drove into town for the show as well, so i got to go home and do laundry and spend some much needed time with my mama. it wasn't at all long enough. the day was over before i knew it and i had to go get back on that God-forsaken bus
Toronto, ON: first time the band repeated a city, and the same venue. didn't explore toronto like i would if i wasn't trying to keep my baby from getting sick, but i realized what a cool city Toronto really is, and plan to see more of it when we return again in November
Foxborough, MA: finally, the end! Foxborough is the home of the New England Patriots and Tom Brady. the show was right outside of the stadium. music man had finally succumbed to a cough and lost his voice. but the best part was that Foxborough is only 30 minutes from where my brother and his family live. so my sister in law came to pick me up and I spent 4 incredible days there with them, about which i will post my next blog. my brother, little man and i drove back for the show and it was really fun. my brother was excited to see Everclear since he is a 'product of the 90s'. You know Everclear's big song "Father of Mine"? every night before they sang that song they would dedicate it to our band, because they bring their wives and kids on tour with them, and it's a song about changing the cycle and being a better parent than what you got dealt. really cool
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On my worst day (in philly) i was thinking to myself, for the first time, "this is too hard. i want to go home." i wanted the warmth of the fire in my living room, my big king size bed, my empty house filled with no one but me and my family; i wanted a daily routine for my baby; i wanted normalcy. i whined all day inside my own head, until suddenly it hit me:
no matter what my life is like, there will always be hard days. there will always be sacrifices that i have to make. even if i were a working mom, it would be hard and i would consider it a sacrifice. even if we lived a normal, stay-at-home, 9-5 kind of family life, i would have hard days and would probably even get bored, and i would consider it a sacrifice.
the point is, THIS is the sacrifice that I have chosen to make.
and i would so much rather see the joy on our child's face when he sees his father every morning, and see the joy on my husband's face as he watches our child do something for the first time, and experience new places together as a family on our days off, than to be cozy at home with a nice routine and normalcy, but without my man. that is why we chose life on the road. it is the harder choice, but it keeps our family together.
some days can be hard...but most of the time it's a blast!
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