Wedding Bells

We are back in the hotel from Joe's wedding. It was a great service. The rain held out until about 5 minutes after the ceremony and pictures were done. Everyone is very tired.

Congrats to Joe and Kari!

I think I may have some pictures. I will see about posting them a little later.

Peace

We are home now. We drove for more than 80 hours, just shy of 5000 miles on this trip. 13 days away from home. It is sure good to be back and see our families and to get some sleep in our own bed.

Our drummer, Joe, is getting married in 12 days. We are only home for 6.5 days until we leave for a week. Joe is going to leave from a camp we are doing in East Tennessee to get ready for the wedding. The rest of us are going to be there Friday night after we get done playing. He is the last unmarried guy in DDB. We wish you guys, Joe and Kari, a long and happy life together.

I have many chores that need my attention. I have been gone 2 weeks.

Peace.

Into Thin Air

We are still at a Camp in NM. The air is thin. The humidity is VERY low. This is not at all like Tennessee.

We are having a great time investing in to about 1000 campers. They have really taken to the song Great God.

Peace

We keep on runnin'

We have put on many miles and spent many hours in a vehicle over the last week. We drove from Nashville to Fresno non-stop, except for gas, restroom and food. We had 3 shows opening up for Casting Crowns. The shows went well. Daniel blogged about some of it and will be blogging about some of our misfortunes and how we had to rely on God to physically step in and take care of certain issues.

I did get the chance to see my aunt and uncle on my dad's side of the family. It has been a few years. I want to tell them thanks for coming out. It meant a lot.

Here is a pic of us with Casting Crowns (minus Andy, he was breaking down his drums)

This is a picture of Crowns from backstage

Peace

First show with Casting Crowns

There was a little trouble with the electricity. That put the day about 2 hours behind from a technical standpoint. We ended up getting a sound check in about 20-23 minutes. It was just enough to get through a show.

The actual set went well. We added "Lord Reign" for this weekend. We had not performed that one in front of anyone before (except for the CD release). I really love the message and the feel in that song.

Casting Crowns did a great job tonight. The people who showed up loved it too. They got some new lights and a backdrop that they did not have on their recent tour. Tonight was the first night they had used it. It was all new LEDs. They we VERY cool.

Big thanks to Adventure Christian Church for the hospitality.

We have to get up early to get down the road tomorrow. Gotta run.

Peace

West Coast Run

DDB is headed out west for 2 weeks. We got a late start the first day in so we have been paying for that trying to get caught up. We left Clarksville around 10:30 am instead of 9. Traffic in Memphis was the worst I have ever seen. Emily was driving then and her 3 hour shift started right before Memphis and 3 hours later we were just on the other side of Memphis. That should have been a 30 minute drive.

We were cycling through all 5 of us driving. By the time it was my turn to drive we were just getting to our 1st planned destination, Amarillo , TX. We planned on being there around 10 pm and it was now 2 am. Since it was so late and we were running behind we decided that rather than sleeping in a hotel for 4 hours we would just keep driving. My shift was about to start anyway. I drove from 3 am to 5 am. Towards 5 it was getting harder to stay awake. We switched out and then Daniel, and then Emily got us to about 8:30 am. At this point we had been on the road for 23 hours. Then in Holbrook, AZ a gas station attendant told us we were headed in to a wind storm with 25-35 mph winds and gusts up to 60 mph. Derek drove us in to Flagstaff and the wind started picking up.

We stopped in Flagstaff for lunch. When we got off the interstate we ended up in the historic part of town. We parked and found a good Mexican food place. There were some cool shops in the area. We even saw a few posters up for our show coming up in Flagstaff in a few days.

Joe drove for a few hours and the wind picked up even more. The rest of the day was wind, mountains, and slow driving. We were getting about 8 miles per gallon with all of that. We normally get about 12.

So now we are in Fresno, CA. We slept, showered, charged up our phones, trying to feel human again. We drove 40 hours straight. Yummy.

Peace