This post is a contribution from Steve Dilling. He will be chronicling IIIrd Tyme Out’s west coast tour for Bluegrass Today in October, as he has done in the past.
We pulled into Barstow, California at 5:30 pm local time. We had the bus washed, and the chrome wheels polished because we had come through some rain on the way out, so the bus needed a bath. After finishing up there, we decided to just spend the night in Barstow and catch our breath a little.
At this point, we had been riding for 37 hours across the country, and it was time to sit still for a while. If the bus could talk, I’m sure that it would have agreed with us on this decision also. We parked at a truckstop, and Jack, Russell, and myself went in to have some dinner and let the locals make fun of our southern accents. When we came back out to the bus, things were pretty quiet and remained that way for the rest of the night. iPods and video games were pretty much all that were happening as we all caught up on some much needed rest.
After filling the water tank up, we pulled out of Barstow at 6:30 am Thursday morning with Russell driving heading north to the bay area and our friend’s Bill and Maria Nadauld’s home in Hayward. Before we got on the freeway, we stopped in Bakersfield to have some breakfast at Denny’s, not far from the world famous Buck Owens Crystal Palace on Buck Owens Blvd. We had stopped here before and they were closed and, of course, they were closed again this time.
After breakfast, we hopped on Interstate 5 headed north with Jack driving. We arrived at Bill and Maria’s around 2:30 pm. They had a nice reception set up welcoming us to California. Maria books these west coast tours for us. She and Bill always take care of us when we are out here. It is a pleasure to have them as part of the IIIrd Tyme Out family.
We will be leaving soon to go over to Livermore for our 1st show tonight. We have 7 nights in a row of performances, so I should have plenty to write about.
For this tour and all other show dates, you can check our schedule out at www.iiirdtymeout.com/schedule.
