Post-Trip Meeting and the GBB

We will have our Post-Trip Meeting Thursday, May 8 upstairs at Savarino's. This is a lot quicker than most post-trip meetings, but somebody's got my tent and it was packed up wet.

There was enough talk among the musicians, out on Thunder Island, to get together in the off season that we're going to try to have a regular time to meet. So as a side project, the Gravel Bar Band will meet the first Thursday of every month upstairs at Savarino's for an informal guitar pull. This is for the benefit of the pickers, but you can still come if you're just a grinner.

The G.B.B., with The Dixie Dicks on backup for "Desolation Row," has had more lineup changes than Skynyrd.

.

The Politics of Bush

They say some topics should never be discussed at a party. Here's a recap:

Hillary's landing strip incident in Bosnia has become a hairy issue for her and as much of a lighting rod as Hitler's moustache but Bush has had plenty of close shaves, too, and in any case the bologna rose pretty high from both parties.

Who do you love?

Anouncing the RRCC Investment Manager.



We may need an RRCC Hypnotist, too, but you need to send all of your money to this man. He is going to the dogtrack and coming back with a canoe trailer.



Here is another tip. If you want to have a guitar all to yourself, tune it down to Open D about 5:00 Saturday afternoon after Tim has poured the screwdrivers.




Everyone is afraid if they pick it up they'll be the incapacited guy who has to retune it. For Rob, that rule applies on Sunday. Instead of taking it home with him, he gave a big speech in the driveway about how "everyone should have a river guitar," then he set it on a pile of Duluth Packs and sped off down the alley in the Vigor.

The RRCC has rehydrated and it's time to to start following up on the excellent trip we just went on.

First of all, it has to be said that the island was a success. Possibly too much of a success judging by the number of times we heard someone muttering, from a camp chair, on the edge of the water, with a drink in his hand, in a British accent..."I like Plan B....I like Plan B."

Don't get used to it. We're still going on rivers every time we can. But still, that launch site sure was nice...

Not even counting the lake travel there were so many innovations in Spring '08 it's hard to say which one was the best. Here are a just few:

- Old Smokey
- The canoe sail
- The Barn (capitalization intentional)
- ATVs wearing the dogs out before they even get in a canoe
- A bona-fide lead guitar player
- Cobbler
- Cobbler in the morning

But it was the 2X-XCut Saw that rose above the rest. It's not only as cool as we hoped it would be, the fact is, we would have been in a full firewood crisis without it. The Big Daddy Skillet should be feeling very nervous right now.








In fact, the saw is no longer even in the same category as our other stuff because someone or something got metaphysical on our ass. It's more like the Shroud of Turin or the Nun Bun than a piece of camping equipment because, when the ceremonial first cut was made, a mysterious writing appeared in the cross section. Then the crowd gasped and drew back when the writing clearly spelled out a man's name...

Great trip, guys. No man is an island...

No Brainer

Our worst fear was that it would be a close call and we wouldn't know whether to get on the river or not. This is not a close call. It rained hard last night and we are not in the mood for a Bold Trip. So we'll be standing by peaceful waters on the banks of ol' Lake Dale Hollow. This means bring your deep-water lures, no limit on guitars, and we can sleep in a little Saturday morning.

It also means we don't have to get any federal citations:



Time to head out. We'll see everybody around 1:30 unless you're meeting us at the farm.


Standing there at the low bridge after we'd loaded the canoe, I doubted the dark sky, and the bite of the wind and its ruffle on the water; and under that grayness even the rapids below, rolling now with the two gates open above, looked sullen and dangerous.

But rivers tend to look that way when you start a trip, and so does the ocean when you clear the breakwaters and hit the gray swells, headed out on a cruise . . . They say our protoplasm, the salt of its juices the same still as sea water's, yearns back toward that liquid that brewed it, and I guess that may be so, but the air-breathing, land-walking structure the protoplasm molded itself into sometimes argues otherwise. Familiarity helps, as the skin divers know, and living beside the sea you lose the caution and can swim out daily a half-mile or more to float bobbing for hours with the slow rise and fall of the big, smooth-crested waves. I've done that, and then have left the sea for a few months, and, returning, have found the fear there again to be fought down again.

It's the same with a rolling, roaring river. I didn't want a bold journey; I wanted the quiet October Brazos, and it wasn't there. . .

Goodbye to a River, pages 13 - 14.