Music – Page 4 – The Destinators

Skyline, revisited

We mentioned in the previous post that we had rearranged our itinerary to include a stop near San Francisco, which we’d talk about later. That will be this post. There is also a post titled ‘Skyline‘ that I wrote during our trip two years ago that provides background that is relevant to this one.

In the Skyline post, I talked about my Aunt Ami and my Uncle Dick. A few weeks ago, as we were driving off the ferry to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, the phone rang. Ami was calling to tell us that Dick had passed away.

Abbotsford, BC

There’s no chance we’d miss a certain stop in Abbotsford as we came through southwest BC. Our loyal readers know I’m a drummer. Actually, I’m proud to say I’m now a professional drummer, having earned $108 so far this year (all before leaving for this trip in May)!

For the past few years, I’ve been a member of Drumeo, a drum education website and fabulous on-line drumming community with world headquarters in Abbotsford, BC. The team at Drumeo produces state-of-the-art, video-based drum education material featuring awesome in-house drummers, a distributed, international cast of world-renown drum educators, and a generous dose of bona fide rock stars in the drum world. They have programs in place to support the student members at all levels, in virtually any musical genre. And certainly for this drum student, it’s working.

I checked in to see if I could stop by to drop off a couple of hugs to a few of my online heroes, and perhaps get a quick tour. I got a resounding ‘Sure, c’mon over!’

Hope

When I first looked at a map of the Kenai Peninsula, there was a small dot on the northern edge labelled Hope. I looked a bit more closely and, sure enough, there was a road to it. Ok, we have to go there. Hope there’s something to see…

A few weeks ago at Salmonfest, we of course saw a lot of people wearing T-shirts. About 50% of the festival-goers understandably were wearing their t-shirts from prior Salmonfests, but the next largest group had shirts from the Seaview Cafe & Bar and Campground in Hope, AK. Hmm… We asked around and yes, downtown Hope has a cafe and bar with live music daily, there’s a campground, and yes, we should check it out. Then Duncan highly encouraged a visit to Hope. Good advice!

Homer

D’oh! No, not that Homer – Homer, AK. It’s a small town in a stunning location at the road’s end on the west side of the Kenai Peninsula. It’s situated where the Kachemak Bay empties into Cook Inlet, feeling cozy and protected by the Kenai Mountains interspersed with glaciers to the south and east, and the Alaska Range with its four towering volcanoes to the west. A key geological feature of the town is the Homer Spit, a terminal moraine left by the glacier that filled and carved out the Kachemak Bay 15,000 years ago. The Spit is a long, narrow, natural gravel bar that sticks out 4.5 miles into bay, now dotted with campsites and shops and people fishing.

We loved Homer! And that was all Duncan’s fault.

Ninilchik – Salmonfest 2019

In August 1969, almost exactly fifty years ago, three days of music, peace & love in upstate New York defined a generation and became a legend against which every future music festival would be judged. For us, the Woodstock anniversary thus brings significance to our stay in the tiny Cook Inlet town of Ninilchik, site of the annual Salmonfest music festival – “three days of fish, love & music at the cosmic center of the salmonverse.”

Jammin’ with Lucky Larry

Last July we stopped on our way to Calgary for a visit in Linden, AB with my friend Larry and his wife Barb. Larry is a guitar-playing blues brother that I met through Blues Guitar Unleashed (BGU), as we’ve both been working our way through learning to play the blues. Well, we had a fine time and it seemed a great idea to see if we could stop by again as we head for Alaska. Answers: yes, we can stop by, and yes, it was great!

The Sprint, part 2 – What stays the same

Our most essential piece of travel gear is our contact list. It includes family (yup, Sue’s cousins are half of it…), friends and other people we’ve met over the years or along the way who meet stringent criteria – fun, stay in touch, we’d rather hug than shake hands. We love stopping by to visit people, becoming temporary neighbors while keeping in touch when we travel.

Although we had to narrow the range a bit during the sprint (remember when we visited Howard because he was only 4 days away?), and shorten the visits, we did manage four totally awesome stops.

First Gig!

Bear Swamp Blues Band (Photo by Jim Panos)

It was yet another great ski season, and the call of fabulous spring skiing has been distracting us a bit from thoughts of travel.

As did our gig. Yup! We set a goal for our blues band to play at least one gig this winter. Success! We made our debut on April 7 to a well attended party at the Castlerock Pub, at Sugarbush, our local ski resort. Judging by the smiles, dancing, high fives, hugs and smiles, our friends appear to have had fun. Our 6-piece band, the Bear Swamp Blues Band, had a great time as well. With planning, rehearsals and requisite jitters behind us all, it’s now time for the Destinators to start focusing on this year’s trip.

But first, a quick recap of our 2018 trip.

Jammin’ in Portage, MI

The more we travel, the more places there are that we have been to, and the more likely we are to cross a path we’ve followed before. Such was the case as we figured how we were going to get from St. Louis to Vermont. Suppose we went up to Michigan, then back into Canada and around the north side of Lake Erie? Well, looky here, that path might go right by Kalamazoo!

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Salmon Arm, BC: Smokin’ Roots & Blues Festival

That word Smokin’ in the title is an intentional double-entendre. Both potential interpretations are relevant and accurate.

We’d taken an excursion to Penticton for a visit, and part of our intention after that was to spend a little more time away from the national parks in the Canadian Rockies during the prime vacation period. Well, right between Penticton and Revelstoke is this place called Salmon Arm (which you can pronounce like “seminar,” except you add an M at the end) where they’ve been putting on a huge music festival for three days every August for, like, 28 years.

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