December 2023

We’re heading into winter. If you combine the mileage of our last three trusty band vehicles, we’ve driven about one and a half million miles. If you add about the same amount of miles that we’ve flown, that brings us to around three million miles of travel. Most of those miles have been thankfully uneventful. Writing about those times would be tedious. The times that are the most interesting are the times we almost didn’t make it to our destination. 

There’s really no good reason to run out of gas on your way to or from where you’re going. When we managed to do it, our rule was that we’d take turns walking/hitchhiking to buy gas. This led to some interesting foot travel. We were a few miles out of Hempstead, TX when our truck, Robert Red Ford, sputtered to a stop. It was in the pre-dawn of a Texas Sunday morning when Keith took off to find fuel. It started to rain and then it rained really hard. I believe the polite expression is that it was a real frog strangler. It took several hours for Keith to get back. At one point in his adventure he took shelter from the rain in a roadside vegetable stand. He was soaked to the bone but he had gas.

The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in Louisiana is 24 miles long. At some point while driving it, you can’t even see land. We ran out of gas somewhere in the middle of the bridge on a Sunday morning. There are very few exits or gas stations out there. It was Ezra's turn to get gas so he started hitchhiking. He got picked up by a very kind man who drove him miles to the closest gas station. He then drove Ezra back across the bridge and then turned around to get back to our van. He must have driven an hour out of his way to help us and he told us that he had run out of gas on the bridge before.

Our least favorite driving weather is snow and ice. We have quite a few scary stories about winter driving so we’ve made the adult decision to mostly stay at home during the winter. We’ll roll the dice on a couple of dates. We’ll be in Little Rock on the 17th of December at The First United Methodist Church. In February we’re going wild and playing two dates! We’ll be playing in Memphis, TN at the Buckman Arts Center on the 9th and 10th.  Other than those dates, you will find us at home with our families or in our studio. We wish you a safe and happy holiday season.

Our Proper Cup of Coffee coffee is back! This medium roast, whole bean coffee comes from our local coffee roasters, Arsaga's and we have it available in 8 or 12 ounce bags. It's available for a limited time only so get yours while the gettin's good! We also have a holiday sale on all Trout CDs and shirts. Enjoy 10% off automatically when you shop our store.

 

Troutfully yours,

Keith and Ezra