Ashby Frank
Mandolinist, Singer, Songwriter

Well this is the beginning  (Day 2) of one of the famous, long, multi-state Special C tours and it’s gotten off to an interesting start. This one’s 17 days with stops in Buffalo and Casper, WY, Windsor, CO, Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois.

We  left Nashville kinda late. I drove to Paducah, Justin drove a good ways through Illinois, and then I took back the wheel a few hours later. A short time after I started driving, I noticed Justin was messing around in the back and didn’t think much of it until I realized that for the first time ever, I could see head lights in the rear view mirror. UH HO! The back door had come open and Justin was standing back there trying to rescue my suitcase from falling out into Saint Louis traffic while screaming for me to stop. It’s soooo loud in the SpecialCmobile that I hadn’t heard his first scream. I didn’t freak out, realizing that if I hit the brakes all of our stuff and Justin would go flying out the back door onto I-70. We got pulled over, locked the door, and and made it to Columbia, MO at 1 AM. I saved Justin’s life, and he saved my suitcase and probably my mandolin and computer bag… so he saved mine too.

After tons of talking and Google-ing we finally found a place to stay. This morning we got up and hit the breakfast buffet at the Comfort Inn (where the main course was “pancake wraps”, AKA Corn Dogs), then headed out through Kansas City and on through Kansas… or at least a part of the way. I stopped my shift in a town called WaKeeney. There was a Sinclair station and we were running low on Diesel and not within 30 miles of another town, so that made sense to me. hehe

David started his first shift of driving for the trip after we fueled up, and he made it three miles. THREE MILES. Then squeek, bang, bang, smoke! We stopped right there on I-70, and called AAA. The “Turtle Top” made a horrible noise when we shifted it into park, and then we waited for an hour and a half or so in the 100 degree heat. A VERY friendly and helpful Kansas State Trooper came and parked by us and got us in contact with a heavy duty tow truck driver that happened to have a shop right there (here) in WaKeeney (Pop. 1924).

Once the truck got here to pull us away, they figured out that we have broken bearings and a broken rear axle. So we got pulled back to WaKeeney, said goodbye to the friendly Trooper, and hello to Steve the super friendly Repair Shop Owner. He tells us that it’ll be a week, maybe two, two get all this stuff fixed… oh and by the way…. we’re supposed to be in Buffalo, Wyoming, (11 hours from here) for a 2PM set tomorrow.

Well, it’s 9:44 CST, and we’re still here in WaKeeney. One of Steve’s friends that had his SWEET race car on the lift in the shop took us over here to the Super 8 by the interstate. Tomorrow Justin’s going to have to get up early, and ride with another friend of Steve’s into Hays (30 minutes from here) to where he’ll rent a car, come back west to WaKeeney and pick us up, and then we’ll head on out towards the festival.

Growing up in a small town I know that in places like this, everybody knows everyone else’s name or family, and that’s USUALLY a very good thing. Back home, a friend of my family named Tim Hester, one of the best mechanics and nicest guys around, would always help me out when I had car problems and needed to go somewhere in a hurry. You lose that sometimes when you live in a bigger town, and you usually have to pay more for a service that might not be done as well.

When you’re on the road, sometimes you dread being broken down in a small town because of the lack of repair shops, hotels, or restaurants or things to do or ways to get around. I remember very well when Marty Raybon’s bus broke down on a Sunday morning in Hancock, NY. THAT was another long day and story for another time.
So, even though there’s no car rental place here in WaKeeney, which has kind of thrown a wrench in our itinerary, EVERYONE we’ve come in contact with has gone out of their way to help us. I don’t think we could be “stuck” in a better place.

Now hopefully we can trade set times with another band in Buffalo for tomorrow, find a decent rate on a van rental from Wyoming or Denver to Chicago so we can make it to Michigan for our shows at the end of the tour, and figure out a way to get back out here to take back our rapidly falling apart “bus”.

It’s nights and long trips like this that make me wonder why, WHY????? don’t I just find some way to make a living where I can drive to work, drive back home, have a nice dinner, and do fun stuff on the weekends and live some kind of normal life. But as always, there’s something about playing music (not so much the beating my brains out THIS way on the road), that draws me back in. It’s pretty much all I’ve ever done other than some summer office work here and there when I was in college.

The feeling I get after playing a good show, or seeing a new place still feels really good to me. Sometimes it’s hard not to wish that there was an easier way to get there and a few more thousand people to buy tickets . That comes and goes I guess, and hopefully that will come more often than not in the future.

For now, I must bid you a GOODNIGHT from WaKeeney, Kansas. Population 1924 + 3. SALLLLLLUTE!

P.S.: Anybody want to sponsor a band, that works really hard, plays a lot of shows, and really needs a new bus??? hehe