Today was a day of many small let downs. We left St. Charles to head on over to TN. It was about 30 degrees when we left, but I expected us to reach warmer ground on our journey. The travel is really starting to catch up with me and I was really exhausted today. I have a very hard time falling asleep and staying asleep in strange places, so days of random floors and couches has been taking its toll. So far, I’ve been managing all right, but today was rough. I think we all had a hard time getting moving, especially due to lack of coffee. We haven’t been able to find a decent coffee on the road and it has been rough.
We found what was probably the nicest convenience store I’ve seen in a long while. It had a coffee shop inside with soy milk! The coffee was pretty terrible, but I drank half a cup anyway. Something about it tasted like baked beans. The store also sold this awesome colored sugar called “pucker powder” with a great crazy-eyed mascot with his abnormally long tongue wagling around. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a photo, but he was a quality fellow.
We journeyed down to Jackson, TN and arrived to find that the city was being hit with some snow. We didn’t think much of it at first. We headed on over to the Rockabilly Hall of Fame, but found that it was not open, so we wouldn’t get to see Carl Perkins’ blue suede shoes (if they indeed exist). We looked around town and made our way to a Starbucks and set up camp there. We spoke a little to the staff and overheard some conversations, which allowed us to gather that this was the worst snow storm to hit Jackson, TN in years. Schools were closed, businesses were closed, roads were dangerous. It seemed odd to us because only a couple of inches of snow had fallen. A reporter from the Jackson Sun interviewed us and took our picture for an article outlining the impact of the snow on people and events in Jackson. We’ll see if it’s in tomorrow’s paper (indeed it is – .
We checked in with the venue and the bands and found that we didn’t really have any choice but to accept that the show had to be cancelled. So, our first snowed-out show happened in Tennessee of all places. We packed up and hit the road toward MO, where we had a reservation. The roads were really icy and dangerous. We saw a ton of cars off the road, a bus that couldn’t make it up the ramp, and a bunch of other scary things.
After a three-hour drive covering about one hour of distance, we made it to the hotel and went next door to the Apple Barrel for some eats. The place was as close to the Double R Diner as I’ll ever see.
Overall, kind of a wasted day, driving 6 or 7 extra hours and not even getting to see the Rockabilly Hall of Fame!