- My friend Cory Joseph is out touring in the middle of Oregon at the moment, having a ball I imagine. (www.coryjoseph.com)
- I'm right in the middle of preparing for an extensive tour in October and November of this year.
- I pulled out a bunch of photographs from a few months back that chronicled my last tour through California, Oregon, and Washington in February and March of 2008.
I originally had every intention of sharing these photographs with everyone. However, I find myself so caught up in the daily grind at times, that I either forgot to share them through a blog OR by the time I realized that I should have been posting my photos, I figured that everyone wouldn't have any interest anymore. However, I decided that maybe I should let you decide. I'll post a few pictures, tell a few stories, and let you gauge your own interest in my previous exploits.
To start off, there is a lot of the United States (and the world for that matter) that I have yet to see. I can tell you, that I am dead set on seeing as much of the world as possible. I think this mainly stems from the fact that I am not very impressed by the small window of the world we call television. I feel that a lot of the images we see on it everyday are biased and ultimately tailored in some way to fit a purpose. This purpose varies, but for the most part, it seems to culminate into a method in which to sell a consumer something, whether it a product or someone else's perspective… but let's save my thoughts on television for another blog. The long and short of this argument is that the world around us as we know it and the world we see on television never seem to converge at some juxtaposition that we can firmly call reality. This is the reason I enjoy to travel! There is no bias behind hoping in a car and seeing something with your own eyes.
With this being said, touring is perfect for me. I get to satiate my desire to see the world while also sharing my art with the people I come across.
For this last tour in February and March of 2008, I traveled through California, Oregon, and Washington, playing various colleges, universities, churches, and venues. I can tell you in all certainty aside from the wonderful people I met, that all three of these states are beautiful and I had a hard time conserving film. I snapped quite a few repetitive shots from my car as I drove up Interstate 5 all the way through Northern Washington:
Most of the above shots are Northern California, right before you cross over the Oregon border. You hit a large mountain pass right after you drive through Redding on I-5. There was a HUGE downpour as I was driving through this pass on the way up to Oregon, so I missed out of taking a lot of photos, because the conditions were sort of, well, dangerous. It had snowed the day before, so the road was quite icy and slick. I decided to snap some shots of the region on the way back down because it was much more agreeable weather then.
As I crossed into Oregon, I definitely rolled the car windows down. I love the smell of pine trees.
There was one point on the way to Astoria, Oregon that I pulled over to the side of a snow cleared highway to snap a few shots of a gorgeous area where the snow was melting into a shallow stream. I climbed down to this area and took a break from driving and snapped off a couple of shots before I hopped back into my car to play my gig at Clatsop College.
For those of you unfamiliar with Astoria, the 1985 movie "The Goonies" was shot there, as well as some of the other outlying towns (including Seaside) in the immediate Northwest area of Oregon; I was clued in to this factoid by the Astoria locals in various conversation during my stay.
Astoria was a really cool place to visit. It's a REALLY small town that sits right below the mouth of the Colombia River. It's a beautifully hilly area.
If you look closely at that last picture, there is this HUGE freighter off in the distance in the Colombia River. Those ships would scare the shit out of me in the early morning (were talking like 3:00 AM/4:00 AM). They have a huge epic horn that they blare as they are traversing through the heavy fog laden current of the Colombia River; it did an excellent job of startling me out of a deep sleep on a few different occasions. It literally felt like the freighter horn was right next to your bed when they pulled it. In one particular early morning moment of sleep before jumping out of bed startled, I think I was dreamily concocting some sort of story that a hell-bent train was heading directly through the room in which I was staying in before I came to my woken senses.
Here's another picture of one such culprit:
as well as some pictures of the less populated side of Astoria:
Anyway, for the most part, these are just a handful of the pictures and stories that I have from my trip. If you want more, let me know! Leave some blog comments. Show me that you're interested and I'll write and post some more blogs concerning my last tour.
In the meanwhile, I need to get back into the present and continue preparing for my next tour coming up in October and November. There's no time like the present, right?
As a side not, if you're interested in seeing me play in your area, show me! Demand me below! Trust me, I watch this thing like a hawk:
Mike Vitale events at Eventful
I'm going to be writing a blog concerning a contest that I will be running in the near future regarding bringing me to your town for a performance (no matter where you live in the United States). You can get a jump on this by demanding me above today! Show me that you want to see me and get your friends signed up too!
Thank you all for reading this and for your continued support. You bring my dreams into fruition everyday just by listening.
~ Mike
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