Roadie Report- Sept 11, 2015- We Remember!

Roadie Report 73 by Camilla McGuinn - Cross Country, 37 Years & A New Touring Van

             The first 2015 concert was a return to the beautiful Fox Theater in Tucson, AZ. It was a bit nostalgic because it was in this theater where we recorded the concert for Roger's mother's 102nd birthday. The ambiance of that night was so special that we decided to release the concert for Roger's fans to enjoy in the CD/DVD "Stories, Songs & Friends."

               One of our favorite adventures is driving across country from Florida. Our 2005 Ford van had over 250 thousand miles and was still running beautifully until we stopped at the immigration check point on Interstate 10. I lowered the window to let the border patrol officer look inside and ask the usual questions. As I pulled away from the check point, I heard a loud clunk  and the driver's side window had plummeted deep inside the door. I pulled over and we managed to pull the window up with a pair of long needle nose pliers. Then we wedged a squeegee in the frame to keep it from falling back down again. 

              Roger immediately got on the internet in search of a Ford dealer. Bingo! Just thirty miles away and they said they could fix it that day. One of the great joys of owning a Ford is that there is a dealer in every town and they usually have the parts. They always wash our van after they have serviced it. We spent  a little over an hour in their waiting room enjoying the company of a couple in their 80s who were driving from Indiana. Roger helped the gentleman with his cell phone while their car was undergoing an oil change. It's always encouraging to see alert octogenarians driving on cross country adventures.

               Our arrival in Tucson was just in time for Roger to have a guitar/ pizza party with his brother, son and grandsons. The next night the familiar stage of the Fox Theater rang in our 2015 year of touring.

               We headed north on Valentine's Day for a concert in Gilbert, AZ. It turned out to be a reunion with several friends we had known from the time we lived in Morro Bay, Ca. The only problem with reunions at concerts is that there is little time to sit and visit. We begin our work on a concert at lunchtime and don't stop until we return to the hotel after the show.  But even a short time spent with old friends is a special moment in the evening.

               Our usual route for driving home is to take Interstate 10 back through Tucson, but this time we wanted to explore roads we'd never traveled. There is a road from Gilbert Arizona that connects to Interstate 10 and runs through a beautiful part of the Tonto National Forest. We were in awe of the miles of sky high rose-tinted buttes. It was a relaxing drive rolling down to old El Paso.

               The Paramount Theater in Austin, Texas was the venue for the next concert but there was time to spend an evening in one of our favorite stops, Fredericksburg, Texas. This town was founded in 1846, named after Prince Frederick of Prussia. It is a German settled oasis in the heart of the Lone Star State. Another great thing about driving through Texas - the 85 mile an hour speed limit!

               The Manship Theater is located in the vibrant downtown of Baton Rouge. It is not only a beautiful theater, it is a community oriented organization reaching out to the residents of the city with classes and events that relate to all age groups. This was the second time Roger had taken the stage in this amazing theater.    

Winter Park, FL

  

               In March, Roger gave a lecture at Rollins College in the quintessential southern town of Winter Park, Florida. His lectures are entitled, "How My Love of Folk Music Took Me to the Rock'n' Roll Hall of Fame." The lecture was in the evening. The next morning he took part in a Q& A session and lunch with a few music students. Even though Winter Park isn't too far from our home, the early morning session was the reason we stayed at the new Alfond Inn. The Alfond is owned by Rollins College and it helps support their scholarship programs. It is a perfect hotel to stay in for walking the quaint streets of Winter Park.

37 Years of  April Rose

" A Love Affair"

               We celebrated our 37th wedding anniversary on April 1 with a cozy dinner at home and a viewing of the 1939 movie" A Love Affair." The movie " An Affair to Remember" is a remake of this Charles Boyer/ Irene Dunn movie. We're still debating about which one we like the best. It is really hard to compare Cary Grant with anybody. He even said, "Everybody wants to to be Cary Grant.  Even I want to be Cary Grant."

                   Something interesting happened right after the lecture during our morning devotions. We decided to go to the website of Explorer Conversion Vans and send them an email to contact us. Within an hour Scott, the Explorer Florida sales representative called us. I told him we were thinking about the Ford Transit and we didn't really need a lot of bells and whistles. He said the demo he was driving sounded like the van for us and he would be passing by our house in two days.

2015 Ford Transit Explorer Conversion Van

               Scott drove the silver Ford Transit  into our driveway on April 2. Roger test drove it for a couple of miles. Scott called the Ford dealer for a trade-in quote on our 2002 Ford van and we sealed the deal within in two hours. The van and paper work were delivered to us the Saturday before Easter. After 10 years of touring in the 2005 Van, we had a new set of wheels ! The 2005 E-250 van was relegated to being our new town car.

Springtime  Dogwood Blossoms

               We couldn't wait to get back on the road. We loaded the 'Silver Bullet' on April 19. First stop- Beaufort, SC and shrimp grits at the Saltus River Grill. From there we cut up to Interstate 81 for a relaxing drive through the Springtime Dogwood Blossoms in every Southern town to the Martin Guitar Factory in Nazareth, PA. We love stopping at this factory even if we don't need  to refurbish some guitars.

Monmouth  Guitar Jam

               The first performance of this tour was at Monmouth University. Roger gave a lecture on April 23 followed by a guitar jam. The sound of a bunch of guitars playing the Byrd's hits is always a memorable experience. The concert "An Evening With Roger McGuinn" was the next night.

A Room With a View

      We were off and running. The Montclair, NJ sold out concert was on April 25. Then there was just enough time for an evening at our favorite hotel, The Sheraton Lincoln Harbor Hotel. 

The view of Manhattan keeps us spell bound for hours. This time though we were a bit horrified. A new building was being constructed blocking of our view of the Empire State Building. The waiter in the restaurant expressed as much dismay as we did. He said it sprung up almost overnight. We're hoping it won't go all the way to the top. Maybe it will stop just where I photographed it!

Construction blocking the Empire State Building

               As much fun as the respite was, we were chomping at the bit to get back in the new Transit. Fortunately we were headed to the Midwest for concerts in Valparaiso, Indiana; Elgin and Springfield  Illinois and Ann Arbor, Traverse City and Saginaw Michigan. On the way, our route was taking us past the Explorer Conversion Van Factory - yep we had to stop! We love seeing how things are made.

               The Explorer facility is amazing. Our tour took a couple of hours because everything they install  in their conversion vans is made in their factory! It's a quiet location surrounded by corn fields in Warsaw, Indiana. I'm not sure what fascinated me more, though it was probably the wiring harness they make for all their vans and the seat covers they sew with leather imported from Europe. Roger had his cell phone camera rolling during the tour. Click here to see just a portion of this amazing American factory. Explorer Factory Tour

               One more thing about the Ford Transit. IT IS the most amazing van I have ever driven! This is our sixth van, five of them Fords, but this EcoBoost engine has an incredible 300 horsepower and the van hugs curves like it is a sports car.... I have a 1987 5.0 liter Ford Mustang convertible.  If I wasn't happily employed, I would sell the Ford Transit Explorer Conversion Van!  For full disclosure- we own 100 shares of Ford stock and 3 Fords. Oh wait, we just bought another 100 shares of Ford!

Explorers at the Explorer Factory

Goodbye to the 2002 Van

Roadie Report 72 by Camilla McGuinn - 54 Trains, 61 Hotels and 2 Voyages

Roger at sound check in Bruges, Belguim

          The sounds of Roger singing and playing guitar are gently reaching my ears as I sit down at the desk in my office. I promised him that I would begin work on the BLOG this Saturday morning. After all I finally finished all the tax paperwork, planted vegetables and painted a wall. I have no more excuses. Now it was time to get to work. I don't really consider writing the BLOG as work, but there is a moment of sheer terror when I open the Word program and  wonder if I can think of any words to type and if I do, will I write them properly. English grammar was not my best subject. I think I excelled in recess. Roger has been asking me for weeks when was I going to finish writing about our European tour. He likes reading the BLOG  because it reminds him of our sweet memories.

          I was curious as to how many trains we boarded during our 17 week concert tour and was shocked to count 54 different trains. Those Eurail  and Britrail passes definitely paid off.  Too bad there isn't a hotel pass somewhere. We checked into 61 hotels. After I had established our itinerary, booked our hotels and studied train schedules, I knew that the best way to approach the journey was one day at a time. Everyday held a new adventure but I have to admit that during the last two weeks, I felt like I was climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro. One step at a time became the  focus that would take us back to Southampton and the respite awaiting us on the elegant Queen Mary 2 even though Roger was giving lectures on board. But before we began the voyage home, there were some beautiful cities and wonderful concert audiences to experience.

          After the concerts in Germany, we boarded the Eurostar for the second time on this trip for four concerts in England. Roger had performed at all the theaters on previous tours. It was like coming home to Bristol, London, Leeds and Newcastle and the sun was shining in every city.

Eurostar Train Station

          The day after the Newcastle concert, we had to catch a train to London, navigate the busy streets of London to change train stations, then catch the Eurostar again, this time to Brussels. We arrived in Brussels just in time to get a late night sleep. On October 1, we caught  the train to Eindhoven for the first of 13 concerts in the Netherlands.

          Remco, the tour manager from MOJO concerts, picked us up at our hotel. We had worked with him two years earlier and were thrilled when he told us that Kurt was our sound engineer again. This professional crew made our concerts stress free and fun.

          The next train was to Enschede, then to Haarlem for a concert and four nights in the same hotel, The Carlton Square. The city of Harlem is perfect for walking. There is one historical museum that I have always wanted to see and this was our chance. The home of Corrie Ten Boom with a hiding place in the house that saved lives.

          The Ten Boom family were Christians who hid a group of Jews during the Nazi occupation. In their house a fake wall was constructed for a small room where the Jews hid while the Ten Boom family was taken to prison. Corrie was the only family member who survived the Nazi concentration camps.  She wrote a book about those times called, ":The Hiding Place ."The tours are small and free.

          I asked several people in the Netherlands if they had been to the house, but few people knew about it. Everyone knew about Ann Frank's house in Amsterdam. I didn't understand why this home was so unknown until a friend mentioned to Roger that the Ten Boom story is known as a Christian story, not as a holocaust survivor story. Same war, same God, same Jewish people, same prison.

          Exploring the streets and crossing the canals in Haarlem were the quiet moments we embraced. The old buildings, the restaurants and the small hotel  became very familiar by the time we caught the train for the next concert in Tilburg.

Amsterdam

          We traveled by train to most of the cities, but Holland is a small country so we decided to base out of Amsterdam for some of the shows with Remco driving us.

Rijksmuseum

          Once again I found a flat to rent for five days in a very fun area of Amsterdam, just blocks from the Rijksmuseum. 

      On the way to the museum we walked along a street that was better than Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. There was even a Tesla showroom.

Telsa Showroom 

     But true to our habits, our shopping was done in the closest grocery store. Our flat had such a beautiful garden we saw no reason to look for a window table in a restaurant.

Flat with a view

     Every city in Holland has a wealth of history and of course a beautiful church.  The canals, windmills and countryside are impressive but it is the bicycles that kept amazing us. The streets have big bike paths and we were in more danger of being hit by a bicycle than we were by cars or buses. Everyone rides, little toddlers to grandmothers. The train stations even have double-decker bike garages.

Commuter parking lot

          Before the concerts, I'm in the lobby at what Roger calls my "lemonade stand." I have Roger's autographed CDs and posters available for his fans. The main reason I like to be there is that folks tell me their stories about Roger and how his music touched their lives. After the concert in Hoorn, several men were excited to tell me that the sea chantey Roger talked and sang about, "Randy, Dandy O," made reference to Cape Horn. Cape Horn was named by the sailors from Hoorn in Holland.

Bruges,Belgium

Roger at sound check

     Before the end of the Holland concerts, we made one trip to the city of Bruges, Belgium and the beautiful theater that was built as a replica of the Paris Opera House. After a while, the word beautiful seems so overdone, but there is really no other way to describe some of the lovely cities of Europe. We had one day off to explore the historical part  Bruges, then it was back on the train for our last concert in Holland in the city of Nijmegen.

Bird Man in Brugge

          

     We boarded the Eurostar for the fourth time during this tour on October 30. By now, finding our seats on the Chunnel Train was as easy as navigating Amtrak  and the St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel was feeling like a second home.

          November 1st was the beginning of the last leg of our concert tour. Concerts were scheduled in Milton  Keynes, Birmingham, Cardiff, Brighton, Manchester, Liverpool, Nottingham and Cheltenham.  This was when I began feeling like I was climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro. Words spoken can have an impact, so I didn't tell Roger  I was becoming weary. Each concert requires a lot of energy from both of us and any cloud can drain energy that is needed for a fresh performance. Once Roger walks on stage, my energy soars until the last encore.

          Our train trips through England were filled with the same excitement that we felt when we embarked on our  first train journey in the United Kingdom many years ago. Seeing familiar cities, theaters and friends in the unusually warm sunny weather brought us to laughter when we told everyone that the warm sunshine would go away when we boarded the Queen Mary 2 on November 12.

The Queen Mary 2

          After the last concert in Cheltenham, Tilo, our English tour manager, drove us to Southampton. The sight of the majestic ocean liner almost brought tears to my eyes. The journey was almost over. I was relieved in a way, but sad with a sense of awe. Did we really do it? Did we haul guitars up the steps to 54 trains and into 61 hotels. And the age old question every performer thinks when the run is over, "Will we ever work again?"

          Yep! We did. We just got back from driving to concerts in Arizona, Texas and Louisiana. I hear we're going to Japan and Hawaii this year. There will be more sweet memories coming!

This painting was in the flat in Amsterdam. It reminded me of  someone.

I was surprised at how close I could get to this painting and that photos were allowed in the Rijksmuseum.

Bruges, Belgium

View from our hotel room of the Castle in Cardiff