Home For Now

So we've returned to the promised land once again. Home on the range. Texas. There honestly is something about crossing that border that lightens one's load. Maybe it's knowing that I won't have to live on my credit card like I usually end up doing for the last week or so of tour. Knowing that I'll be back to work - sweating to pay the bills, not sweating my bills. Or maybe it's a sense of comfort and regularity. Sleeping in my own bed. Cooking in my own house. Renting a movie. Waking up before noon. Seeing loved ones.

Whatever the case, it's good to be back. Touring can be rough. Don't get me wrong, I love it, but it ain't all roses and daisies. Sometimes you wake up on the floor, hungover, back feeling like you slept on some medieval torture device and you have to get up, drive 8 hours, spend $120 on gas, miss every call from your girlfriend because you have zero cell phone signal, eat two McDonalds double cheeseburgers because your per diem is peanuts, play for fifteen people, and get paid in beer and more peanuts. Would I rather work in a cubicle in front of a computer from nine to five every day? Hell no. But that doesn't change the fact that touring sometimes feels like some kind of survival camp. So it's good to be home.

But the road always calls again. When Willie Nelson sang, "Mommas don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys," he might as well have replaced "cowboys" with "touring musicians." Doesn't quite have the same ring to it but you get my point. There's something in us that drives us to go out and do it all again. A weird dichotomy between the need for familiarity and comfort, and the need to explore the unknown, hiding along those vast expanses of American highway we cross when we're on tour.

For now, it's good to be home.

-Ryan