Earlier today I sat in a Panera somewhere in the greater South Bend, Indiana area, celebrating the fact that I made the amazing decision to get a bowl of broccoli cheddar soup with not one, but TWO french baguettes. Totally beats the debacle of a couple of weeks ago where I tried my first sourdough bread bowl and decided that a)I much prefer the baguettes and b) the bread bowl was a little more bread than my tummy wants. Then I spent the afternoon playing with ponies, dollhouses, and multiple rounds of candyland with my little friend Ella.
It has been a full and enjoyable last few weeks full of gigs, friends, Lion and Lamb Festival, traveling to parts of Indiana I haven't been to before, and meeting awesome people. I also had a really awesome case of midwest summer allergies hit my first few days....but since then it's been smooth sailing.
This past weekend has been a "mini-tour", with two house shows and Sunday morning worship this morning. I spent Friday evening on a back patio in Argos, with a great group from Argos UMC. I met Dewey Miller in the lost iphone escapade of 2013....so we go back quite a ways.
Last night, the house show was in a barn/garage out in Dyer, right down the street from the infamous "shoe corner". It's quite literally a random corner at the intersection of two roads that people leave their shoes on. It gets cleaned up and the next day more shoes have already appeared. Interestingly enough, I drove past the driveway to the house, got to that intersection to turn around and thought to myself, "there are way more shoes on the side of the road than what could be considered accidental." Lo and behold, a roadsideamerica.com attraction!
I arrived after midnight to South Bend (turns out Dyer, Indiana is IN A DIFFERENT TIME ZONE!) and was up and at them this morning at Clay Church where my good friend Brian Durand is now Senior Pastor. I played with Kevin, an amazing upright bass player, and when we opened the service with Coming Home to You, I could almost imagine what it would have been like to play that song with my Grandpa. Bittersweet as the theme of the morning was on family.
There have been lots of other little things going on which I hope to share more of this week. A public radio show taping, t-shirt designing, lion and lamb. Tomorrow I'm headed back to the Fort for a few days to finish out my stay playing at Taste of the Arts next Saturday, the 23rd in downtown Fort Wayne. Talk again soon!