Day Off in Poughkeepsie

When Steve, my bus driver, pulls out of the venue lot just after 6am, I wake up. Think about going back to sleep, but no such luck. I roll out of my little womb and sit up front with him for the drive to Poughkeepsie. I already like Steve, he's a great driver – totally pro attitude and waaay laid back.

We make it to the hotel before 10. I'm still the only one awake, so I go handle the check-in. Throw my bags in, and head out for a walk to see what's nearby. Temperature's great, and the sky's completely overcast.

As we were driving in, Steve and I were talking about how neither one of us had ever been to Poughkeepsie. Or so I thought. While I was out walking down Main Street in downtown, I glanced down an alley and saw a club called The Chance that Cry of Love had played at back in the day. I wanna say we played there once in '93 and again in '94. I kinda remember seeing some snow on one of those occasions. I also remember having a conversation with Audley (CoL's guitar player) about how depressing these burnt-out towns were. Economy in the toilet, all the young people moving away, downtown turning to shit. I mean, have you ever been to a city where all the people look like they've just had the life sucked right out of them? That's what this is. You can just see it on their faces.

There's hardly anything downtown that's gonna be open for dinner tonight. One Chinese place, one pizza joint, and one deli that looks pretty dodgy. Maybe it'll be a room service night.

I grab a quick breakfast at the deli down the street from the hotel. Today it's a short stack (2 pancakes) with 2 scrambled eggs. Good stuff. Couldn't finish the pancakes, just too much.

Other than running down the street to handle some banking business, I pretty much spend the rest of the day in my room. Brent Carpenter, the monitor engineer, called and invited me to join him and a couple of guys for dinner, but they weren't even leaving the hotel until 9pm, and I just didn't want to go out that late.

I phoned in an order for some Chinese food (Shrimp & Broccoli, extra spicy), and even though they deliver, I decide I'd rather walk down the street and pick it up.

Back in the room, I catch a little TV while chowing. Off to bed just past 11:30...