Doesn’t that title sound romantic and adventurous and all those things? I get asked that a lot – “What is life on the road like?” Truth be told it’s both adventurous and romantic, but I’ll pony up here to the other side of that life for this post. No, I’m not going to complain or whine about how hard it is, because plenty of artists do that and they probably aren’t cut out for touring. I truly like the travel and the people, and I travel mostly with Susan who is absolutely 100% genetically bred for life on the road.

– She loves driving and playing guitar and she loves doing them in the same day.
– She can drive all night and not nod off.
– She loves people and she loves convenience stores.

Hence, I really like going with her and 99 times out of 100, things are pretty smooth. Sometimes they aren’t, like this weekend when one of the dogs had a smelly, reeky accident in the passenger seat while we were in the venue. Poor guy. The dogs never do that, so it was an act of desperation. Suz did a valiant and great job at clean up, and the smell was there just because smells do that. My OCD, much improved after 100s of truck stop restrooms (I still can’t open a trash can lid without a sugar packet or napkin between me and the lid), was still on hyper-alert. It took me about a day to stop the OCD-freak-out-mode. Sigh. We laughed about it, I griped about it, then I realized I did not have the unpleasant experience that Suz did so why was I griping, then I felt bad, then we laughed. Because sometimes, quite literally, shit happens.

My point being here is that the “road life” comes down to a few key things…that genetically pre-disposed to liking it thing, and also the nature of all folks traveling together being compatible. I can’t convey how odd it is for co-workers to be inches apart from one another for days and sometimes weeks at a time. It’s not like an office situation, you can’t get up and go to the break room, and you can’t go home at night. It’s a bizarre work life. Senses of humor are required, and when they run out, the ability to handle long silences is necessary until they come back again, which they always do.

A good road friendship is one you should hang on to, because when it works it works for very intangible reasons. It takes resolve, and sometimes it takes Resolve Deep Clean Spot and Stain, and that’s ok, too.