#ashellretreats

Last week my friend Jackson and I took a spur of the moment trip out to Arkansas to retrieve our old band van. Our former drummer had driven the van there to join his new band but never had the chance to drive it back to Nashville, which is about 8 hours away. We both had a day off work so we figured we would just make the trip there and back in one day.

We left Nashville around 8 am on Wednesday morning, grabbed coffee at Dose, a favorite local caffeine center, and began the trip.

The journey to Arkansas was full of good stories, laughing, heavy jams and viral instagramming. The whole trip out there I had this uneasy feeling that something bad was going to happen to us. Something had to go wrong. I was really worried that my 97 Toyota 4Runner was going to break down but luckily no problems there.

When we got to the place the van was at we found all kinds of shit in it. A box spring, couch cushions, a computer, a beat up bass head, piss bottles and all the old snack bags from our final tour. The van was sort of a time capsule that held our memories there like we just left the van. I was looking forward to getting my favorite coffee mug and my windbreaker that I wore for most of my touring over the last two years. Both of those things were still in the van as well as other momentos that brought back bittersweet memories.

We started unloading all of the things that weren’t ours into the 3 door garage. About ten minutes into that, 4 squad cars pull up the driveway and about 6 cops file out.

At that moment I realized how sketch everything mush have looked. But we drove 8 hours and sacrificed everything to go get this old van, so communicating wasn’t on our radar, and we were entitled to our van. The officers kept telling us to get our hands out of our pockets and one of them even patted Jackson down. Its no fun being treated like a criminal until proven innocent. After awhile the lady who owned the house came out and we figured out the “situation” and sorted everything out with the cops. It wasn’t her fault because she didn’t know we were going to be there.

After that ordeal we drove to the nearest Taco Bell to munch food and get stared at for being an “outsider.” (pronounce the word “outsider” with the thickest accent imaginable). We then gassed up and headed home. After we made it passed Little Rock I saw a couple signs that said “choose alternate route”. I was thinking “that sign is probably for during the day.” I soon found out that I was really wrong. Things on the road started to slow to a hault. And then we didn’t move…for like 30 minutes, then an hour, then close to two hours.

It’s a horrible feeling when you’re completely exhausted and then you realize that you will have to push your body to the limit and stay awake. I had to be at work the next day so I really just wanted to get to my bed and get at least a few hours of sleep before my 9 hour shift. I made it back to Nashville at 6am. The last two hours of driving were horrendous and I literally told myself that this was the closest to death I had ever been. I slept for about 6 hours, then went to work and had to deal with plenty of unsuspecting bullcrap.

People who freak out over me being out of ketchup packets after a day like that don’t find much sympathy in me. I told that lady “where I’m from, we aren’t allowed to put ketchup on our hot dogs.” I had achieved a new level of irrational intolerance.