Goodbye Esmeralda!

August 21, 2001
London, Ontario 

After seven and a half years of grand adventures (and nearly 300,000 km...) I said goodbye to Esmeralda the van today. Thanks Ezzie. You were such a good horse. She really wanted to be driven off the side of the Grand Canyon but I figure they'd probably catch me for that and wouldn't be very nice about it to boot. My new van is a sleek (yet still slightly soccer mom) Plymouth Voyager. Her name is Maybelle and she's a very delicious shade of burgundy. And her engine is young and she's excited to take on some mountains soon... I'm getting ready to head up to Lake Simcoe and Eaglewood Folk Festival next weekend. I'm excited for a little Ontario cottage country before I head south again. Then, back to Virginia for a little more sleazeball motel writing quarantine in the beautiful Shenandoahs...

August 7th, 2001
London, Ontario 

HOLY HOT DAMN. it was a lovely 106 degrees on Esmeralda the van's thermometer the whole way home from Rhode Island. Poor Ezzie's air-conditioning busted 'cause she just couldn't take it anymore. It wouldn't have been so bad but for the New York City bad-ass traffic jams and having to leave my poor guitar in the car... Spent hours running around the Bronx Toys R Us trying to cool off. And then, in the parking lot, the whole side door of the van just fell off. Oops. Almost died but at least I got a wicked new sword and knight helmet and a Harry Potter lunchbox out of it. Had an amazing time in Newport. The folk fest was a blast and I got to meet Emmylou Harris and her beautiful doggy Bonaparte. Very amazing. I am hoping to head back to the ocean soon. When I close my eyes I hear fog horns and I want the bogs of New England to eat me. (They like me 'cause I taste like raspberries.) I am going on a journey to find the house I will hide in all winter and write... Who knows where it will be. (I just hope there's a good Thai restaurant nearby.)

July 20th, 2001
Sperryville, Virginia

I am hiding away in the Blue Ridge Mountains, somewhere between the crystal fairyland caverns and the civil war battlefields. and as they say in Virginia "I reckon it be hotta than a fire storm in hell." And ain't it the truth! Me and my dear friend Jenny have been sitting on her porch watching the lightning bugs like Christmas lights as they dance across the mountain. Today was spent with much hiking, tequila and veggie corn dogs . YAY veggie corn dogs! I have been having such a crazy adventure. Today I hiked far into Shenandoah park's white oak canyon and found beautiful waterfalls and swimming holes... It is so glorious here I can hardly believe it and I am thinking of coming back sooner than later to live with Jenny again in her big lovely converted sleazeball motel apartment by the river...

July 2nd, 2001
London, Ontario 

Hey y'all.

Like the new website??

It's been quite the summer so far! I have moved away from my home on Vancouver Island and I am heading for the oceans of the east… Me and Esmeralda the van drove across Canada and next we are heading south to the Shenandoah Valley. I am taking some time out to write and rehearse in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains. I am SO looking forward to finally having time to practice my banjo in the holler with the copperheads and the Virginia creeper (so long as the snakes are nice…). After that it's Nashville for guitar shaped nail clippers and sleaze ball motels. Hooray! I am also so excited for the Newport Folk Festival 'cause lots of my heroes are gonna be there (Emmylou Harris, Patty Larkin and the Indigos to name a few…)
I will be back in Ontario in August for a couple festivals and then off to the east coast in search of a new home…(Halifax?… Atlantis?… Amsterdam?…) Who knows. We'll just have to see.

Hope to see you somewhere out there.

All hail Queen Xena