Day 3 - Ceres, CA

Today I woke up in a rest stop. It was about 9:30. I took a few of my over-the-counter sleep aids and crashed out after we left Eugene last night. I vaguely remember everyone getting out at one point in the night but other than that I actually got some sleep. I got up and went to the bathroom and woke everyone up in the process. It was my first time to drive. After everyone got up and ready we hit the road right around 10:30. We started to go up in the mountains and it got snowy. I was a little nervous since I didn't have much experience with the trailer and I don't like driving in snow in the first place, but I held it together and made it through. After we got through the mountains it rained non-stop throughout Northern California. It was so loud and constant, like a TV with static on full-blast on top of all the other noises bouncing around the van. We stopped at a Round Table an hour in and had some pizza then were back on our way. I drove...and drove...and drove. We made it to Ceres at about 5:30. I drove at least 6 hours. The venue, The Workshop, was indescribably sketchy. We drove by it and didn't think it was the venue, but soon found out this little blue shack behind a barbed-wire fence was indeed the venue. Kids showed up and it actually turned out to be a decent show. An older guy asked me where we were from and said "oh, the northwest...how's the weed up there?" I just couldn't resist playing along, so I said "awesome, man!" Then he said "how's the crystal up there?" I almost laughed as I said "psh, its the best!" That's when I got a little scared. He stood up straight, looked me directly in the eyes and said "Mine is the best." and proceeded to stare at me for a good 5 seconds. I just acted like I didn't hear him and began to talk about how cool our shirt designs were. The woman that was with him came up and started feeling the shirts and telling me what great quality they were. I said "yeah, the designs are awesome too...only $10, you should get one." She leaned into me and said "Would you trade a shirt for some crank?" I again almost laughed, but decided not to play along this time and said "oh, no, we are really poor and need cash to drive to the next show." Its true, but still...wow. I made sure Open Fire's merch guy knew about that so he'd stay on top of it while we played. We had an okay set. Chris' amp broke and it wasn't putting out much sound. After the show we discovered the input jack on the cab was broken. Kids danced really hard but I didn't feel like many people were that into it. We got $80 from the door and about that much in merch. Much better than last night. Now we're on our way to my dad's house in Minden for a day off tomorrow since our show in San Francisco got canceled. I'm a little nervous for the drive since we'll be going over the Sierras, but Jon is a good driver so hopefully it won't be too bad. I am stoked to be home for a day and hopefully see some friends.