Well I had an amazing time on my trip to the East coast to see Phish.

I’ll be posting individual reviews of each show, but this post it just about the overall weekend of fun.

Leaving Spokane Thursday morning I was full of jitters. Nervous about the flight, going so far from home, meeting new people, you name it I was worried about it. Just my nature I guess.

Thursday was a long day of flying, but not nearly as long as the flights home. I went from Spokane to Seattle then to Chicago and finally to Richmond. Gringo picked me up at the Richmond airport and shuttled me down to Hampton. We also met up with a fellow Phish-head Kentalope, who had flown into Richmond from Cali, and gave him a lift to Hampton as well. Carpool Phish! WooT! It seemed like a rather quick Drive down to Hampton, but that’s probably because we were having so much fun exchanging Phish stories that time flew by.

The hotel Gringo had secured for the first 2 nights was great, right across the street from The Mothership. We had even gotten upgraded to the 10th floor with windows facing the coliseum. The view was spectacular. There were Phish-heads all over the hotel, some staying there and some there just to party. The hotel gave us bracelets to get into the free breakfast in the morning, no bracelet then you had to pay. Good way to fend off the hippie freeloaders I guess.

We were all able to party at the hotel as we sat and watched the crowd of people start to multiply in front of the Hampton Coliseum. Friday was the day that Dr. H, Gringo and I all went and surfed the masses trying to find a worthy person to buy our extra Friday night, which we did. After interviewing a few people and listening to their stories we chose 1 lucky fellow to get the ticket. He just happened to be staying the a room down the hall from us at the same hotel. He got a screaming deal on that ticket.

Friday night show was amazing. We headed back to the hotel, ordered some room service and all talked about what we had just experienced. All of our minds were blown.

Saturday was the start of our “vacation from the vacation.” We checked out of that hotel and drove down the coast. We drove to Knotts Island, NC with the top down in the rented mustang. The wind blowing through our hair and the sun burning our faces and anything else we left exposed.  The NC country side was an interesting site to see. We drove by tons and tons of motorcycles out enjoying the riding weather. With each bike I saw I died a little inside, I wanted to be out there riding in the breeze too! Another thing we saw were Limo’s too many to count, it boggled our minds. There must be some secret Limo society there on the island that the rest of us don’t know about. We will get to the bottom of it someday!

We drove back up the coast into Virginia Beach, where we would spend our Saturday before the show and Sunday also. The hotel there was a bit dated, looked like it could have been one of those amazing hotel vacations you could win on the price is right in the 80′s.

We drove back to Hampton and entered The Mothership for another stellar night, then drove back to Virginia Beach

Now this was my first time on the east coast, and it messed with my mind. I have grown up on the west coast and am used to the beautiful white sands and amazing sunsets over the water. Not so in the east. The sun was setting in the west and would cast shadows of the hotels onto the sand. That sand was coarse and brown, with soft black sand just below the top layer.

We had lunch at a nice place on the beach with an outside patio. The food was pretty darn good. There’s just something special about eating fresh seafood right next to the beach. After which we went back to the hotel. Gringo took a nap and Dr. H called his girls, while I took a stroll down the beach and went for a little dip in the Atlantic. The water was COLD, and there was not the same salty seawater smell that I fondly remember from my days swimming in the Pacific. But still it was nice to take a stroll and get wet. The beach was crowded with people and animals. Looked like a great spot to get away from the crazy life over there.

Sunday afternoon we headed back to the show and gave ourselves plenty of time to wonder the lot. The show was exquisite, and it was a special one too, more on that later. After the show Gringo and I headed up to Richmond to stay at a hotel right at the airport. I had to leave bright and early.

We got to the hotel about 2am or so, and I took a shower to be ready for my 4:30 wakeup call to catch a shuttle. 4:30am Est. came real quick. Having only an hour sleep I figured I would sleep well on the planes.  I flew out of Richmond and headed to St Louis. Not a wink of sleep on that plane. As I got off in St Louis I saw I had about 2 hour layover, quickly I looked for the next direct flight to Chicago and grabbed a standby spot. I got on and was boarding within 15 min, not even enough time to get a good look at the St Louis airport. It was a short flight to Chicago, no sleep their either. Once in Chicago I looked for another flight to grab standby, but no luck. The next flight I could grab was the one I was scheduled for at 3:30pm so here went another 5 hours layover in Chicago. At least this time I knew where the power outlets were so quickly snagged one and guarded it for hours charging my iPhone and iPod. I caught my flight to Seattle. That was a long uncomfortable one. I tried and tried to sleep but just was not able to, the flight was packed and there was no room to stretch out. We landed in Seattle with 30 min to spare before my final flight home. I headed to the horizon desk, as i turned a corner I saw masses of people lined up and not a happy face on any of them. This couldn’t be good, and it wasn’t. Spokane was having a blizzard and the 7pm flight was canceled. They had switched me to the 9pm flight. I was able to get myself as standby for the 8pm flight, which ended up being delayed till 8:35. At 8:20 that plane had still not landed, so I looked at my tickets, the 8pm flight didn’t have seat number as I was standby and was one of the little puddle jumper planes that I hate. The 9pm flight was over on Alaskan, which was a bigger plan and I noticed I was sitting in an emergency exit row, WooT a whole extra 5 inches of space. I bailed on the standby and headed over there. To my surprise this ended up being the same plane that Dr. H was coming home on, and we ran into one of our other buddies JN. I was not able to sleep on this flight either, but I did get a free beer, so I won’t complain.

It was nice to step foot back in my home airport. I drug my luggage out the doors and saw my pal Pablo standing there with a big smile and a hug! It was nice to be home….

TTFN