Wow, I can’t believe Warped is half over. It really has flown by. When we were getting ready for this tour I  braced myself, remembering last time when the gear pushes were loooong, the noonday heat unrelenting, and the showers hard to come by. This year’s Warped has been way easier on us seeing as how our gear is now on the production truck, and most especially because we have a freaking shower on our bus! Oh the joy of it all.

A bunch of us have also gotten bikes to provide an escape from the craziness for an afternoon or evening. Hoopes has been gracious enough to let me ride his spare cruiser now that he’s got a fixed-gear for which he’s already gotten flack. Apparently you can’t become a mild-mannered fixie enthusiast; it’s either go big or go home. One of this sort happened to walk by Hoopes on his bike and berated him for having a front brake. That, my friends, is an unforgivable, fixed-gear transgression.

The first week of tour we spent in California, a few days of which we had off in San Clemente. Ethan recommended it to us as the town was his old stomping grounds. It was great! A bunch of us got to go surfing (it was my first time), and I think the ocean was thrilled to toss our sorry butts about mercilessly. It was awesome, but man is it hard work the first time! Here’s a picture of me before I became the sea’s ragdoll:

Gnar! What with the sun I’m not used to and the inevitable board rash, my skin took a beating that day and ended up feeling very… reptilian. But all’s back to normal.

Other highlights so far this tour have been hanging out in Durango for my birthday, seeing my wife and all my friends in Denver, playing Wii Fit with the Dunhams, watching the bats and fireworks in Austin (we’ll have a podcast up soon!), hanging out with the Douglas’s, riding in the Montreal rain trying to find a good cup of coffee with the boys, and of course playing our set each day. The best is yet to come, though, since wifey gets into town today!

Listening to "Oh John" from the album The Missing Link by Jeremy Enigk