Being on the road is an interesting monster. You get to see things, hear things, meet people and experience things that you just can’t experience without leaving the cozy confines of your cozy confines. This 91-day tour has illustrated these facts more than I could have ever dreamed.

We had barely cleared the shadows of the Vegas skyline before my lovely co-pilot Anna pointed at my dash indicating that the van was overheating. We had it checked bumper to bumper two days earlier, as we always did before touring, and we were given the thumbs up. Overheating? Not possible. Well, not only was it possible, but it was happening.

We limped into a repair shop in Golden Valley, Arizona and spent the day and just short of a thousand dollars before being sent on our way with another “thumbs up.” About thirty minutes later, the van was overheating again. We limped into Kingman, Arizona and spent another two hours at a sister facility to the first repair shop and again, were sent on our way with another “thumbs up.” The van continued to overheat and we limped into El Paso, spent two days and over a thousand dollars there, finally learning the engine was unfixable.

Through the help of a few angel fans and friends (and a call to El Paso from Mr. Jim Marsh) we were able to get a used replacement minivan and were back on the road and able to resume our tour and resuming our adventure.

We’ve seen flooding, homeless people standing outside our motel door asking for quarters, a bullet hole in a motel window, a black bear casually walking in a parking lot, a Ray Charles monument in Albany, a guy getting arrested by force right in front of my machine in a Planet Fitness in Florida, sailed on a pirate ship in Corpus Christi, established a World Record, went on an airboat in the Everglades, went on a dolphin cruise, and got yelled at for singing “God Bless the USA” by a Karen actually named Karen at a country club in coastal Florida.

It's been fun, exhausting, a learning experience, and, at times, pure joy, and I can’t wait to do it again!