Being thankful:
Thankful for an uneventful drive from Rochester to Covesville, VA.
Thankful for warm family and neighbors in the Hollow with their warm welcome
Thankful for our wonderful friends in Rochester and around the country and the world
Thankful for our health and the ability to pursue the RV lifestyle we love, also for the health of our friends and family.

Hopeful for a resolution of the ongoing strife between Israel and Hamas that permits people to live in peace both in Israel and in Gaza.  I know I am hoping for a lot, may it be in my lifetime.

Wishing strength to the people in New York and New Jersey whose lives have been torn asunder by the super storm.

We are settled in our favorite spot in Dan and Malena’s yard until December 3.I have participated in a minor construction project in one of the bathrooms, it was indoors and warm, I don’t think that counts.  I have continued to make minor modifications to the coach, installing hooks and other projects that make it more comfortable for us.  Why don’t manufactures install a key rack? a towel rack? anyhow in many ways it is good that they didn’t, It makes me feel useful and like I have personalized the coach.

Carol has rearranged the cupboards again.  She is having trouble figuring out where she wants things, so I have to relearn where everything is when we get on board.  Maybe after 6 months things will settle into their necessary spaces.

We have changed our route yet again.  We are not going to Red Bay, AL.  I remembered that Lazy Days is a major Tiffin dealer and we will be less than an hours drive from there.  So after we leave Fort Desoto we will move to Lazy Days and have our work done there before rolling towards Texas.  So we will be rolling along the Gulf Coast starting sometime after December 19 until our scheduled arrival in San Antonio on the 23rd.

Tomorrow, Sunday November 18, we will roll out of Rochester for the beginning of a six month wander.  This trip has a lot of special things happening along the way.  As I write this we are New York residents   I expect by the time we come to Rochester to spend some time in our summer residence on St Paul St we will have Texas domicile.

After we stop in Virginia for a couple of weeks with Dan and family for Thanksgiving we will visit Carol’s brother and sister-in-law in St Petersburg, FL.  From there we will route to Red Bay to get a list of minor items taken care before rolling out to San Antonio TX.  There we will be met by our boys and their entire families who will fly in and rent RV’s and join us for two weeks in San Antonio and Fredericksburg, TX and anyplace else we may decide to stop.  Some birthday present for both of us!!

After that we will go to Livingston to do what paperwork we need to do to become real Texans.

From there we have no idea, although we do need to see people in Dallas and Austin.

This is the culmination of a bunch of planning that started as we returned from our 2011-12 wander.  We have barely slowed down to breath.  You have seen the blog on our trip to Tanzania.  Since then we have been to a rally of Tiffin Travelers in Bath NY, driven to Foxboro (Foxborough) MA where we stayed at the lovely Normandy Farms CG only an hour from our nephew Ross’s home in Cambridge.  There we visited with Ross, Kristin and their three children and also went to Yom Kippur services at the synagogue they belong to almost as close to them as Yechiel and Miriam’s is to them.

On the way there we took advantage of our Harvest Host membership to stay at Bowman Orchard just outside Albany.  That might have been considered a mistake as we arrived late afternoon on a gorgeous Sunday in September.  The highway was backed up a mile when we got there and we couldn’t enter the driveway they were using for people to enter.  Fortunately, they were expecting us and the guard at the exit waved us in and parked us on the grass alongside the driveway until the mobs left.  Then we pulled into the main parking lot and spent the night.  We did buy some apples.  It was really quite lovely.

On the way home from Cambridge we stopped at the RV park that is tied to Turning Stone Casino.  They were celebrating Halloween!! which completely messed me up for the month of October as I thought Halloween was past already.  We did go into the casino and walk around and had a very nice dinner in one of the restaurants.  On to Rochester.

We stored the coach and started shopping for a new car.  The RAV4 had served us well, but is was 8 years old and in addition to the 56,000 mile on the odometer, it had been towed 90,000 miles and it was due for new tires, again.  We bought a Jeep.  We bought a car that was delivered from the factory ready for serious off road play.  It is a 4 door Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon.  Some of the capabilities we may never use.  I am not sure I want to be someplace where I need to electronically disengage the front sway bar, but then you never know.

It is now play time!!  Our last activity before leaving is to attend the Perlman’s 50th Wedding Anniversary Party.  We were at the wedding.  Last night we sat at dinner with another couple who were at that wedding who will be at the party.  We do live in a small community in a large city.

Tanganyika became an independent nation in 1961 when the British Empire left.  Zanzibar, which was an island nation off the coast of Tanganyika became independent in 1963.  In 1964 they decided to merge to become one nation.  They took Tan from Tanganyika and Za from Zanzibar and added nia from Swahili for united.  Thus we have the nation of Tan za nia, accent on the “za”. The northern border was drawn, by the British, to keep the “Roof of Africa” Kilimanjaro in Tanzania rather than in Kenya where it might more rightfully belong, if you were into drawing straight lines.

Within Tanzania there are National Parks, National Reserves, Game Reserves etc.  I lost my concentration at some point, but the most protected areas are the National Parks where vehicles must stay on established roads and are permitted only during the daylight hours.  No one is permitted to dismount from a vehicle except in certain controlled areas.  This made planning to “check the tires” (the accepted euphemism for toilet stop) very important.  It became clear to us that the reason for these limits had two important purposes.  The first is to prevent poaching.  It is harder to poach if it is a crime to dismount your vehicle and any vehicle moving around after dark is also in violation of the law.  The second reason is safety of tourists.  We saw lions that were upset with each other within touching range of our vehicles.  We had to stop to let elephants and Cape Buffalo cross the road and in one instance we had to wait for a spotted hyena to get out of a puddle in the road in its own good time.

Our first national park was Tarangire.  After a visit to Shanga Shangaa a sheltered workshop located in the middle of a coffee plantation

 outside Olisiti our in town lodge where we had an opportunity to shop and see the way the locals in Arusha, the third largest city in Tanzania with about 1,500,000 population and two traffic lights, lived we had a second night in Olisiti.  Then we headed out for Lake Burunge Tented Camp.  We had our first game drive as a complete group in Tarangire on  the way.  The next morning, bright and early, 5:30, we were awakened to have an early breakfast and get away for another game drive in Tarangire.  The only cat we had seen so far was cheetah.  We saw one mother with two cubs and the second day we saw a single cheetah somewhat distant.  Elephants were plentiful and right on the road as were baboons and of course gazelles large and small, Hartebeast to Dikdik.  Our guides were calling the smaller gazelles Cheetah Snacks.  We also saw plenty of warthogs.  I’ll get to the birds later.

Cheeta with cubs

Leaving Lake Burunge Tented Camp we headed through Ngorongoro Conservation Area to Serengeti National Park and our Mobile Tent Camp located at Prince Charles Campsite.

  We were to return to Ngorongoro after 4 nights in Serengeti for a game drive in the Ngorongoro Crater (really a caldera geologically).  When the national parks were created, initially the Masai were the only people permitted to continue to live in the park.  They are a nomadic people whose livelihood is based on cattle, goats and sheep.  They do not hunt wild animals and have centuries of coexistence with the natural wildlife.  Eventually it was decided to move them to the Ngorongoro Conservation area where there was more water and better grazing land.  They were agreeable to this move.  We visited a Boma in this area and were greeted by the women dancing and singing to welcome us.

 Our ladies were swept up by the women and wrapped in kangas, the native cloth and jewelry.  Carol participated fully and they all helped with the refurbishment of one of the lady’s houses.  This entailed carrying the materials to the house, thatching the roof and plastering the walls with a useful mixture of mud and dung.  The men did what men do, stood around and watched, mostly.

An aside on the Masai culture.  Men may have have more than one wife.  They create a Boma which is walled with brush to keep wild animals out and domesticated animals in at night.  The wife builds her house with tree limbs, mud and thatch.  The first wife may recruit her friends to become additional wives.  She also has approval over any wife the husband may introduce.  Each wife builds her own house in the Boma.  On occasion brothers may share a boma and two groups of wives may live there, or a son may take over leadership of his father’s Boma.  The Boma is a temporary camp.  If the grazing is depleted or the water is short they may move on, generally to another Boma that they have left for similar reasons in the past.  We did visit a temporarily abandoned Boma in the north.

Before we left the Masai we presented them with the four water filters we had purchased earlier in the trip.  Eli set one up to show them the process and later, before we left I tasted the water which had been filtered.  We hope that this gift is a gift of health for the community.  It is only a shame that it is only this one small community that will benefit.  We are going to do more.

Finally we got the the Mobile Tent Camp we had been talking about.  It is indeed tents, under canvas covers with a dressing room space and a shower and toilet.  The shower water is supplied by a staff person who works behind the tent where there are no windows.  The process begins by one of us calling out, “ready to shower” and the staff person pours 20 liters (about 5 gallons) of shower warm water into a bucket with a hose in the bottom and raises the bucket on a hoist above the tent.  We then take a “Navy Shower” (wet down, soap, rinse) which Carol and I are used to doing when we camp in the desert.  When finished we call out “second shower” and the scenario is repeated.  Although it was possible to ask for more water, we never had a need.  The toilets left a lot to be desired.  They are normal commodes set in wooden crates for transport and it appeared that they emptied into a hole in the ground.  Enough said.  The entire camp is packed up and moved about once a month as each area needs to be left fallow so as not to disturb the normal movement of the animals.  We were not permitted off the path from the central dining tent to our tents and we were not to be out of the tent after dark without an escort.  We did have to watch for fresh droppings on the path after any period of inactivity.  One night Fred and June could not get to their tent until the staff brought up a car to scare off a Cape Buffalo that was on the path.  At night we heard elephants tearing the trees and lions calling in the distance.

Our third morning five of us were awakened extra early to be picked up to go on a hot air balloon ride. For those who have been on a balloon I do not need to go on about the silence of drifting with the wind and the roar of the gas heaters that keep the balloon aloft.  The take off was interesting as the basket, for these very large balloons holds 16 passengers in 8 compartments.  The basket was on its side and Carol and I had to get into an upper compartment lying on our backs such that when the basket became upright we would be standing in our compartment.  All 8 compartments were filled on three balloons while the balloons were being inflated by fans.  Finally the pilot boarded and lit the burners to heat the air and the balloon rose taking us with it.  We drifted over the Serengeti at altitudes as high as 1,200 feet to a low of 7 feet which put us at eye level with a giraffe that happened to be in our path.  The flight landed after an hour on a road where our chase team was waiting and we were served champagne on the spot followed by a white tablecloth breakfast served by waiters in white turbans.

Sultan picked us up after breakfast and we rejoined the group for another game drive.  By now we had seen all of the “Big Five” elephants, cape buffalo, lions, leopard except for rhinoceros.  The designation of the Big Five was by trophy hunters.  In Serengeti there are reported to only be 18 black rhinoceros left.  There are many more in Ngorongoro, but we hoped to see one in Serengeti before getting there.  And we did!

Our trip was approaching departure day and we returned to Tloma Lodge with a lengthy game drive through Ngorongoro Crater National Reserve which enabled us to see two more rhinos and to run up our lion count to over 50.  We also saw vast herds of wildebeests and dazzles of zebras.  Finally we got to the lodge and settled in for our last two nights in Tanzania.  The next day was devoted to meeting the people.  We went to Tloma Primary School which was not fully in session as the faculty were traveling the bush to complete the national census.  Only 7th graders were attending, preparing for the national exam which gives access to secondary education.

Ely wanted to show us more of the town so we walked through the local market where we attracted every hawker and vendor of beaded wear and cloth within running radius.  They were hard to fend off and we ended up adding to the collection of material we were carting home.  Finally we were directed to “Culture Bar” where we were treated with banana beer and music.  This bar was located on a side street and clearly was not a tourist destination.  Before long we were dancing with the locals and spending more money on more “stuff” that the very persistent vendors continued to push on us.

Our final day saw us returning to Olisiti Lodge after a stop at the Tanzania Culture Center where we had only 30 minutes to run through exhibits of art from ancient to modern.  Carol and I needed another hour, at least, and some of our cohort really needed more time to shop!  Different folks, different strokes.  We had a break at Olisiti with day rooms to freshen up for the flight – we were 33 hours on route home – and on the drive to Kilimanjaro International Airport the clouds that had covered Mount Kilimanjaro whenever we were in a place to see it finally lifted to reveal the mountain.

Just typing the title is thrilling.  We have seen our friends pictures and heard their stories and somehow it never seemed reachable.  In June, with our townhouse on the market and plans to lease  an apartment beginning August 1, it seemed perfectly reasonable to plan an adventure for the latter half of August.  The fact that Carol has a show to hang in October seemed beside the point.  We did not know where we wanted to go even.  We started with Ireland, but none of the trips with openings seemed appealing.  I remembered that Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT) had a fine reputation and we had drooled over their catalogs in the past, so I started to search their site.
There it was, a Serengeti Safari in Tanzania with pretrip to the Kilimanjaro area and even an option of a dawn balloon ride over the Serengeti.  So August 16 we disembarked from a KLM/Delta flight at Kilimanjaro (JRO) International Aiport about an hours drive from Arusha.  I must admit that before planning this trip I was not aware of the existence of Arusha with a population of over 1,500,000 and two traffic lights.  In the airport parking lot we sorted ourselves out realizing that fellow travelers we had been talking with were on other OAT trips departing at the same time with different itineraries.  Eventually we found ourselves in Eli’s “Bush Limo” in convoy with Luca headed for Oliciti Lodge.  Before we got there we were to witness a collision in which Luca’s vehicle was rear ended by a drunken driver with no damage to his vehicle or to his passengers.  However the drunk did not get off so easy.  His hood was doubled and steam poured from his radiator.  He had hit the two spare tires mounted on a roll cage on the back of the Toyota Landcruiser.  We were to learn that these vehicles are among the strongest we have had the joy of riding in.

Carol and I thought we ought to have one for our tow’d.  Base price $78,000, too much to drag behind us over good roads where its capabilities are not really needed.

After a night at Oliciti Lodge  we set out for Sinya Tented Lodge near Kilimanjaro.  We made a stop to see the manufacture of water filters out of ceramic. 
 The only place in East Africa where these household filters are made.  The process is primitive yet very sophisticated.  Clay is mixed with sawdust and colloidal silver.  When it is fired with appropriate changes in firing temperature, the sawdust is burnt out leaving fine passages for the water to flow through and a charcoal layer to serve as another filter medium along with the silver to extract heavy metals.  We bought two to deliver to a family we would visit later in the trip.  On to Kilimanjaro.  Eventually we left pavement behind and got our first African Full Body Massage.  Later we were to experience the Deep Massage as the roads deteriorated.

As we approached the tented lodge we saw some zebras 
off the road.  A little later we saw giraffes.  Then we saw a lot of giraffes (a tower of giraffes) and then a dazzle of zebras.  As so it went.  We arrived at our first tented lodge and marveled at the open air main lodge and our “tent”
 
which really was a tent under a permanent roof with a complete bathroom at the back with mostly solid walls, the whole is raised on piers to keep the animals out.  As we approached ours with our Masai Warrior guide we saw a zebra peering around the brush just feet from our stairs.  Our instructions were clear, from sundown to sunrise we were not to leave a building without our warrior guide.  After dinner we were escorted to our tents and our instructions were to wave a flashlight from the deck if we wanted an escort to another part of the facility, such as the bar.  This became the theme for the trip whenever we were in a tented lodge or mobile tent camp (more about that later).

Our first day at Sinya we went on our first game drive with the roof hatches removed and we added elephants and wart hogs and Thompson and Grant Gazelles to our growing list of sightings.  We saw congresses of baboons, Yellow Tail, and many birds.  We were way in the north of Tanzania, so far north that we eventually came to the border with Kenya where we got out and took a nice long walk which brought us to the border, you could tell, there was a marker.

After lunch and siesta we resumed our drive headed to a Masai Boma, a household consisting of a husband and several wives and their children.  Several Boma constitute a village, but each is independent.  We were in for a special treat as the Masai circumcise their males children between the age of 13 and 20.  This is only done every seven years, which accounts for the age variance.  This day was the day for the Masai in the region and we were invited to a pre circumcision ceremony.  The boys were in seclusion for the cutting the next morning, but the rest of the tribe gathered to dance and sing.  We joined a small group in the kraal where the cattle are penned at night with the women singing and dancing and eventually the men arrived to begin their singing and dancing. 

As we were encouraged to participate it became more and more crowded and it became clear that Masai from  neighboring bomas were walking in to join the party.  Eventually the women set up a small market of their bead work and after some intense shopping and bargaining we were on our way.

Eli, our guide, talked about a meat eating ceremony that follows the circumcision.  All the men gather in the bush and slaughter a meat animal (domestic cow, goat or sheep) and make a stew with herbs that are said to encourage an appetite for meat.  This goes on for a month!  As we were on our game drive the next morning, Eli spotted a group of men in the brush and made an approach to see if we could see what it was like, he had never participated himself as his tribe is Pare not Masai.    After an initial rebuff we were welcomed in.  This was an opportunity to taste the concoction.  I don’t need to do that again and it certainly did not make me ravenous for more meat.  The drive across the dry lake bed we were on gave us a chance to get really close to the elephants.

and

There are more pictures on my Picasa Web Album which is open to the public to view.  To my new friends from the trip please let me know if you are having a problem reading this or viewing the album.

I will be writing and posting pictures from the rest of the trip soon.

Whew, we are really here!

This wll be telegraphic as the keyboard is dreadful and the connection very slow.

After landng in Kilimanjaro airport we drove to Arusha for  our first night.  The only excitement was watching a drunk drive into the rear of our other Bush limo.  Totally destroyng hs own front end and not leavng a mark on our other car.  We drove on without incident.  The next day we drove to Sinya Tent Camp in the Kilimanjaro district.  On our way into the camp we saw towers of Giraffes and dazzles of Zebras.  They were practically in the camp.  Oh yes Roughing it Smoothly, applies here too.  More when  I have time. 
The next day we went on an early morning game drive and then we went to a Masai Bomba (village) where we witnessed a precircumcsion ceremony.  The boys 13 to 20 were not present as they were in a secluded cabin awaiting the surgery in the morning. 

By the time we left Sinya we had seen giraffes, zebras, elephants, yellow tail baboons, warthogs, and too many birds to recount.  Oh, I missed Grants Gazelles, Thompson Gazelles, Impala, and many monkeys.  Next we stopped back in Arusha and then on to Tangira National Park where we added Cheeta and Lion  and waterbuck and baboons and . . .

Add another Masai vllage where we delivered water filters we had bought to provide clean water for the family and on to Tloma where we are now.

The meter is runnng out and the day is hot so more the next time I fnd a live connection.  I have 600 pictures and Carol has over 1,000 and who knows how many mnutes of video.

It is Sunday morning, our last Sunday as residents of 1482 East Ave.  Carol is in the kitchen baking!  I have been clearing things up and cleaning in preparation for an open house this afternoon.  Maybe the buyer, who must be out there, will come through today.  We have so much going on it is hard to fathom.

Carol has put together a show for October, all the parts are at Lumiere.  In September she will begin the final assembly of frames.  We are moving out of this wonderful townhouse after 21 years on Thursday to a glorious apartment on St Paul St, two blocks north of Main in the Warner Building.  This building is a cast iron and brick building put up in 1869.  For more about the history click here.  We hope to get settled fairly quickly as we are leaving for Tanzania, traveling with Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT) on August 15, returning August 31.

The trip includes Kilimanjaro, Ngorogoro Crater, and Serengeti.  Hopefully it will include many large mammals and birds we have never seen before outside of Discovery Channel and books that date to my childhood which we have unearthed in the preparation for moving.

We will stay put for at least 18 days on our return, through Rosh HaShana and then leave for a local Tiffin Rally in Bath NY.  We don’t know where we will find ourselves for Yom Kippur yet.  Could be back in Rochester (the drive is only 90 minutes) or . . .

Things we have found in the preparation for packing:  Letters from my maternal grandfather, Abe Levey to Mildred during courting and later as he made his rounds as a traveling salesman.  The originals of the v mail my father sent Mom from England, apparently they returned the uncensored letters after photographing them for transport.  Every letter I sent Carol from 1962 to 1964, mostly from Brown.  Just think what we have lost.  Email, Skype, phone are wonderful tools for keeping in touch, but they don’t leave of record that you can hold in your hand and laugh and shed tears over 48 years later.  The record of our history comes to a halt when we stop writing on paper.  I know emails can be saved, as long as you retain backups, and FaceBook posting will haunt you 3 years later, but will FaceBook, and its timeline, exist and the means to access it 30 years from now.  How many memories have I recorded on reel to reel and then transcribed to cassette only to find that my last cassette player is being left behind and the tapes are oxidizing and virtually unplayable?  Where are the photos I saved to floppy disk and to Iomega and to – I can’t even remember the names of the ever larger memory devices that became obsolete as soon as I adopted them?  Carol’s bread cookbook, published on 5 1/4 floppies for IBM (!) and Apple //e is coming with us, but there is no equipment to read the disks and the format was proprietary and the publishing company was gone after the second royalty check.  She never made a complete print copy, just proofs.  She does have the recipes and photos in a box.

I could become maudlin (have become so?) We are giving up four stories of home with a five step entrance, not because it is a problem for us, but it has become problematic for some friends to even gain entrance to our living room coming up those five steps.  Who is to say we will always be able to negotiate them?  In the mean time we choose demanding trips and are clear that our cross country motorhome travel will continue in G Whiz so long as we can  mount the stairs and find the life a pleasure.

I had thought to post some pictures I took of the apartment, but decided not to.  The place is empty and the wall plates are off and it was being prepared for paint.  Later when we have moved in and put up some art.

Now to post and be off so the Realtor can show the house.

It’s over!  We heard the last note at 11:15 last night at Max.

We started last night with a walk down East Ave as usual.  When we approached Alexander Street, the stage for Thunder Body and Trombone Shorty was up and as we walked past, Trombone Shorty was on stage doing his sound check.  That was all we heard of him.  By 4:15 we were in line to get into Hatch Hall, where we had heard our first performance of this festival.  This last night we waited for the 5:45 performance 90 minutes in line to hear JoAnne Brakeen solo on the piano.  It was worth the wait.  She played over an hour of straight piano jazz that left us breathless.  It is really good to be reminded that there is still great classic jazz being performed.

We left there and picked up dinner on the street.  Carol went to Ludwig’s for her usual salad and I ran to Java Joe in hopes that they hadn’t sold out yet.  They hadn’t and I had a great sandwich, this one was called “Dark Horse” and it had roast beef and their wonderful chipotle mayonnaise.  Don’t order the chipotle if you don’t like really hot.  After eating we walked over to Lutheran Church to hear Hakon Kornstad.  He plays Tenor Sax, Operatic Tenor, Flute, Flutenette and a great looping machine.  He is one of the few performers we heard who made great use of the electronics without letting it get in the way of the performance.  He laid down a couple of rhythm tracks and some background melodies, as many as a total of four or more, and then played over them.  He used the wind sound from the sax and the flapping of the keys to make rhythm.  He sang over the loop a couple of times.  His flutenette is actually a flute with the mouthpiece replaced with a Clarinet mouthpiece.  It was a wonderful performance and we were sad to hear it end, but it was time to get back in line. . .

We wanted to hear Chic Gamine at Max and it seemed clear from the 6:15 show that getting in would be restricted to those who were in line when they opened the door.  As we approached the line was already at Main St at 8:30 for the 10 PM show!  One last 90 minute wait.  This wait too paid off.  The four woman sing, play a variety of instruments and entertain along with their percussionist, the only male in the group.  Between his broken English, he is French Canadian, and there jokes it was difficult to stop laughing when they were singing.  Sing they can.  They did one acapella number, this was the source of a joke, as they said someone in the audience at another show had asked them to do an Acapulco number (type acapella into a document and run the spell checker).  They sang and played with much energy.  We would both love to go to another performance by them.


Sadly, we began our last walk home on East Avenue from the Jazz Festival.  This years festival is over and next year, all things going as planned, our walk will be from St Paul St and much shorter, only 1/2 a mile at most instead of 2 1/2 miles.  It was a great festival and the weather could not have been better.  I am not sure when I will post again.  We are not going out on the road this summer as we have a household to move and things to sell.  We are going to Tanzania from August 15 to 31.  I do not expect to be able to post from that trip as we will have limited electricity and doubtful internet availability in the Serengeti  and other places we will be going.  There will be a major posting of photos and maybe some stories when we home.

I cannot believe that we are approaching the last night of the 2012 Jazz Festival in Rochester.  In a year with more cancelled shows because of weather and air traffic delays than I can remember, there have been terrific shows every night.

Lat night we started in Kilbourn Hall with Roy Hains.  He is over 80 and a superb drummer.  As is typical of many older performers, he would as soon talk as play.  He started his introduction with some soft shoe tap and some story telling and give and take with his group and the audience.  Someone shouted out “play some music.”  Roy asked who that was, he shouted back “your producer”, it was John Nugent one of the two producers of the festival.  Roy then hit the drums and except for one more verbal exchange he played some wonderful standards and it was a pleasure and a joy to hear some great standards well played.

We moved on after picking up some food to Abilene where Peter Karp and Sue Foley were playing some wonderful country music.  Peter played on a National Steel Resonator Guitar when he wasn’t on the keyboard and I won’t pretend to know what Sue was playing on, although it was shaped like a Fender with some interesting patterns on it.  The sound was great and not overbearing as it can sometimes be.  The show was marred for us when a clutz in a Volunteer Green shirt banged into me sloshing some of my beer onto Carol.  He smirked and kept on moving without so much as an “oh sorry”.  The gal behind the bar gave Carol some napkins to do a preliminary cleanup.  From there we moseyed over to Christ Church for some way too mellow trio work by Orlando LaFleming.  We were still jumping from Abilene and it was hard to slow down, especially since the Church has no AC and inadequate airflow, it was HOT in there.

We decided to move on to Montage.  This was hindered by the set up of another free stage  on Chestnut Street which is the street one needs to take to get to Montage.  We worked our way through the crowd and the loud sounds coming from the stage provided by Jimmie Vaughn & the tilt-a-Whirl Band Featuring Lou Ann Barton. In Montage we saw the stage set for way too many people.  Carol counted to 21 as the group kept entering in front of us.  This stage seems packed with a quintet on it.  These were all Eastman students performing under the leadership of Ryan Truesdell playing the music of Bill Evans.  Some of the music came from two of his recordings, but much of what they played had been rearranged by Evans for a concert at the Apollo in 1959 and has never been recorded.  The group was really good and once again we were hearing some classic jazz even if the particular arrangements had not been heard since 1959.


Tonight is another mishmash and I may report tomorrow, if I have the energy, on what we actually get too.  We are planning on starting at Hatch, which is the acoustic only, solo venue. JoAnne Brackeen is reputed to be a superb pianist and this is the venue for that kind of performance.

Night 7 was another night of late shows and no shows.  We had really wanted to hear Mark McKnight at Christ Church, but read early on that Bill Dobbins would be substituting for him with no explanation on the FaceBook page.  We like Bill Dobbins a lot, but can hear him most any week, someplace in the area.  We got in line early at Harro East to hear Ruthie Foster and the Family Band and the rumor had it her flight from Austin via Chicago was delayed.  There was no word on the FaceBook page so we waited outside then we waited inside.  Fortunately we were having fun at the table so the wait inside was sort of OK.  Then her band started playing and keeping us updated with her flight status which by then I was tracking on Flightview App.  She came in an hour late and played three numbers and took a break.  Although they did not clear the hall and we could have stayed on we elected to move.  


After eating some really bad street food (I should not have gotten on the scale this morning) we went to Abilene to hear  Pokey laFarge and the South City Three.  They were a hoot, right out the mountains of the Carolinas and really very good.  We stayed to the end of the set and then moved on to Terje Rypdell at Xerox.  The hall was an icebox, Carol put on all the extra covers she had and shivered.  I just shivered having brought nothing with me since the outdoor temps never got below 80.  We did not understand the music.  The group was huge, some 18 people on stage, with keyboard and Hammond B3 two drum kits, four reeds, at one time all of them were playing bass clarinet! (I don’t remember ever seeing more than one of them in a group).  There was overdub audio vocalizations and one of them was “lets all get together” which was the antithesis of what was happening, as each group of musicians seemed to be headed in different directions.  Palle MIkkelborg  wandered about the stage playing his trumpet through exaggerated electronic effects to little apparent purpose.  We wondered, as we left, why we had stayed so long.   I think it was in hopes of hearing some resolution.  If there was, we left after 70 minutes without hearing it.  We got into Max to hear Taurey Butler Trio at the recommendation of Linda and Ken Graci who we finally saw for the first time.  Butler is huge and the piano seemed to quail in his presence, but oh can he play and his sidemen were also wonderful.


Tonight our route looks rather simpler although you never know.  The plan is Ray Haynes at Kilbourn, Peter Karp and Sue Foley at Abilene, Orlando Fleming at Christ Church and Gil Evans and Ryan Truesdale at Montage. No Lutheran Church tonight as one Rypdell performance is sufficient. Check back tomorrow to see what we actually do.

Can that be right?  Day 7 already, where did this week go?  Last night was OMG!!!

Our grandson Josh met us outside Montage where we waited, and waited, and waited – well it was our fault we waited so long, Carol got there a little after 4 and no one was in line for the 6PM performance yet, they started arriving 2 minutes later.  Eventually we got seated with plenty of time to get a snack and a beer before the group, Kneebody, took the stage with Sax, Trumpet, drums, keyboard and bass.  Four of the five are Eastman graduates and we really enjoyed their music.  I would refer you to City Newspaper for a good review of the show with which I agree.  Josh told us he enjoyed it as well.

After sandwiches from Java Joe for Josh and me and a salad from Ludwig for Carol we found our way into Kodak Hall for Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers.  Josh marveled as I greeted Matt, one of the ushers who is a neighbor on East Ave and fellow gym rat at World Gym and then met a high school classmate, Ted Voll in the upper lobby.  I think Josh is convinced we know everyone in Rochester.  I am not sure how to write about the show.  The Blue Grass was marvelous, Steve Martin is a superb musician and the entire company was on a very high level of professionalism.  We laughed til it hurt, we cheered until our hands hurt and our throuts were raw and they came back for an encore that rivaled anything they had done until then with the fiddler taking off like a man possessed.  If anyone reading this has not attended a performance and is anywhere near where they are performing, don’t miss the chance.  We bought our tickets late on the “secondary market” at box office prices and got lucky with 2 front row Loge seats and a center row MM in the Orchestra.


Before we even had a chance to process the Steve Martin show we found our way into Max where Sherantha Beddage was performing some very straight jazz with his Baritone Sax and Quartet.  We stayed through.  I am not sure Josh has heard much straight jazz, but when I suggested, at 10:45, that we didn’t have to stay he said he wanted to hear the rest.  Maybe he was just being polite, but he seemed to be as engrossed in the music as we were.  


Haven’t had time to process what we will hear tonight, but we will be down early since we have to be out of the house by 3:15 so the real estate agent can show it.  Next year our walk will only be half a mile instead of 2 1/2 as it has been since we started attending.