Well... I'm on a bit of a blog-roll.  There's some extras on my instagram account: @petersonentertainment

The landscape on the drive was every bit as awesome as I remember.  It was amazing to watch.  Even better to not be in a hurry.  I rolled into Lava Hot Springs fairly early.  It was a beautiful morning and a great day for a soak in the pools.  The hot pools are several pools of differing temps.  The hottest at 112 degrees.  Too hot for me.    I chilled in the 102-105 pool with some shade and enjoyed the silence and looking at the mountains around me.    I mostly had the place to myself.  Although a half dozen other people trickled in later on.  Two of them were a Japanese couple.  The man was by himself at one end of the pool I was in, his wife in another pool.  After a bit he started chanting - it sounded like Buddhist chants.   And then he started singing.  That was a few minutes of some lovely stuff. 

I stayed as long as I could stand it and decided to head over to the hotel to set-up for the gig.  Usually, this gig is an intimate dinner concert in a tiny room with fantastic food.  This time, it was all of that except a winemakers pairing complete with 5 courses meal and a sold out room.   It was great.  All of it.  

I was there several hours early, set-up some extra lighting, got everything loaded in, sound checked, and ready to go.  Took a nap, showered, and had a great set. 

I have recently upgraded my loop station from the RC-50 to the RC-300.  There's some changes in the operation which I don't have down "cold" yet.  But it's pretty simple for the most part.  There is still a loop length feature that I'm not liking but I think I have a preset set incorrectly. I'll figure that out when I'm not in transit, or maybe before the show tonight.  I'm in town early again.  I digress... a big part of the loop station upgrade was to change things up.  I wanted to add some new gear to change my sound up, really affect my tone, and do different things.  I feel like I've been stagnate with the loop station and show for quite some time.  My brother gave my a KAOSS KPS+ for Christmas and I've been using it with my duo GrooveTron-X. I had been messing around with it and the RC-50 seeing how I can use them in my looping show - it was something on my mind to do and I decided to stop waiting and jump in.   

I took advantage of my early arrival and hooked up everything.   Got it all working in short order.  Everything worked perfectly.  Really enjoyed stretching out with the tech, making some new jams, expanding some old ones, and worked a bunch of the old show in between.  Felt good, played good, didn't struggle with the board at all.  Really felt like I had a direction again for the first time in a long time.  Of course, on the drive today I was rethinking my set-up; I'm going to reduce back to one mic.  I don't need two - although that does add an order problem if I'm going to sample vocals with the KP3+ whilst running a long loop on the 300.  Oh well, I can always add that back in later.  It's too early for that to be an issue at the moment.   Plus I want to use my vocal effects through the loop station.  Other things are cables.  I need to take a look what I've got going on and get rid of some excess length.  I've got a lot of crap dangling around.  And I'd like to NOT use my DI boxes.  But we'll see how that plays out.  Guitar Center Portland - here I come...

After the show Alonzo (chef and my buddy!) served me up selections from the winemakers dinner: wild halibut, foie gras, some other kind of duck-meat awesomeness, vegetables, salad, and a wicked, but small, dessert.  Had a nice chat with another hotel guest.  I finished packing up and headed over to the Blue Moon for the Thursday night jam.    Nobody was there.  None of the usual suspects.  I chatted up Cliff, somehow he and I had managed to not meet over the past years of my coming through town.  Cliff and I had some drinks, some conversation, jammed a few tunes and I was in bed 'round midnight.  

The next morning, I heard a woman's voice.  And I was like, hmmm... can't be my wife, she's in Texas and I can't remember where I am.  I opened my eyes and realized I was in the hotel and that was just someone talking in the hallway.    I got cleaned up and headed to the lobby for breakfast and chatted with the owner and a few others.    Wasn't too long before it was time to hit the road.  Back on the freeway I went.  A nice, uneventful drive.   In Eastern Idaho, I really get the sense of driving on the surface of a planet.  It just feels like you're on the side of rock, hurtling through space.   

For the past 6-7 years I've been coming through this part of the country in October.  It's nice to see it in better weather.  Although all of the mountains still have a little snow on the tops.  Rivers are full, everything is green. 

Looking forward to some glorious weather tonight and a fun show!