so we're leaving somerville and i need to pee (obviously) but dunkin donuts won't let me. there was a dude there who had bought a vanilla bullshit with tons of whipped cream and told me he could let me use the bathroom at the guitar store across the street. he was getting whipped cream all over his beard and shirt. i peed, thanked him, and he handed me his business card. "call me if you need drum lessons." what the hell, dude?

well getting out of boston proved way more complicated than it needed to be, but once we did, we were on the road for the most beautiful ride of the tour. as soon as we crossed the mass/new hampshire line everything turned gorgeous, with trees and rivers and lakes and mountains in the distance. plus amazing weather and no traffic. we made plenty of hot joseph jokes and listened to the ultra death men and the voicecracks, the lango brothers' other musical endeavors. we made great time to burlington and knocked on sara's door. sara, who housed us and fed us and took such amazing care of us. you are one of my best friends, sara. thanks for everything. my uncle mike drove in from stowe and met up with us for dinner at this hilarious seafood place, the shanty, on lake champlain. so cool to hang with family on tour. i realized on this day that going on tour is just a really fun excuse to hang out with all the people you love who live scattered across the country. and then at night you get to play rock and roll. not bad.

paddy is another rad dude i got to meet because of tour and he hooked us up at the monkey house. great show with great people. there were two other bands that played. not everyone in every band actually played their instruments though. be nice, karl. the monkey house was also awesome because they had a secret food menu that i was let in on, and had this ridiculously good chicken club panini with kettle chips for $4. good work, vermont. we crashed at sara's and jabbered late into the night and grabbed some penny cluse breakfast the next morning. so glad we were able to get up to burlington. love it. next, worcester.