Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Let's Swing, Let's Swing, Let's Swing Swing Swing

27 August 2011

Adam and I had originally planned to ride highway 4 today but Don and Sarah were going to Visalia to hear Rich O'Brian, whom Don calls “the beat guitar player in the world”. I couldn't pass up an opportunity like that so the plans changed. I rode with Don and Sarah in their truck and Adam rode his bike as he wanted to be in Sacramento the next morning.

On the way Sarah wanted to stop at the Underground Gardens in Fresno, which nicely provided a break in the three hour journey. This is another amazing place created by an even more amazing man, Baldassare Forestiere. It is now a modest family run tourist attraction managed and run by the descendents of Baldassare's brother (he had no children). It was well worth the $14 dollar fee and we were nice and cool while underground. You can read more about it here: http://www.undergroundgardens.com/summary.html. Once the tour was over we were back to baking in the Fresno inferno.

We got checked into our motels, had a feed, and made it to the coffee house just in time for the 7PM start of the Rich O'Brian concert. I don't know about best guitar player in the world but certainly in Don's world, which is Western Swing, Rich is the man. It was a nice concert in an intimate venue. Over the course of the evening, Rich generously invited several of his old friends up to perform with him, including Don. It was well worth the three hour trip and a motel bill. Good music with good company is hard to beat.

Americana for the day: an abundance of country music radio stations

Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/T.Micheal.Young/USA201102

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