Travelling Blues

[BluesKing777]

I caught a blues guitarist playing recently at a blues night, who according to his guff, has travelled up and down the east coast of Australia non stop for 2 1/2 years in a little campervan with his wife performing his act wherever he can be booked.

 

 

I thought about this travelling dream for a while, but realised that Mrs BluesKing777 and I in a van would most probably be at the point of homicide within the first week!

 

 

Nothing to do with Gibsons I suppose, but possibly guitar playing, and I was interested to hear how you people would cope?

 

 

HA!!!

 

Lets hear it?

 

 

 

BluesKing777.

 

 

P.S. I enjoyed the gig!

[j45nick]

Well, I never lived in a campervan, but I've done two long stints living on a boat. Back in the 1970's, my first wife and I lived on an old wooden sailboat for five years. It was a pretty primitive existence, but we were young, and it was the 70's. My old J-45 lived aboard with us, and to this day, the hardware on that old case (which I retired last year for a new Cali Girl) is rusty from those years in a salty, humid environment.

 

Miraculously, the guitar suffered no ill effects.

 

Flash forward to 1996, when my second wife and I (note the pattern here: one wife per boat) left New England, westbound around the world in a nice 40' sailboat that I built. This one was a bit more comfortable, with four-burner gas stove with oven, refrigerator and freezer, hot shower, and all the comforts of home. This time, the J-45 stayed ashore in a storage unit (no climate control, and enduring the cold, wet winters of New England). Instead, I had a little Martin Backpacker which went along for the ride. Once again, the J-45 survived intact, although I did notice some lacquer crazing that I didn't remember from before.

 

I enjoyed sitting back in the cockpit on long offshore passages with my little guitar, although I never developed much at all as a player as a result.

 

In 2003, we arrived back in the US after more than 30,000 miles of sailing completely around the world, and moved back ashore. We live modestly, but I have a nice collection of guitars.

 

The bottom line is that by comparison, living in a traveling campervan should be a piece of cake. You have supermarkets at hand, rather than having to search out familiar or edible foods in Asia, Africa, and the middle east. Somali or Indonesian pirates aren't threatening to kill you and steal your home.

 

Best of all, ebay is just a click away, my friends on the Gibson forum are close at hand, and the guitar store is just around the corner.

 

Life is good.

[jedzep]

Nick...glad you made it through. For the rest of us I suggest listening to David Bromberg's 'New Lee Highway Blues.' That's what the road is like.

 

[duluthdan]

I did not get the right memo... when I sold my little boat, I used half the money to buy a nice guitar, the other half got sucked up into the vortex of the household expenses. I did not know that one was supposed to change wives at the same time, or I could have bought 2 guitars. As romantic as living in a van or on a boat might sound, I'd go bonkers after one week.

[Del Nilppeznaf]

Lived in a van a few times.. bit of a gypsy at heart.

Did the east coast of OZ one time .. living in a 1977 Ford Falcon...the big estate cars... man them things are like tanks. Travelled Europe in a VW Polo 1.4 hatch back..( 3 of us ) haha..that was fun.

 

Love the road still...in process of doing out an old VW van at moment... to have a mooch around Ireland.

 

Is a dream to go round the world in a boat.. very envious Nick