Nov 11^th We got a late start this morning to head out to Eglin Air Force Base in Eglin, FL which is near Pennsicola.  Kelly is traveling with me on this trip and she is not happy although not surprised that I was running late.  This is the first base on the tour and we are not sure what to expect.  Tomorrow’s show starts at 11:00am.  All of these shows on this tour will start early so I will have to change my night crawling ways and get used to going to bed before 3am!

 

We pulled into Eglin about 8:30pm – it’s really 9:30pm but we gained an hour somewhere along the drive up (lucky break)! We are staying at the Embassy Suites.  The hotel was really nice, which was good thing because being a germ-a-phobic,  I am a freak when it comes to staying in hotel rooms.  I have watched too many Oprah and 60 Minutes segments on swabbing hotel rooms for germs!  Although I think by this point Kelly would kill me if I complained about anything.  Anyway, we decided to have dinner in the hotel restaurant and crash…

Nov 12^th When we arrived at Eglin Air Force Base we had to check in at the visitor’s center and then be escorted onto the base.  They had setup a stage and had hung huge posters of me all over it !  

 

 The crowd was great and we sold lots of CDs and T-shirts.  Our contact people at the base were so welcoming and accommodating and it was a great experience meeting the military families.  Tomorrow morning we will head back to Florida.  My next date for this tour is November 26^th at Fort Bragg, which is near Fayetteville, North Carolina…

Nov 25^th Well, we are off to Fort Bragg.  We got a late start this morning.  Thad is traveling with me on this trip and he is not happy although not surprised that I was running late. Do you sense a pattern here?  Anyway, this will be a long drive so we will be stopping at a few Dunkin’ Donuts and Cracker Barrels along the way. 

Sometime around 9:00pm we arrived at the Fayetteville Marriott Courtyard, checked in and then had some really bad pizza for dinner. Tomorrow’s show will be at 12:00pm so I can stay up a little longer tonight…  So now I am going to change my guitar strings, go over a couple of tunes and try to get some sleep…

Nov 26^th We arrived at Fort Bragg and the check-in procedure was the same as at Eglin AFB. What was really great today was that along with the stage setup and the huge posters, they already had a sound system and a sound engineer ready to go.  They also had Dasani water for me and a table set up to sign autographs after the show. Real Rock Star stuff.   Again, the contact people and the audience were extremely welcoming and gracious. I signed a CD for a woman from Savannah who says she knows it will be worth a lot of money on E-bay someday because she is sure I am going to be famous… From her lips to God’s ears :)   Oh, I forgot to mention that this is the very first performance with my new Ovation guitar with the U.S. flag painted on the top. It was a big hit with the military audience! I have been invited back to perform at a big welcome home show in March.  I will look forward to returning!

             

We got back on the road right after the performance at Fort Bragg (no rest for the weary). The drive should be about 4-5 hours to Fort Stewart which is in Hinesville, GA,  just outside of Savannah.  I had a pack of peanut M&Ms and a Coke to sustain me until we stopped at cutest country inn in South Carolina called, Clarke’s Inn & Restaurant.  It was already decorated for Christmas.  After dinner we stopped for gas at the Riverside Country Store across the street from the restaurant.  Being a suburbs girl, I am always intrigued by a store where you can buy gas, snacks, lottery tickets, a shot gun, a fishing pole and live bait…

We arrived at the Country Inn Suites around 10:30pm. It is a small hotel but very quaint complete with a fireplace in the lobby and basket of apples for the guests on the front desk. I just love stuff like that!

Nov 27^thWe checked out of the hotel and headed to Fort Stewart as around 10:45am.  They really went all out on the stage backdrop with big posters of pics off my website and a big sparkling sign with my name.  Here we had great support from some girls from the local Operation Homefront chapter.

                

Sherita, Christina , Brandy, Savannah and Leslie all showed up wearing the tour t-shirts, which they had gotten ahead of time.  Two of the girls have husbands deployed out of the country.  We met so many courageous people on this tour - the military members, their spouses, their children and families...

              

The show  was a success especially with a spontaneous final number being sung by Leslie and Savannah whose Dad’s are currently deployed.  They sang a song called "Daddy’s Girl" and closed the show with a message saying, "We hope our Dad’s and all the soldiers come home safe".  I couldn’t have said it better myself - what a perfect way to end the show!

After the show we had dinner at a restaurant that fresh baked their bread daily.  Mmmm - we were in need of some carbs!  Tonight we will stay in Hinesville and head home in the morning...

Dec 2^nd We are leaving in the evening for Patrick Air Force Base in Cape Canaveral. Judy is traveling with me on this trip and she is perfectly okay with, although not surprised, that I am running late.  Hmmm, there is a pattern here…  Okay - I am ALWAYS running late – but in a lovable way.

Anyway,  since we  both think Flying J truck stops are soooo cool,  we decide to have dinner at the one in Ft. Pierce, FL.  After two hours of truck stop coffee, comfort food and catching up chitchat, we head out for Cape Canaveral.  We get to the hotel sometime around 11:30pm and the lobby is all decorated for Christmas – so cozy!

It’s now about midnight and since we are both night owls, we decide to jam for a while.  This is when I discover I had locked the case for my new guitar and forgot the key on my kitchen counter!  Oddly enough I did not panic.  After useless attempts with a paper clip, we went down to the front desk and asked for a screwdriver - for which we got a kind of strange look from the clerk.  Twenty minutes later they sent one up to the room and after several tries, thank God, it popped open!   We then went over some songs and hit the hay.

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Dec 3^rd Patrick Air Force Base is a high security base so when we arrived we were met at the gates and escorted onto the base.  The contact people there were so helpful and attentive to us.  The performance was about 3 hours and was very well received.  We met many retired military people because the base is inactive except for about 5000 active reserve members.  After being escorted off base, we headed out on the road for MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa.

We pulled up to the hotel about 2½ hours later. We are in downtown Tampa so we have to valet park – I have to give the keys to my brand new Tahoe to a total stranger! We both ask him to take good care of her – which he does…  After checking in, we took the hotel shuttle bus downtown for dinner and did some quick souvenir shopping.

Dec 4^th At MacDill Air Force Base the security is just as tight.  After going through clearance, we are escorted onto the base by a very interesting woman named Charlotte.  She  had several stays in Iraq and had some amazing stories to tell.   Charlotte helped us set up, sell CDs and T-shirts and she took pictures. Once again, we are treated like celebrities!  After the show  we had a bite to eat at Outback Steakhouse and we were once again on the road headed home.

Dec 8^th Well we are ready to leave for the last leg of the "2005" part of the tour, Kelly is traveling with me on this journey and she is way beyond not happy that I am running extremely late!  We are headed to Louisville, KY for a show at Fort Knox.

We finally get on the road at 12:30pm which now means we will be driving through the night but we have packed a cooler with assorted chips, candy and beverages, so we figure we should get through the trip just fine…  Plus I brought my entire collection of Christmas music including the double CD set of The Carpenter’s Old Fashioned Christmas.  Kel was really happy about that too… I think her exact words were "Oh great!".

As we head north, it has been raining non-stop and the temperature is dropping by the hour.  We stopped at several Dunkin’ Donuts along the way (we’re addicted) and at around 8:00pm we dined at a Cracker Barrel for some comfort food to help get us through the night.  

Since Kelly was driving most of the way, I took the wheel at about the 12^th hour into the trip.  My part of the drive includes going through the Tennessee mountains where there are no lights and it is still raining and getting colder.  Kel must have been reeeaaally tired to let me drive this part of the trip… (I’m not the best driver in the world).

Dec 9^th Anyway, it finally stopped raining when we hit Kentucky and by the time we got to Louisville it was 20 degrees.  As we pulled up to the Marriott hotel, which was brand new. They had Christmas music playing outside and it was snowing!  Now this would have been a heart warming moment if we hadn't been driving for 17 hours through the night, in the rain!  By now it was 5:30am and we were too cold and exhausted to fully appreciate the Christmas music or the snow.  Later, after some zzzzzzs, food and drink we took a tour – it is really a nice hotel and it was beautifully decorated for Christmas!

Dec 10^th Fort Knox had a nice stage set up and a lot going on because it is close to Christmas. Besides my performances this weekend,  they also have the Hooters’ Girls here signing their calendars.  Oh well, ‘tis the season :)

Anyway, there are literary hundreds of hundreds of soldiers here because Fort Knox has a basic training unit.  We are meeting all these brand new soldiers.  They are so sweet and polite!  I had fun talking and taking pictures with them.  Although I am not sure if it was me or my guitar with which they wanted a picture.

      

Tonight we have to breakdown the sound equipment, get a bite to eat and travel to Elizabethtown for a performance at Barnes & Noble. Elizabethtown in not far from the base but it is sooo cold outside and we are starting to re-think the "two shows in one day" plan!

Dec 11^th Today we are back at Fort Knox for another performance and I have to say I do not think I have been more physically exhausted in my life!  Kelly has not completely recovered from having bronchitis and she is starting to not feel well.  But, the show must go on, so with the help of a lot of coffee and Cokes,  Kel ran sound and I played and sang.  We met a whole new crop of soldiers and wonderful military families and I signed some autographs and took some pictures at the PX Mall.   We also met a very cool army wife named Nikki who had become my groupie for the weekend!  She was so much fun to hang with.  After the show,  Kel and I went back to the hotel and spent some quality time in the very nicely decorated hotel bar!

     

Dec 12^th Today we will spend some time in downtown Louisville and then we will get back on the road and head for Nashville, TN. (Yeah!)  Since I do not have another performance until Dec 16^th, we will have some down time for a few days.  Now I will not bore you with all the details of the next four days but I will tell you the highlights…

We did some Christmas shopping in downtown Nashville and on a few nights stopped in some bars to hear some of the local talent.  Tuesday night I was invited to get up and sing with the band that was playing in a bar we like to hang out at when we are in Nashville.  This was very special for me because sitting in with the band that night was the bass player from Loretta Lynn’s band and the steel pedal guitar player from Lee Ann Rimes band!

Wednesday night I played in a songwriter’s night where we were joined by Chandra and Fernando who we had just met at earlier that day the hotel.  They came to cheer me on :) We also visited my friend and producer, the multi-talented, Keith Ridenour.  Keith recently built a really nice new studio just outside of Nashville...

Okay, blah, blah, blah - enough about our R&R time - Let's fast forward  four days…

Dec 16^th We are on our way to Fort Campbell, the final base on the 2005 part of the tour.  Fort Campbell is also in Kentucky but it is only about 45 minutes outside of Nashville.  They also have a really nice stage setup for me and once again everyone is very gracious and very accommodating.  Here we also got great support from the local Operation Homefront chapter.  The chapter president, Miranda, took time to snap a few pics and hang out with us during my CD signing session at the PX mall.  The audience was really great and I once again had help on stage from some military kids whose Dads are currently deployed.  We did a special version of Jingle Bells!  I performed two days at this base and I am happy to report that we sold out of shirts and CDs!

    

           

Dec 18^th Well, it is now time to hit the road once again and head home for the holidays!  Though we planned to leave early in the "a.m.",  we decide to have breakfast in the hotel and depart a little later than planned… I figure, why change the pattern now?

Wedding Bells!!!

Congratulations to Jamie and David who were married on December 30, 2005

I am honored to say that Jamie and David chose "The Reason I Breathe" to be played in the church on their special day.  I can not put into words how much it meant to me when I received an email from Jamie saying, ...I came across your site and I listened to it and I fell to pieces. I only listened to the 1st verse and I already knew that was going to be the song...

 

A big thanks to Jamie for sharing these beautiful photos with us - they are a movie star looking couple!  May their future together be filled with much love and happiness!  By the way, when Jamie sent me these photos she mentioned that her new hubby David is now in Iraq - God bless this American hero!

One final thought...

It is a great privilege for me to be performing at U.S. military bases.  Witnessing military life has left me feeling very much in gratitude to all of these people.  The brave men and women of the military along with their courageous spouses, children and families are truly unsung heros.  They do not do it for fame or fortune but as an unselfish act of duty to their country.

 

Whether it be the soldiers in a war zone, their spouses waiting at home, holding down the household or their children missing a parent on Christmas, holidays, birthdays, school plays and sporting events - we should all stand up and give them a great big salute and "thank you" for their many sacrifices.

 

Regardless of your political views - you do not have to support the war to support our troops!   Please remember these families in your prayers.

 

God Bless, Stay Safe & Rock On!

J.D.