Wichita, KS

After Reno we headed to play a gig in Ogden, UT. We were a little nervous because we've never had a good show in Utah and before this show had only actually played 1 out of the 3 times we'd gone. We rolled up to the venue The Basement and the show ended up being really cool. We played with One Clean Life, A Better Hope Foundation and Battle! It was a really fun time. After the show the owner took us to the basement and told us some creepy suicide shit that went down there years ago. He freaked me the fuck out. He told the stories like it was his god damn job or like he was a scary old timer in a horror movie. Was not into it.

After the show we were told we'd be staying with a pregnant lady. We got here number and shit got wild. Tyler couldn't understand a word she was saying and said it sounded like she was talking with her face in a pillow. After 15 minutes I decided to take over the phone and see what the fuck was up. I was on the phone with this girl and she was giving me North / South / East / West directions like I knew where the fuck I was. She finally says hold on and yells at someone in the background "CAN YOU GET OFF THE FUCKING PHONE AND TALK TO ME!?! TELL THESE GUYS HOW TO FUCKING GET HERE!" Cue the new guy. "SHUT THE FUCK UP AND TAKE CARE OF MOM! Hello? Hey dude it's probably not a good idea if you guys stay here." I replied "Alright man." He then started giving me directions . . .

I pulled up to a street I had to be on. I asked him what way to turn and he told me "just follow it." Then he started yelling at his sister or girlfriend or wife or whatever the fuck again. "So just follow that until you hit a 5 way stop and there will be a wal mart so just hit that up..." There was then a 15 second pause . . . "Yeah just hit up that Walmart. Well you can go straight there or not. Actually those directions suck. Just like follow that street until you see a Mexican restaurant then turn left on 85 or 89 or some shit, I donno. Hey you guys can stay here, people are trying to fucking sleep (after SCREAMING just seconds before?) alright? So yeah, just like left on 85 or 89 or some shit then like there will be train tracks maybe? Then just call me."

All of those directions took him around 10 minutes to explain to me. There were good pauses between all of those sentences. It was one of the hardest conversations I've ever had to deal with. We told the girl thanks but no thanks and we'd stay somewhere else. She told us her place was calm now and she was just pregnant. It was weird ass time. We ended up getting a single bed hotel room and crashing out. We had to wake up the next morning at 8:00am so we could get on the road to make the 9 hour trek to Denver, Colorado.

We had heard reports of some snow in Denver but were told by the promoter that things were looking good there. About 3 hours into the drive Battle told us (who had left the night before) that I-70 was closed and they were stuck at a gas station somewhere. Luckily we were taking a southern route and thought we'd be alright. At 5:30 I took over the wheel and we had 100 miles left to Denver. I'll tell you why we didn't make it to Denver until 11:00pm. We hit the mountains and the snow started getting hectic. There were points where I couldn't even see the road. To top it off it was windy as hell and icy as hell. There were 2 points where I actually thought we were sliding off of the mountain. After a hellish hour up there the real shit started.

After going into a tunnel we saw a dead stop traffic jam ahead of us. We ended up sitting in essentially one spot for 45 minutes and that wasn't the bad part. At this point we had only 30 miles left to go. By this point it was already 8:00pm and the show had already been called off due to the blizzard and unexpected foot of snow that hit Denver a day after it was 60 and sunny there. It took us 3 more hours to get to Denver. 2 and a half of those hours were us going between 8 and 12 mph down US-6. It took 2 and a half hours to drive 15 miles and that's without stopping. We were just driving that slow. Finally the traffic broke and we drove the last 15 miles to Denver. We stopped at saved the night by eating the best vegan buffalo wings in the world at City O City, then met up with our buddy Dave and fell asleep in preparation for another 8 hour drive.

Today we had an easy time getting to Wichita, Kansas where we played an awesome fucking show. So pumped to be back in Wichita and back in the Midwest. Our bud Phil @ 5nakeFork Records gave us a ton of copies of our new live tape "Skin Tight" and they look fucking great. Pick one up! After the show was some good burritos and good hanging at a party. Matt bid us farewell today and headed back up to Sioux Falls. Today is also our last day with Battle and we couldn't be more fucking bummed out. So we will finish the last 3 days of tour alone.

3.25 Lawrence, KS @ Replay Lounge *tba*

w. Everything Went Black, Former Thieves & Canyons

3.26 Cedar Falls, IA @ Amvets Post 19

w. Lord Green & Build No System

3.27 Minneapolis, MN @ The Rathole

w. Dios Mio, Bring That Shit & Animals and Beasts

The final day of tour is Tyler's birthday so we will be partying hard. Already making our plans for summer and fall tours. Hopefully leaving the country again on both of them. I found out I am going to Colombia with my girlfriend and her family for a week in August for free. I'm real excited to be leaving the country possibly 4 times this year. Tour life rules. Change your life and start a band, get a van and hit the road. There's nothing better. Hopefully there will be more updates before I'm home to do the tour wrap up post.

We'll be playing shows every month for probably the rest of the year so come out to them. Check the myspace for updates www.myspace.com/herculesne and be looking out for news on our new full length BOOK OF SPELLS that we hope to have released by years end.

Thanks for reading.