Here is the index of pages. From Day 1 to Day 30. Published on Substack.

Day 1. Drive Sedona. Arizona
Day 2. Sedona. Hiking.
Day 3. Sedona to Santa Fe. New Mexico. 412 miles
Day 4. Santa Fe, New Mexico. Home of Georgia O’Keeffe and Walter White
Day 5. Drive Santa Fe to Abiquiu to Ghost Ranch to Taos. 141 miles
Day 6. A Saturday in Taos
Day 7. Drive Taos to Fort Sumner, Bosque Redondo (Indian Concentration camp), to Lubbock. Texas. (Post Tornado Christian hub.) 355 miles.
Day 8. Lubbock to Austin. 384 miles. Stevie Ray Vaughn statue.
Day 9. Austin Texas. Where universities and schools protest Biden’s genocide today
Day 10. Austin to Galveston. 218 Miles, through Houston. With Jimmy Webbs version in the car.
Day 11. Driving from Galveston to New Orleans with an Emergency Tornado warning and heavy rain. Through Baton Rouge. 369 miles
Day 12. Day and night in New Orleans, visiting the Courthouse to advance Andrew V the U.S. Government and dinner on Bourbon Street
Day 13. Day in New Orleans. Walking 27,000 steps
Day 14. Driving New Orleans Louisiana, through Mississippi, to Emmett Tills final moment, to Memphis Tennessee. Walking in Memphis 411 miles later
Day 15. Memphis breakfast. Graceland visit. Drove 234 miles to Nashville. Dinner with Charlie and Lisa.
Day 16. #LunchwithCharlie. Meeting Cindy Alter to remember our dear friend Chris.
Day 17. Touring Christian Music City on Music row, Cheekwood and Radnor Lake
Day 18. Leaving Nashville. St. Louis. 309 miles. The Arch. The museum. The Slavery.
Day 19. Leaving St. Louis, heading to Kansas City. 251 miles in Pat Metheny Country. Big sky Missouri.
Day 20. From Kansas City MO to WaKeeny, Kansas. 365 miles. Half way to Denver.
Day 21. WaKeeney Kansas to Denver Colorado. 306 miles.
Day 22. Denver to Estes Park. 69 miles. The icy hike. The Declaration of Independence. Meet Feelan Stanley. And his brother Francis. The Stanley Hotel.
Day 23. Estes Park. Horse riding and hiking.
Day 24. Estes Park to Vail. 145 miles. We like this place a lot.
Day 25. Vail to Moab National Park. 257 miles.Joseph Smith Country. The Three Witnesses.
Day 26. Moab, Utah. Hiking, with video. Meeting anti genocide protestors. Meeting new friends in the Moral Epistemology business.
Day 27. Moab. Hiking. Swimming. Eating. Hiking.
Day 28. Moab to Grand Canyon Village via Navajo Nation off reservation Trust land. 479 miles.
Day 29. Grand Canyon. Arizona. Hiking the Kaibab Trail. With videos.
Day 30. Grand Canyon to Laguna Beach. 500 miles. Through Kingman, AZ. Down the Joshua Tree road. Seeing A For-Profit-Prison in Baker, CA. Seeing the enormous Ivanpah Solar Power facility.

Andrew Brel

This Nashville turning point was chosen because my old friend from England, Charlie lives there. I have been promising to visit for some 25 years. Now, with free gas on offer, there was no excuse.

The backstory:

In 1989 I had a gig for New Years eve. At that time, still in my twenties, as a working musician in London I did many gigs with Ronnie Johnson. The stylish virtuoso who would go on to do many brilliant albums with Van Morrison. In 1989 I had an offer of a New Years eve gig. £2,000 for the night. The busiest night for professional musicians gigging at that time. The thing was, they wanted a full band. Our duo gig had me playing bass pedals with a drum box. This gig required a bass player and a drummer. Ronnie suggested two friends for the gig. John Edwards on bass and Charlie Morgan on drums. John I knew well. Terrific bass player and great musician friend. Charlie I had only heard of for his fame as Kate Bush’s drummer now with Elton John. “Do you think he’ll do the gig for £500?” I asked Ronnie.

He did, and so on New Year’s eve 1989, I got to meet Charlie Morgan. Our gig was a blast. I remember thinking, wow, this sounds just like a record. I had never played with a drummer on that level before. No wonder Charlie was the busiest session guy in London, with the sweetest imaginable day job, as Elton’s drummer.

After the gig we stayed up chatting into the New Year. We became firm friends right away. Soon after we started a record label, Bridge Recordings, and would meet often, as time allowed with his busy schedule as one of the worlds busiest stadium tour drummers.

Often I would make arrangements for “Lunch with Charlie”. That included, lunch in Paris with Davey Johnstone and the Elton John band. Lunch to meet Elton and John Reid. Lunch in New York to see Elton in his favorite venue, Madison Square Garden.

On one occasion, on my way for Lunch with Charlie I found myself waiting in a bar backstage at Madison Square garden. There was only one fellow in there. We got chatting. What a lovely guy. For an hour we chatted away. I had no idea who he was but he sure was a sweet conversationalist while I waited for my friends, Charlie and Davey to collect me. When they arrived they said “Ah, so you’ve met Gianni.” I had no idea I had spent the past hour drinking with Gianni Versace. I met many wonderful talented people in Charlies circle of friends.

Steve James, South African comedian Sid’s son, who made the wonderful Ruttles albums, including one in our studio, Black Barn. Steve Brown, who produced Elton’s first album, including ‘Your Song’. Billy Connolly, who I did an album with. Kiki Dee. So many wonderful and interesting people who I so enjoyed meeting.

We made many fine musician albums in our music studio “Black Barn’ that is now Paul Weller’s studio. The ‘Under African Skies’ Album with Louis Ribeiro is something of a classic in the South African music made in London genre. That decade from 1990 was a glorious time for music and meeting great musicians. Certainly in the world of professional drumming Charlie has an impressive legacy.

Charlie left the UK in the late nineties, for Nashville. I told him then. “I’ll visit soon.” The year’s passed and I never made it to Nashville. Then in late 2023 I bought an EV. Charlie is a serious car guy. Petrol head turned green. Few people other than Leo Sayer, know more about cars than Charlie. His advice on Tesla’s was a factor in buying a Tesla. When Tesla did a deal with free supercharging we decided to make the most of the free gas. The car has a range of 330 miles. We planned a trip. 30 days. About 20 stops along the way.

The U.S. road network is a grid. The horizontal roads crossing America start with the 10, in the south. I mapped out a fun journey in 300 mile chunks. About 6,000 miles around the U.S., heading east on the low numbers, the 10 and 20. And then back higher up. The 30, 40 and 50. A loop from Laguna Beach to Nashville. With most destinations familiar to me from the songs I grew up with.

Sant Fe. Taos. Lubbock. Austin. Galveston. Memphis. New Orleans. Nashville. Denver, Kansas City. St. Louis. Moab. Grand Canyon. Our road trip from Laguna to Nashville and back again. 20 stops in 30 days. Turning round after Lunch with Charlie.

We hope that the Tesla reputation for reliable supercharge is well founded. The car GPS sets the supercharge stops relative to the destination.

Day one is almost 500 miles. Stopping in Sedona. I will post a daily blog of the journey here on substack.

.