Wed Sept 21, 2022
Flying over to Switzerland today for the Schupfart festival with Ben and Noel Haggard. This is another festival that was originally booked for 2020 and has kept getting rolled over because of Covid. Nice to have it finally taking place.
I am the only one flying out of Nashville on Delta. Nate and Alec are on AA from here, but through London, which I did not want to do. Ben, Noel and Loren will leave out of CA and Scott’s flight is suppose to meet up with them in SFO.
Lucky me lands Zurich at 10:30 am with the rest of the gang coming it at 3.
Thursday, Sept 22
Flight to Zurich left on time and no problems going over.
I texted Loren, their TM, once I saw that their plane had landed. He said Scott was walking around somewhere in the airport … What? I thought he was on your flight? I found Scott and he said he missed the connection in ORD due to weather so they put him on a other flight and he landed this morning as well, but with no bag 🙁
Hans Peter, our driver came inside to meet us along with Thomas, who is also driving. We were waiting on the rest of the band to come out of baggage claim when Loren called and said passport control was asking for their Visa! In 30 years of festivals over here, we have never needed a visa for 1 show. Nate and Alec came out and we waited to hear back from Loren. He texted that they were in a small glass room… I knew it well from my time in it last year with James Carothers. Thankfully they were set free about 30 mins later.
Grabbed gear and I called United to check on Scotts lost bag and it had not been scanned out of SFO yet. They said it was coming in on tomorrows flight. Fingers crossed
It’s nice to see Ben and Noel again. Last time we did a show together was Japan in 2019.
It took about 1 1/2 hours to drive to the hotel bc of traffic. We are staying in a very small little town called Mohlin, in the north part of Switzerland, near the German border.
Settled into our rooms and then everyone slowly trickled downstairs to eat dinner. I was fading by 8 pm and need to do some work before I crashed so I said my goodbyes and headed up to the room. Did some work and had every intention of staying awake so I could talk to kids when they got out of school but I seemed to have dozed off. Woke up around 1 am and texted them
Oh and this hotel has not turned on the heat for the fall yet. I mean it was sleep in sweats with 2 comforters on me cold.
Friday, Sept 23
Finally fell back asleep round 3 and woke up at 7:30. Went downstairs and the hotel had a small breakfast out. Grabbed a coffee and crossiant. Ben and Noel walked in, they had been up since 4 am and we’re going to take a nap. Lol
Came back up to the room, showered and got ready. Made some phone calls on the luggage and United said it arrived this morning from SFO.. now to get it delivered here to the hotel!
I had thought about taking the train to Basel, but opted to stick close to the hotel. Took a little walk around the town and did some shopping at the Coop.
Had another terrific dinner at the hotel and then Franz Josf and Patrick came over from Liechtenstein. They ate dinner and then around 10 pm Ben, Nate and Alec made it back from Zurich. They had rented little scooters and went around the city. Said it was a blast. So glad they got out.
Made it up to my room around midnight and promptly crashed.
Saturday, Sep 24
Slept a full 8 hours!
Of course today is show day and it is raining. Good news is Scott’s luggage has been picked up from the airport and should be delivered soon. Scott played with Merle and Dwight Yoakam for years. Mom knows Scott from some Dwight tours. He is a super nice guy and I hate he hasn’t had his bag the last few days.
Ran downstairs for some coffee and breakfast. The hotel is nice, but older so things are all on different “levels”.. not floors… Each floor has several levels to it. It’s been a fun game of “find my room” every time I leave.
Left at 2 for soundcheck, it’s about a 20 min drive from hotel to venue. We arrived and the other bands were still doing line check. Production is Live Sound so I was able to see my old friends Christian and Werner for a second. The festival is a big Fest Tent that holds about 2000 people with booths and food set up along the sides.
While the boys were doing soundcheck, Kurt from Germany and his wife arrived. We have worked with Kurt on some Bellamy dates but I hadn’t had the chance to meet him. He and his wife are so sweet and it was nice to finally talk to them in person.
Boys finished up around 4:30 and we headed back to the hotel. Ran upstairs to do a few things and check on mom and the kids. She took them along with 2 friends to Kentucky Kingdom for the weekend.
Dinner tonight is 1 option as the restaurant does not do a full menu on Saturdays. It was beef and rice, good thing I don’t have any vegetarians in the group! It was delicious though.
8:30 we left to go back over. Ben and Noel have an interview back stage at 9:15 and showtime is 10. Got everyone settled and then took them over to the “hanger” where they did the interview.
Boys took the stage at 10 and the crowd took to the dance floor. It was a type of show that just gives you the tingles when you hear them sing. They finished the show around 11:30 and by midnight we were heading back to the hotel. Off to pack and grab some Zzzs as we leave for the airport at 8:00 am.
Sunday, Sept 25, 2022
Oh If I only knew what the day had in store for me! We left hotel at 8 and were at the Zurich airport a little after 9 AM. Nate and Alec had the first flight out at 11:45 on AA. I took them over the AA check in counter and checked them in. Ben, Noel, Scott and Loren are on United at 1 PM, but the first leg is Swiss Air operated, which is in Terminal 1 (we are in 2)
Walked over to Term 1 and checked them in then I had to walk back over to Term 2 to the Delta counter. My flight isn’t until 1:45 pm and the DL counter does not open till 10:30 AM, which left me with about 30 mins before I could check in. Went through security and grabbed the kids some Sprungli chocolate. International departures are out of E gates which means taking an escalator downstairs to passport control and then hop on a tram. I have never in the 20 years of coming over here seen a line just to get down the escalators! Little did I know this would be the first of many lines I would stand in today. Made it through passport control and onto the tram to take us to E gates.
Left Zurich on time and about an 2 hours from landing in JFK I received a notice from Delta that my flight to BNA had been cancelled and I am now booked on a flight out at 11:00 am on Monday. Well, that isn’t going to work.
I called Mom who was driving back from KY with the kids to tell her and then I started searching for alternative flights. DL had no flights out of JFK or LGA available. I looked at Jet Blue and they had a nonstop out at 9:30 pm.
Grabbed my bags and walked out of baggage claim in JFK and got in line at the DL rebook center. While I was standing in this line, I had Delta Diamond line on the phone. That agent found a United flight out of JFK through Dulles that had me landing around 11pm. She had to transfer me to her help desk since she couldn’t exchange the ticket. While waiting for her transfer me, I looked at the United flight she wanted to put me on and it was delayed out of JFK which meant I would miss the connection in Dulles and be stuck there. I hung up the phone since I was next in line at the counter. The lady was super nice but could only get me on the nonstop out of JFK at 8:30 tomorrow morning. She could not do the Jet Blue flight since they do not have an agreement with them. I probably should have just stayed over night and flown home in the am, but Zoe was not feeling well and I could hear in her voice how sad she was that I wouldn’t be home tonight. Soo… I walked from where I was in Terminal 4 at JFK to Terminal 5 where Jet Blue is. Talked to an agent there and she assured me their flight was going out tonight on time. I bought a ticket and made my way to the gate. We boarded about 30 mins later and as we were leaving the gate, we had weather, which grounded everyone for about 15 mins. Right before we were set to take off, a mechanical issue popped up and we had to go back to the gate. Fixed the mechanical issue and filled out the paper work so we could leave again (Jet Blue attendants were very nice and accommodated us with some wine while we waited) and finally took off at midnight. Needless to say I slept the whole flight home.
We landed around 1:30 AM but waited forever for our luggage to come out. It was close to 3 AM by the time mom picked me up (get you a mom who will come pick you up at the airport at 3 AM) and we were headed home. I think I crawled into bed at 4 am to sleep for 3 hours before having to get kids ready for school…
Even though it was a travel day from hell, I am so glad I went and had time with Ben and Noel and the band, made some new friends and was able to say hello to some old ones.