"Everybody's searching for the end of the rainbow
I'm just trying to smell the rain
and every joy seems to be wrapped up in sorrow
behind every pleasure, there's a touch of pain
I will remain." -Great Divide

Stellar Oklahoma band The Great Divide is not long for this world. At the end of March, lead singer Mike McClure is leaving the band to strike out on his own. They were supposed to play in Houston a week or so back, but unfortunately their bus broke down and they were unable to make it. Since it was there last show in Houston, it meant that my only hope of seeing them was to catch an out of town show, such as the one in Bryan on Friday. The only option was a show in Austin a day before I'd have to be back to catch Dead End Angels at the Mucky Duck.

I was already running late when I had to make a side trip in order to pick up directions that I thought I'd left at work. Except they weren't there. Nor were they in my apartment or my car. I'd obviously slipped them into the Pocket of Oblivion I'm known for putting things that disappear and never resurface. That meant that I had to print out another copy. The printer up at the office is a good one and reasonably fast as long as you're not trying to print out large pictures. The problem? When it goes into PowerSave mode, it wakes up and slowly and grumpily as a college student with an 8am class. I hit Print.

I go use the john and come back, it's powering the toners.

I get a Mountain Dew from the coke machine and come back, it's recalibrating.

I sit there and watch, step-by-step ("Warming Up" "Recalibrating" "Leave Me Alone" "Recalibrating" "Go to Hell" "Warming Up" [I was begining to feel like Ron Livingston in Office Space, if you get the reference] "Processing Job" "Priming Toners" "Processing Job" "Printing").

It finishes, I turn the alarm on, lock the door, race out to my car, drive down the street, drive back, turn the alarm off, unlock the door, take the directions off the printer, turn the alarm back on, lock the door, and head out again.

While I was waiting at the light off the freeway, I thought to myself "I can't wait to get on the freeway I can out of this nasty weather."

Now, what possessed me to think that once I got on the freeway the skies would clear and little angels would descend playing harps to keep the nasty weather at bay for my trip, I don't know. In any case, there were no angels, harps, blue skies, or distance beyond a 10-foot scope. Luckily, I travel that way often to go to Austin or Waco, but it's an entirely different experience when you are driving blind. A couple times I'd wandered if I'd passed Hempstead (where I get off The Freeway onto The Scrappy Little Highway Trying To Be a Freeway). I crossed my fingers and kept driving, figuring that if I drove all the way to Austin I'd miss the show, but the harped angels missing here would surely be up there.

In my CD player was The Great Divide's latest CD and when "Remain," it's title track played, the thunder and pounding rain accompaniment was more than appropriate. In fact, there were a lot of songs on the CD that seemed to fit a road trip, with the exception of a song about driving under an almost full moon. Of course, maybe the moon was full, but I couldn't see it. There was also a song that mentions a blue sky, leaving me cursing the noticeably absent good-weather angels.

While on The Scrappy Little Highway Trying To Be The Freeway, I was looking for some Farm Road. For those of you that don't live in Texas, Farm Roads, or FM's, are East-West roads that range from backroads to highways. Given what the map said, I assumed that it was the former. It was definitely the latter. I almost missed it when I blinked. No exit, no light, just an apologetic little sign saying "Hey, the FM you're looking for is right here."

I had to check the map a good three times just to make sure this two-lane road (one each way) was in fact the FM that seemed like a pretty big deal at the map. If it wasn't for the map, I would have assumed it to be a farm's driveway. Ordinarily, I love roads like this. The speed-limits are usually high, there is never traffic, and the cops are never on them. Ordinarily, though, the irrigation trenches beside the road don't look rivers and when I run through a puddle, my heart doesn't stop in fear that it'll pull my car into the aforementioned river. Instead of celebrating the 70MPH speed limit, I was cursing it. I couldn't go a bit past 50 and those damn signs were taunting me.

Taunting me, that is, until I couldn't see them anymore when the rain gave way to hale. I wouldn't have recognized the sound of it if we hadn't had some hale at work earlier in the day. Now I was going 40, but at least the signs weren't taunting me anymore. Of course, neither could I see the stop sign that they stuck in the middle of nowhere. I say "middle of nowhere" as though they put it some place specifically on the FM that should be unexpected. Rather, this was the FM Road Through Oblivion and just about anywhere they could have put it would have left me asking "Why in the world did they put it there?!" which I did constantly until I could breathe again, my car having skidded perpendicular to the road in my rapid attempt to stop.

Yahoo listed the drive as being two hours, which meant that I still had half an hour to make up to get there by 11, so I decided to forgo my heart attack and hit the road again. It wasn't hard to calm down, realizing that there is no one but me (with the aid of Yahoo Maps) would be driving the Road Through Oblivion at this time of night.

Driving on a bending, flooded road in storming rain, hale, makes you think about the things in life you don't always make time to, like "Have I written a will?" More seriously, though, the great thing about being young, single, and childless is that I can take trips like this. To the extent that the missed stop sign and subsequent skid-stop gave me a heart attack, at least I was the only one. I only had to worry about my safety and, because I am young, I am immortal. So what's to worry about? Besides, there was nothing, nothing that was going to stop me from making the show.

I reached civilization soon enough and God was smiling on College Station and Bryan. Well, maybe mildly grinning at the corner of His mouth. At least I was able to see the Hall of Fame when I got there. Somehow, I'd still made up the half-hour that I needed to and got there at 11 on the nose, just in time to hear the radio guy introduce the band.

The Hall of Fame is an amazing place. There were probably a couple thousand people there, but I was able to get a spot up front. That didn't turn out to be the greatest thing, as the TGD song "College Days" about getting drunk, stoned, and hung over takes on a whole new feel when you can smell the girl next to you vomiting into a plastic cup. I'll have to save that story for another time, but it didn't impede on the bittersweet experience of listening to every Great Divide song played for my last time.