Our Trip to the Rock Boat
For the past few years, our primary vacation has consisted of traveling to various places with the band Sister Hazel and many other bands on a cruise ship affectionately known as The Rock Boat. We don’t care what cruise line we go on or where we go. We have gone to the Bahamas, to Jamaica, to Mexico and private islands. To us, being on a ship with 35 different bands is the most fun you can have in four days. We go from concert to concert to concert. We don’t care what the destination is for the ship – all we care about is discovering music we love.
On this particular trip, we heard a number of bands that we’ve heard before – in particular Sister Hazel and Gaelic Storm, two of our favorites. Sister Hazel, a band who lives in our hometown of Gainesville, Florida, is the host band for the Rock Boat. We’ve also heard Bronze Radio Return and Alternate Routes and we have been privileged to listen to the concerts of Stephen Kellogg, Amy Gerhartz, and Will Hoge a number of times. But a couple of bands that I have not heard before, or else I don’t remember them, were Collective Soul, Red Wanting Blue, and Honor by August. All these artists are truly amazing.
One of the most fun moments was listening to the various members of the bands talk about what inspired them to write various songs. It’s wonderful to see the interaction between the band members. On this trip there was also a salute to the Rolling Stones. Each band picked a song from the Stones and did their own interpretation of it. I’m not a big Stones fan, but the interpretations were great!
This particular trip was a little more exciting than usual. Usually I can just go and relax, but this time, I received a really large job the day that we were supposed to leave for Miami, so I knew I would be working the entire time I was on the ship. But that’s okay. When you work for yourself, you’ve got to take the work when it’s available. I just didn’t expect this particular job to be quite as stimulating as it turned out to be.
We left for Miami around noon last Thursday. I had to finish up a few other jobs before we could go and of course I am a frenetic packer, so I had to keep packing and rearranging and repacking till the very last minute. I talked my poor, long-suffering husband into taking the alternate routes. We drove through the Ocala National Forest and ran into incredible, record-setting rainstorms. This was frustrating because I had checked the weather and there was no rain expected below Gainesville the entire day. Those weathermen. Phooey!
We drove down the East Coast on A1A, which is probably the slowest road you could travel in the entire country. It was sort of like traveling through time. I remembered so many trips I had taken when I was younger. I remember going with a bunch of surfers to Sebastian Inlet and visiting friends in Boca Raton, West Palm Beach, and all the small cities around Fort Lauderdale. That was one of the advantages of the school I went to – Nova High School, which doesn’t exist anymore, pulled students from all over the Fort Lauderdale area.
I really enjoyed seeing the sweet little beach communities that I remembered from my childhood, and I was glad to see that they hadn’t been totally destroyed by condos, even though many of them were completely different than when I was a child. And of course this was a very slow way to go. This meant we got to Miami pretty late. Ken looked on his phone to find us a hotel room and was shocked to find that the only hotel rooms were over $200. Even though it was my fault that we got there so late, I refused to pay $200 bucks for a hotel room.
So we drove around Miami looking for a place to stay. It was midnight. It was 1 o’clock. It was 2 o’clock. Every place we went, even those little tiny horrible motels that had been there since the 30s, had “no vacancy” signs on them. I started saying, “Well, I guess I could stay at a $200 hotel room for the night. They better provide breakfast.” Guess what? No $200 hotel rooms left either. We had – wait, let’s be honest – I had screwed up royally. There were no hotels left in the Miami area at all. Nowhere. Seriously!
So, we decided to do what we have done before when we get some place too late to get a hotel room – we decided to sleep in a Walmart parking lot. However, the Walmart parking lots in Miami are not quite as welcoming as those in the middle of the great American West. The security guard kept cruising around, and finally I realized that we were going to get kicked out of there, so we drove another 50 miles looking for a place to stay.
Finally, we found a new Walmart. We pulled into the parking lot and lo and behold, we had found the only Walmart parking lot in the state of Florida that was still in existence that didn’t stay open all night. So our car stuck out like a sore thumb. We were too tired to go any further, so we went to sleep. I think we slept for about three hours before the cops started circling us. And finally we drove back into Miami, found an all-night restaurant, and had a huge breakfast, killing time while we waited for it to be time for us to get on the ship. I do not know why my husband doesn’t divorce me sometimes.
Anyway we finally got on the ship and it was as fun as it always is right from the start. Even though we only had about three hours sleep, we left our stateroom and went up on deck to listen to sister Hazel play as we pulled out of the port of Miami. All night long as we headed out to sea, there was one concert after another. You could go from place to place onboard and find music you’ve never heard before all over the ship.
The next day was a day at sea. The theme was St. Patrick’s Day, so the band Gaelic Storm was everywhere, pushing their craziness. Gaelic storm is a band that creates amazing Irish music (http://www.gaelicstorm.com/) or as their website says, “Gaelic Storm blends indie-folk and world grooves with Celtic tradition.”
The music started at noon with a concert on the pool stage by Honor by August. I sat in the hot tub and listened to them play and enjoyed the first sun I’ve had all winter. The funny thing is, a lot of people go on the Rock Boat from cities up north and they think they’re going to get a tan in four days. We Florida people know to avoid getting fried, but as the days go on you can see those who truly think they can go back home with a glorious suntan. What they go back with is an agonizing sunburn. Of course, it doesn’t matter, because they’re usually too drunk to feel it.
In comparison, Ken and I were like the old fogies who sat around, sober and covered in suntan lotion, him reading his book on his phone, me working on that important project I had to do. But again, all accompanied by the most amazing music.
We spent a lot of time reserving seats in various venues so that we could see our bands the most expeditious way possible. We had no problem sitting in one place for five or six hours, waiting for whichever band we really liked. We alternated going to get food or going to take a nap or going to hang out in the hot tub but because we both had our electronic toys with us, we were able to get the best seats in the Stardust Theater for Gaelic Storm and Sister Hazel.
Apparently Gaelic storm upset some people at one of their concerts. I missed that one because I was working on that report in my stateroom. The lead singer of Gaelic Storm, who is a very sarcastic guy, apparently made some comment to someone in the audience about how rude it was to wear sunglasses in the middle of the night. It turned out the person, a very funny, charming guy named Dave, was actually blind. A lot of people got insulted by the fact that the singer had the nerve to harass a blind guy about his sunglasses, and gave him a hard time about it.
So the next day, when he performed a major concert in the Stardust Theater, he called the blind guy up on stage, and Dave became part of the act. For the whole trip, people would suddenly yell “Dave” as loud as they could whenever they saw him. He played the symbols with the band during their concerts. His wife led him onstage during the Gaelic Storm concert and it was apparent that Dave really enjoyed his 15 minutes of fame almost as much as those of us who shared it with him.
One of the amazing things about being on the rock boat is when a musician will call another musician to the stage and they’ll play almost an open mic-type event. We saw a lot of that on this trip.
The last night of the cruise is always the biggest night for this, and on this particular voyage, the last night was more spectacular than it’s ever been, in my humble opinion. Sister Hazel did a tribute to the Beatles, complete with Sgt. Pepper uniforms and solos by the other artists on the ship. What a fantastic concert. It’s amazing to me that that was only one of the many concerts we got to see, so many that I couldn’t even list them all here. It was incredible. Don’t I sound stupid? Well, superlatives fail me.
The last day, we were supposed to be off the ship by 9:30 AM. Reluctantly, we gathered up all our things and prepared to leave the ship nice and early. We went to the deck where we were supposed to disembark and waited for them to call us up so we could go home. I had to find a Starbucks somewhere so I could send that very important report that I had been so faithfully working on to the professor who awaited it. But I wasn’t worried. There were millions of Starbucks in Miami. What could happen?
All of a sudden someone came on the loudspeaker and said that there had been a radioactive spill in the Miami terminal and the terminal was being evacuated. We were not allowed to leave the ship. No one knew how long that we’d be stuck on the ship. No one knew what was happening. No one knew how bad the radioactive spill might be. Were we in the midst of a terrorist attack? Were we going to be there until food and water ran out? We all tried to remain calm, but all I could think of was “son of a bitch – I have to get an Internet connection. I have to send that report!”
We went to be client services desk and they told us that the Internet was cut off. We were not allowed to access anything. Bear in mind that I had had very little sleep during the entire trip. The three hours we slept in the car in Miami was probably the best sleep I had had. I get seasick and have to take patches to control it. They leave me in a state of semi-exhaustion but don’t allow for deep sleep.
I totally panicked. When we found that there was no place to get a connection, I literally kicked a chair over in the dining room. Made a very big ass of myself in a restaurant full of trapped people. Very mature.
However, apparently this inspired my husband to go find somebody who worked for the Sixth Man group that put together the cruise and this sweet, wonderful woman let me use her Internet connection to send my report. I was so relieved when it finally went to the professor who was waiting for it that I hugged her.
But she wasn’t the only fantastic, hard-working person on that ship that morning. Ken Block, the lead singer for Sister Hazel, put together a lineup of musicians to do an impromptu concert for those of us who were trapped on the ship. The groups played all morning, spontaneously and spectacularly, keeping everyone calm. Remember, a lot of those people on that ship had airline flights out that day at 2 o’clock and here it was noon already. You think I was panicking? There was another cold front coming in tying up airports – if these people didn’t get off the boat and onto those planes, it might be days before they could get home. When you have to be at your job and you can’t get off the ship that leads to heavy stress. I wasn’t the only one freaking out!
I have so much respect for musicians. I used to play piano and flute, sang in the school choir, and even had some solos, all of which I screwed up. But I could never be a performer. The idea of standing in front of a room full of people and enjoying myself by performing just makes me feel ill. I cannot imagine how the artists who perform in front of thousands of strangers can be so brave. I would forget the lyrics, or forget the music, or forget my name, I’d be so scared. My husband, Ken, is a musician and he loves to perform. He’s always saying I should take some of my poetry and turn it into songs. That would be fine. As long as I don’t have to perform them.
To me, musicians are an amazing breed. Everything they do is made for public consumption, and their work is such a communal experience, even when the songs they sing are sad. They bring joy and comfort to people. I know for myself, when I get mad or frustrated or tired or whatever, I can turn on my favorite songs and sing along or dance and I feel refreshed and energized. Thank you to the wonderful artists who made my winter warm. I’m ready to go on the Rock Boat again – but next year I’m booking a hotel room in advance!
Finally, we were all able to get off the ship. It turned out that the radiation leak came from a Korean War compass that somebody had in their baggage (probably from our ship J ) http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/26/travel/miami-compass-radiation-scare/ . We were so happy to get off the boat, not because we wouldn’t have enjoyed more days of music, not because we couldn’t have spent more time hanging out in the hot tub or eating delicious food or enjoying the camaraderie of thousands of crazy folks, but because it was time to go home. As we headed back into the cold, back to work, I thought, oh well, you gotta have something to contrast all that fun with!
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