!()! Touring with Blackmore's Night !()! Day 1 Northampton, MA

My new journey as an officially renewed member of Blackmore's Night has begun! On a beautiful fall morning I threw my guitar and carefully packed bags into my car and drove to MA. I'd love to make a video with the footage of the journey some time. It was truly a gorgeous day. I had my yellow heart shaped glasses on, some Panera soup and my handy dandy GPS, which unexpectedly advised me to take the Ferry to save time on the journey. I was a little nervous about taking the ferry alone, but by chance, I had recently taken it with an adventurous friend, so knowing that this was serendipity, I courageously told my lifelong battle with motion sickness to kindly go F itself and boarded the boat. I purchased a bottle of apple juice, played a game on my phone, feeling slightly sea sick but in full proud denial. Once I knew we weren't too far off I made myself get up and took a more scenic view. It was such a perfect fall day, so I took a walk on the deck and enjoyed a few moments of the Connecticut coast as we headed for the dock.

Once I hit the road again I had less than 2 hours to Northampton, where the Academy of Music Theater was. But the trip to the ferry had been over an hour, and I had missed the first boat, so by the time I got to my hotel it was 5 and a half hours later. I have to say, it still felt like less because of break from driving.

Unfortunately, my hotel was a bit of a nightmare. But thankfully the staff was amazingly kind. They helped me to get a refund and I had to find another hotel quickly, but there is no price that you can put on being safe.

So a couple hours later I was able to drive to the Main Street of Northampton and find some dinner. I parked about half way up the center of town, where there were many pretty storefronts. Much to my delight, I had seen a Ramen place while I was parking. So I made my way towards the restaurant while popping into various witchy looking stores and chatting with some of the folks there. It’s too bad I didn’t have more time because I would have liked to do more exploring. But eventually I found my noodles, and not far from it, the Academy of Music, with Blackmore's Night on the marquee.