Dave Matthews Concert

On the phone, Holly carefully explained it to her grandfather: yes, we’re going to a concert on a school night, but no, we’re not going to cut class. We finished all our homework ahead of time. We’re good kids.

Once Jimmy – a friend of mine from back home – got on campus, we threw his overnight stuff in my room, grabbed some dinner at Red Robin, and then the three of us headed out.

The Toyota Pavilion on Montage Mountain, a concert venue just outside Scranton, is about an hour and a half drive from Selinsgrove, east on I-80, north on I-81. We knew we were in for a long night, but we didn’t care. That’s a small sacrifice for a Dave Matthews Band concert.

The show was phenomenal. Dave’s violinist took several extended solos. They were incredible. He’s an amazing musician, but, then, you could say the same for any member of the band—the lead guitarist, the trumpeter, the saxophonist, even the bass player.

The drummer is the most fun to watch, though. He’s always smiling like he’s got the best job in the world. He chewed gum and popped bubbles throughout the show.

The band played for two hours straight and then came back out and covered “All Along the Watchtower” with some “Stairway to Heaven” thrown in for their encore.

It was an incredible night.

Floating Down the Susquehanna River

Saturday was supposed to be Fall Frenzy at SU (and, technically, it was), but really it was too blue-skied, warm, and sunny to be anything other than one of the few remaining days of the summer. My girlfriend, convinced that this was not a day to be wasted, suggested we go tubing.

For two dollars apiece, you can rent big black inner tubes from the Info Desk in Deg. Before I knew what was going, Holly had borrowed $12 out of my wallet and we were trying to figure out how to squeeze six inner tubes and six people into two cars.

We dropped Corinne’s car off on the Isle of Que, then drove the two other cars we’d loaded with inner tubes upstream to the Selinsgrove boat dock. Once everyone’s car keys were safely fastened to the strap of Corinne’s swimsuit, we boarded our vessels ("Jodi," "Hobut," "Bubba II," "Jay," and "Doughnut") and took to the water.

We spent the next two hours drifting down stream, warmed by the sun and cooled by the water, watching the railroad trussles in the distances slowly grow larger as dragonflies skimmed the surface of the river. Very chill.

When the railroad tracks finally passed over our heads, it was time to make a frantic, awkward-inner-tube paddle back to the Isle of Que so we wouldn’t float past Corrinne’s car, our ride home.