I made it. After two straight and nearly uninterrupted days of travel, I'm here in the Highlands of Scotland. One of my favorite places to be. It's rainy, very overcast and a bit chilly. Ah, Scotland. I drove up to Fort William from Glasgow earlier today. In and out of sunshine, narrowly missing certain death by head on collision with buses or lorries or motorcycles or whatever else came at me around a blind curve on roads originally made for the single-file transport of grazing animals. Taking the Great Western Highway up from Glasgow to Fort William, one passes directly through the heart of Glencoe, undoubtedly one of the most magical and beautiful places on the face of the planet. My ancestors hail from here originally. It's a strange thing to feel so at home in a place where you've only ever been a brief visitor or a passer-through. It's a very real feeling though, and you can't dispute that. At least I can't...

There's a Jesse Winchester song called 'A Showman's Life' -- If you are a fan of great songwriting, and you're unfamiliar with Jesse Winchester's work, then you really should familiarize yourself as soon as you possibly can. He's a personal hero of mine. I got to meet him once, briefly... He probably has no recollection of what to him was the very definition of a non-event, but to me has become no less than a turning point -- um.. right. Sorry for the distraction...

Tomorrow I head out to Scotland. I have to make a quick stop first in New York City, but I arrive in Glasgow on Wednesday morning. Then I head straight for the Highlands. I'll be doing a few solo things before Sidette and Sidey join me at the end of the week. The Scottish Highland country is one of my favorite places. It reminds me so much of my home in Virginia. It's beautiful, and I always have the best time there. I can't wait. Once again, I'll be on the lookout for the Loch Ness Monster, but once again I don't expect to see it. Too far into tourist season now...

Today was a day off. Sandra set up an appointment for us with her friend, Boudewijn, who is the carillon player for 14 different bell towers throughout Holland. For those who don't know (I didn't know until today), a carillon is a piano-like instrument consisting of wooden baton keys each connected to a large metal hammer that strikes a bronze bell when the key is pushed. Many of the towers in Holland (and indeed throughout the lowlands and around the world) have such carillons in their belfries.

Yet another radio show... I guess we're getting pretty good at these by now... Tonight's was very cool though. We did this same radio show last time we were over in June of last year. It's called Desmet Live. It's a show about culture and politics among other things I guess. They broadcast it live from a little cafe in Amsterdam. Very cool. There's a small audience there in the cafe, and of course they have a loyal listenership over the airwaves and the internets.

Got my banjo back this morning. All in one piece and everything. Luciano saw some guy wandering around outside trying to find the address and flagged him down.

We left San Francisco yesterday morning at around 9:00am. After a short 10-hour flight, I watched the sunrise from about 18,000 feet just 40 miles or so north of London. I’ve been to London several times, but usually when I fly in, it’s either dark or foggy or both. Today it was sky blue and clear. We did a wide sweeping circle around the whole city. It was beautiful. I saw the Palace, the Parliament and Big Ben, the Millennium Wheel, Tower Bridge, Hyde Park, and on and on. All things I’ve seen before from the ground. On the ground though, they take all day to see.

t’s cold in San Francisco. Cold for San Francisco anyway… probably about 45 degrees or so. Wind whipping past me outside the window. Tomorrow we leave for The Netherlands. It’s about an 11-hour flight from SFO to London Heathrow, then a 2-hour layover followed by another hour to fly from London to Amsterdam. It’ll be much colder there for sure. I think it’s about 32 over there now, and tomorrow isn’t supposed to be much warmer…

Ahhh, Austin in springtime. Beautiful. Three months from now -- when I'm next scheduled to be in Austin -- it'll be 90 to 100 degrees in the shade, but here at the Bouldin Creek coffee shop right now, it's about 73 or so, and sunny. So nice.

Mile 607,256 - Memphis, TN

Thanks to everyone -- especially my amazing band, The Strange Pilgrims -- who helped make my Folk Alliance experience this year one for the books.

Highlights from Folk Alliance 2008:
- Playing in a late-night song swap with Peter Case, Ana Egge, Rachel Ries, Nels Andrews, Cory Brannan, Carrie Elkin, Danny Schmidt, Graham Weber, Chuck E. Costa, Anthony de Costa, Joel Plaskett and a whole bunch more of the best songwriters to ever form a song circle at 4am in a Marriot Suite.