First of all happy Thanksgiving to all my friends and fans all over the world from the Hill Country of Texas to the Pacific Coast, across the U.S., to every part of the world where we might have touched someone’s heart with our songs.

Back to the European tour, after eating road food for most of the previous day of travel from Le Mans we splurged on a fine meal of Black Angus Sunday night in Besacon, France and then captured a healthy 8 hours of sleep before embarking for the city of Belforte where Stefano’s Peugot Autobus was being repaired.

We had hoped the repairs would be completed by the noon time break (most of European business stops between noon and 2:00 P.M.), but were told they were waiting for a part and that it would be much later in the day before we could reclaim the van. So we made the most of the situation and took a nice lunch in the old town district of Belforte and did a little sightseeing.

After 5 P.M. (or 17:00 as the European’s and our military would say) the van was completed so we hustled across town to return the rental to the fine and courteous folks of Hertz, who are a part of my AAA Auto Club network. We then drove through the night for the Meiming region of Austria near Innsbruck.

Stefano Bertolotti’s Navigation system would not work in Austria so we had to use the old fashion paper map to find our route. We drove from Belforte to Basel, Switzerland on Zurich and St. Gallen before crossing the border in the tiny country of Lichtenstein where we made our entry into Austria. We, B.B. Morse of Spicewood, TX, Scott Martin of Marble Falls, TX, Stanley Nesvarba of Nuremburg, Germany and I, were grateful for Stefano’s ability to manage the snowfall. He travels often in snow in the Alps of the Italian part of Switzerland and his own area near Pavia, Italy. We quickly learned there weren’t many other automobiles braving the Alpine conditions on a late Monday night, but fortunately the Austrian’s have an amazing highway tunnel system for those regions where travel is made difficult by snowfall; most of the Austrian leg of the journey we drove through the tunnels and covered bridges.

At the halfway point from Lichtenstein to Meiming we were forced off the main thoroughfare by construction and we took a winding mountain road toward our destination, but by this time the snowfall had ceased-- thank God!

Our accommodations were amazing at the Pension Zimmer Hotel which is run by a local farming family; our rooms sat between the family home and the dairy stables.

I have to say that I was amazed at the power of the performance Tuesday night in Baumkirchen, east of Innsbruck, given the hardship of the travel, but this collection of musicians truly enjoys making music. The performances in Switzerland and France certainly moved the audiences from an emotional and artistic perspective, but the band was tight and in perfect sync on this night, playing to a modest crowd of 50 patrons.

On previous tours we fill the schedule with large festival dates, but for this time of year the weather prohibits any outdoor dates so our Swiss promoter filled the calendar with several smaller appearances. Wednesday night, the 24th day of November, 2010 the Gasthaus Louven hosted a sold out public show in their intimate theatre area. I’m  always amazed when folks travel great distances from other lands to see our shows, like our fans Peter and Anita, who brought their entire family on vacation to Germany, Austria, and Switzerland just to see our shows on our last tour. They made three of our shows again on this tour. And a young couple from Germany came up to me on the break and said, “I hope you play “You Can’t Out Drink the Truth” from your Purgatory Road CD!”

Tonight we play a private concert for an Austrian Company at the same location then after the show the band has elected to drive onto Munich to the airport rather than risk oversleeping on Friday and missing our flights. I’ve started a new song about the exciting travels, missing the comforts of home and the loving arms of my wife, “It’s What I Do” is the name of the new song. I’m anxious to share this with you at a show in the near future.

~Vaya con Dios,

       john Arthur martinez & Tejas