By Sunday, I was craving a bit more variety in my diet, but was also very aware of my budget. The Chinese buffet concept is a good one economically, but the palate gets lonely for something at least a little different. Hence, I elected to dine at the Super Stop & Shop deli, where I managed to extract a foot-long turkey sub. I say "extracted" because apparently the employee assigned to make the sandwiches was on break when I sauntered up to order, and the poor sap who had to cover kept disclaiming his ability at the assembly station. "I'm not real good at this sandwich thing," he said apologetically. I said, "Hey, there's the bread, the meat, the fixins--you'll do fine." He laughed, and I went to get a cup of coffee on the other side of the store, while he went to work on my lunch.

For $4.99, I ended up with a meal of gigantic proportions that I hauled back to the motel room. Everyone was hanging out in Jesse's room, and had finally gotten up the nerve to start listening to the HOB tape of our Thursday show. Jeff was wearing the headphones and wincing, laughing and guffawing. The HOB sound man had managed to mess around with the mix during each song to such a point that at times you couldn't hear the guitar for the effects on it, or the keyboards would be way up or down in the mix. Sometimes Terry would have reverb, other times it would be totally dry and way high up in the mix. In other words, we concluded, HOB doesn't want house mixes and recordings ending up on bootleg CDS. No self-respecting band would release such a mess--us included.

I found myself wolfing down the sandwich in its entirety. I notice my appetite while on the road is ravenous. If it weren't for my budget, I'd probably return home with a gut and spare tire. I elected to do some survival shopping, picking up a canister of trusty raisins, a loaf of bread, tuna, peanut butter, and some apples. Whoopee.

I scoped out the nearest PO, which was on the same street as the No. 1 Buffet. I needed to 2nd Day Air Dede house money, and found that to be an excellent opportunity to get some needed airing out. It was a brisk day, overcast but dry, with a pretty hefty windchill. I headed out with just a jacket and t-shirt, which was just barely enough for the windy 50 degrees. As long as I kept my pace up, I was warm enough. I did my duty at the PO, and trucked around looking for a sandwich shop. I found a Subway-like place and got a chicken sub and a cup of coffee and settled down to eat and observe the townspeople of Newport.

My initial observations were borne out here, too. No one was smiling. No one was saying hi, other than nodding occasionally. Most all of the people I observed seemed self-conscious and preoccupied. I don't know if they were exhibiting symptoms of post-traumatic stress syndrome from 9-11, or if this is just the way they are in these parts. This type of mass behavior continued to predominate even as I went on my walkabouts Tuesday and Wednesday.

Tuesday, after doing my laundry at the packed out mall laundromat, I took the digicam to attempt a better shot of the Newport Bridge, and maybe get a closer shot of the battleship I spied anchored at the Naval Base. I just couldn't get close enough to either one to get a meaningful picture with this little wide-angle, low-res play camera. The weather had cleared and warmed, making for excellent hiking. There's no way I could hole myself up in that motel room during the day, fer sure.

Wednesday, I decided to trek to the old-town, main part of Newport where the club was. I knew it was about two miles, but opted for an alternate route to the one we drove to the gig on. This turned out to be the long, scenic route. I finally reached the club after 90 minutes of walking, aware of sore feet and rubbery thigh muscles. Nonetheless, the shops, shoppers and history of Newport kept me distracted enough to keep me having fun. I had about five bucks, so after snapping several photos, I stopped in at a Subway to let lose with $3.19. Down on the wharf it was blowing so hard I had a difficult time maintaining my balance. It was definitely gale force, howling in off the ocean, white-capping the smallest of wavelets in the bay. I ended up with a mildly entertaining slide show of pics you can see here.