This past weekend I took a little break from working on the new album and headed out to California Speedway in Fontana (aka Fontucky), CA. It’s been almost a year since I’ve been on a racetrack and was hoping to just not to suck completely. On Sunday, with some drafting help from my friend John I managed to qualify 6th out of 16 cars. Not too bad considering I’m really not very good at this whole “race car driver” thing. I made a few dumb mistakes in the race and ended up finishing 10th, but overall it was ridiculously fun. I’m so glad that I’m able to do this from time to time!

Ok, so I’m not exactly on tour, but I am driving across the US, taking some photos and recording some music along the way. Today I drove for a while along Route 66 in California, and spent some quality time with a few dilapidated houses and buildings. The setting sun was providing some perfect lighting, so it seemed like a good opportunity to shoot some new photos, some of which for my bio.

Tonight I’m keeping it classy, spending a night in the lovely roadway inn in flagstaff, arizona. I’m currently accompanied by the sounds of trains raging by every half hour. A bit too tired to work on any songs today. If I hit a campground tomorrow evening, I’ll see if I can start (and finish) a SongFight song. Here are some photos, more tomorrow.

We went to Zuma beach early yesterday morning with the hopes of seeing a California gray whale make their way back up the coast to Alaska from Baja. The weather was perfect, no wind, the ocean was calm and glassy and the sky was overcast, perfect conditions to spot wildlife in the sea. Hung around the beach for a couple hours and saw several sea lions romp around and catch fish while dodging greedy sea gulls. We were actually about to leave when we spotted a gray whale flipper just over the breakers, maybe only 100 feet away! Apparently the gray whales come incredibly close to shore right in this area. The whale hung around for 20 minutes, feeding off the ocean floor, rolling around, spy hopping and generally putting on a great show. Then he was off up the coast, we followed him for a few more minutes but then he was gone. Pretty damn amazing… Photos below by Angela Heine.

When I’m not writing music, and sometimes when I should be writing music, I’m driving too fast on Southern California race tracks. I just got started with racing, and am not very good. But it is fun and I enjoy learning how to drive faster, it’s a much different brain activity than writing/recording/performing music which is cool. Here’s a video of me attempting to tear it up at California Speedway. My little Mazda doesn’t have a ton of power but it was still fun to get up to 120mph on the oval.