On cloudy days on the way to middle school during what passes for winter in Austin, the Dauphin would often greet the kid we carpooled with by observing "the sun isn't shining, the birds aren't chirping – it's a beautiful day."

So no one embarked on our Pacific Northwest escapade with higher hopes in the weather department. We were pretty lucky, basically managing to shoehorn our trip in between heat waves. It was still sunny a lot of the time, but drastically cooler than Austin, and we even got a bunch of real-live daylong drizzle the last couple of days, which satisfied everyone's expectations to no small degree.

I know it's kind of weak to lead with the meteorological details, but that's a big travel feature when you live where we do. We also definitely drank a lot of coffee, ate a lot of Asian food, left behind a small fortune in Powell's books, and managed a few college visits along the way.

As for music tourism, I managed to squeeze in lightning-round visits to Dusty Strings (Seattle) and Rufus Guitars (Vancouver) and almost managed to meet up with my pal Anton at Strum (Portland). And thanks to my daughter's current interest in vinyl, I also stuck my head in a few used record shops without getting the total eye-roll from one and all.

I'm pretty sure we did some sightseeing as well, though my urban hike through the hidden stairways of Queen Anne was a nearly solo affair – nearly, because more than one person recognized the beautiful little hand-drawn map I was using and said they had a copy, too. 

Now we're back, and I won't trouble you with the rest of the details, except to say you should totally go see my friend Matt play with the Jacob Zimmerman 3 at Zig Zag in Seattle, and if you do, tell them I sent you, and try the Quarter Horse.

In the meantime, there's a new lesson up on the Youtube channel about how to keep a shuffle groove going over a walking bass line. You can find it here:

Groove! The Secret To Better Blues Solos

The video applies just as well to playing shuffles over a steady bass. 

And if what you really want to know is how to improvise over a walking bass, that's what I'll be teaching throughout August in the Fingerstyle Five membership. You can still sign up and join us for the first of this month's hourlong live streams at the link below:

The Fingerstyle Five

More soon,

David