Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

I've been having lunch for the past three days at a wonderful Italian deli on 58th W. and 10th Ave called Strokos. About three blocks from the hotel, it serves great pizza, sandwiches, panninis....and for lunch today I had a huge plate of spaghetti and three meat balls with the most delicious tangy red sauce and a Greek salad with pepperoncini and stuffed grape leaves. A mountain of food that I could only get half-way through before I threw in the towel. Less than $11.00 including tax. Only in Manhattan.

An afternoon flight to Philadelphia and the Mann Centre for the Performing Arts, a good outdoor amphitheatre that we played in 2005. Our friend Dick Boak of Martin Guitars and his family were there to meet us. Dick's a great fellow, luthier and artist rep. for the company. Several of the crew and the band had expressed interest in purchasing a good acoustic guitar. Over the last several weeks the guys made their decisions about which model they would like and an order was placed. Dick turned up tonight with 7 or 8 guitars in tow for everyone. It was like Christmas, everybody taking their instrument and finding a little quiet corner to squirrel off in and strum their new treasure. It was really great to see. Both Mark and I suggest to most some sort of Triple 0 size as they are very versatile instruments...great finger picking and strummers. Everyone will be well kitted out now and are bursting with pride about their new Martin guitars.

The show was great as was the audience. As we head into the final gigs, I can say without bragging that Mark and the band are at the top of their games....seems like we've hit a whole new benchmark with the shows, one of the reasons we don't want to wrap it up. But the end's well in sight now...four more gigs.

The usual runner back to our last night in Manhattan. It was Philly cheese steak sandwiches, ribs and wings on the plane ride back...all good. Dan and I stopped off in MK's room for a couple of delicious night caps of Knob Creek Bourbon that hit the spot and tasted like butterscotch.

So long,

Richard