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GC wrote:NW Georgia to Iowa to visit Lee Stofer and his shop a few times. Lee lives in some of the nicest country I've ever seen.

Is this heaven?

No... It's Iowa.

Arthur wrote:Yesterday Tyler and I completed our swap and I am now the happy new owner of a 25J and he has a new Cerveny 601 with which to amuse himself. To make the swap I drove from Boston to Buffalo and back yesterday which most of my non tuba playing friends though was insane. I suspect the attitude on this board will be "what's the big deal?" Anybody have any fun traveling to get a piece of gear stories?

I don't have any road stories but trading a 601 for a 25J certainly is exchanging one big cannon for another...

bort wrote:

GC wrote:NW Georgia to Iowa to visit Lee Stofer and his shop a few times. Lee lives in some of the nicest country I've ever seen.

Is this heaven?

No... It's Iowa.

I wouldn't call it heaven in the winter. Then again, I'm saying that to someone who lives in Maxisnowta . . .

Yeah, winter is what it is...

To clarify... I've never been to Iowa. Kevin Costner has, though.

Thanks. It's been too long since I've seen that movie. Iowa is gorgeous if you like looking at miles and miles of miles and miles. And most of it corn.

I live in a place where a half inch of snow sends people into hysterics and paralyzes everything around.

GC wrote:Thanks. It's been too long since I've seen that movie. Iowa is gorgeous if you like looking at miles and miles of miles and miles. And most of it corn.

I live in a place where a half inch of snow sends people into hysterics and paralyzes everything around.

I used to travel to Atlanta several times per year for work. I narrowly missed a small snowstorm (it happened the week before I was there). People told me nightmares of 5 hour commutes...

Yeah. My son was caught in that. His 8-mile commute took 13 1/2 hours. One poor lady who lived outside the city took 28 hours. I didn't have to set foot outside my house, fortunately, even though I have chains and could have gotten anywhere I needed to go.

I have two stories. The first was a trip on a Greyhound Bus to and from San Jose to Santa Barbara to pick up a Miraphone (it turned out I really didn't like it all that much, so I sold it soon afterwards.)
The better story was around 1982 when I flew to LA to visit a former neighbor after she moved to Reseda, CA. I had a rental car and a few hours to kill so I drove along Ventura Blvd a ways. I spotted a store that sold antique violins and such, thought it might be interesting - after a bit of discussion with the owner, he told me his father had a restored 1860s Ophicleide that he was thinking of selling. Since I had never seen an actual Ophicleide before, I was interested! So the father was called, the instrument was brought to the store. It was beautifully restored by one of the best Sax repair guys in LA, and I was able to get some interesting tones out of it. I asked how much he was asking for it - the answer was 15. I asked 15 "whats" - hundreds or thousands (I had no real idea of what one might be worth) and he said $1500. I put a deposit on it and made plans to pick it up the next week - I didn't want to take it back on the plane. So the next Saturday I drove to LA, picked up the horn and drove back to San Jose - all in one day!
I still have it, still don't really know how to play it well, but I can hack out a tune. Now that there are expert Ophicleide recording artists around, I know how hard they had to work to learn that instrument!

Does it count if you are making the trip anyway to visit family? I have picked up several horns in conjunction with trips to my parents'. Does my profile tell you I live in Marietta, Ga? Home is basically a hop, skip and a jump as the crow flies across the river from where Lee Stofer lives.Once I stopped in Bloomington Ill. to pick up a King monster(?) Eb I had bought on ebay, once I picked up a Meinl-Weston from Rockford that my parents had made the local pickup on, and once I got an American Standard euphonium in satin silver that belonged to one of my mother's sisters.

Many of the miles and miles and miles, most of it corn, that GC tells of is in Illinois on my trips. (His mileage may vary) What isn't corn is soybeans. I was just up there two weeks ago; weather was good; harvest was starting; many more empty fields on the way back three days later. A lot of corn and beans got harvested that week.

Back in 1989 I decided to do the Route 66 thing, so I drove to Chicago (from San Francisco) via Oregon, Idaho, etc., then followed a guidebook to go along the oldest available roads that would be or were Route 66. In Springfield, IL I noticed a music store was having a big sale, so I stopped in. Found a very nice White EEb tuba for $50, couldn't pass it up.
So I then continued along Route 66 to New Mexico, lots of interesting things to see. Detoured to Tuba City (just because) and took a few pictures of my new old horn in front of various signs. (I will upload one when I find my album.)
The locals didn't quite get the joke.

Finally made it to Santa Monica and the end of the road. It is a great trip if you have the time to explore - some interesting places along the way are still open (but many were closing down when I was traveling.

I just drove 14 hours, from Clarksville TN to Wood Bridge NJ to get a tuba

alfredr wrote:Does it count if you are making the trip anyway to visit family? I have picked up several horns in conjunction with trips to my parents'. Does my profile tell you I live in Marietta, Ga? Home is basically a hop, skip and a jump as the crow flies across the river from where Lee Stofer lives.Once I stopped in Bloomington Ill. to pick up a King monster(?) Eb I had bought on ebay, once I picked up a Meinl-Weston from Rockford that my parents had made the local pickup on, and once I got an American Standard euphonium in satin silver that belonged to one of my mother's sisters.

Many of the miles and miles and miles, most of it corn, that GC tells of is in Illinois on my trips. (His mileage may vary) What isn't corn is soybeans. I was just up there two weeks ago; weather was good; harvest was starting; many more empty fields on the way back three days later. A lot of corn and beans got harvested that week.

I grew up in central IL. You're making me homesick

Edesel585960, my mother is from the Bloomington-Champaign-Decatur triangle; that's where I got the American Standard (by H.N. White) euph from my aunt.

bloke wrote:just returned from a road trip to buy a truly rare and extraordinarily fine tuba (only equaled, imo, by same-model/same-condition/same-vintage instruments - very few of which exist).

OK--what did you acquire?

Congrats!

I purchased my Besson 700 on Ebay for $1200 for my 40th birthday (14 years ago). It was new, but was dropped in the case, so had a dent.

I drove from Minneapolis to Milwaukee and back in one day on my 40th birthday to pick it up, about 650 miles. I think I spent about 20 minutes in Milwaukee. Great purchase though. A $100 service and the dent was gone. Gas was cheaper then also.