September

Move to Middle Tennessee

With no money, no place to live, and no more shows to attend, we had no choice but to try and find jobs and settle down a bit.  Sasha had been planning on returning to China to teach again, and had even lined up a job, but this time he decided he wanted to stay behind with Rachel and give her a chance to pursue a job in the music biz.  Naturally, we gravitated towards Nashville, Music City.  Rachel busted her ass looking for a job on Music Row while Sasha applied to any and every job he could find.  Unfortunately, Rachel ended up just waiting tables again and Sasha got stuck teaching ESL in an unreliable, demanding, and low-paying job.  Instead of living in Nashville, we found ourselves packing into a college house with our hippie friends.  We were poor, under-employed, on food stamps, and stuck in a filthy college house.  Something had to change.

October

Tons of Shows and Bisco Halloween

While that may sound like a horror story, we did have plenty of good times in those months.  Living with our college hippie friends, while frustrating, was also incredibly entertaining.  We went to a bunch of shows in Nashville, Murfreesboro, Asheville, and Boone, and we enjoyed plenty of wild weekends, partying with friends, bowling, singing karaoke, or whatever else sounded like fun.

For Halloween, we drove up to Chicago to catch the Biscuits and swap identities (Rachel was a thug from the D while Sasha was a redneck from TN).

November

Phish in Cinci-tucky

A few weeks later, we took a road trip up to Cincinnati for a huge Womp family reunion and two Phish shows.

December

Family Time and Phish in Miami

We both got to spend Christmas at home, enjoy some quality time with family, and really think about what it was we wanted to do.  The year ended with a bang as we spent New Year’s in Miami for four nights of Phish.

Don’t stop now! The story’s just getting good! Continue on to 2010 to read about our move to China together.