Oregon gig offer

[solarbird]

I have an offer of a gig, in central Oregon, north of Bend, in a little town called Redmond. (Short story: I mailed the wrong Redmond, we figured it out, they listened to my stuff and are offering anyway.) It would be kind of awesome to take it, because it’d be the furthest away I’ve played other than Boston. But it’s nearly seven hours away by car, I don’t have lodging, and a hotel would be out of the question just because there’s no possible way to come even close to breaking even if I do that.

I didn’t expect to be facing this kind of dilemma this summer. I could use, idk, crash space, maybe? Something to make the driving times reasonable each day. Suggestions?

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Mirrored from Crime and the Blog of Evil.

Comments

[kirbyk.livejournal.com]

Some of the best camping/hiking in the Pacific Northwest is around Bend. It's just on the other side of the Cascades. Beautiful country.

On the other hand, it does tend towards redneckness.

Life is made for adventures, though, I say go for it!

[solarbird]

7 hours driving + gig = lousy gig + 7 hours driving home = falling asleep in car and fiery death. Not optimal! So I'm kinda hoping for crash space, to be honest.

[interactiveleaf.livejournal.com]

Have you considered signing up with Couchsurfing (http://www.couchsurfing.org/) or a site like it, or posting on Craigslist in the area, or looking for LJ comms that are specific to that area?

[solarbird]

...Couchsurfing is a completely new thing to me, as a social organising concept.

Also, scary! Liek woah. Have you done this before?

[interactiveleaf.livejournal.com]

No, but only because I don't travel much and don't live in a place where anyone visits (I'm 40 miles away from the nearest "big city"). I know plenty of people who have used it both to host and as a guest, though.

It's not as entirely scary as it looks; it's engineered to be lots less scary than the Craigslist option, for example. I don't know how much lead time you have, but the Couchsurfing site gives you cred for being an active member of that community. People are more likely to offer you a place if you're known for being active on the forums, for example, and people can leave "reviews" for other folks they've stayed with or had stay with them.

It's not that the system wouldn't be easy to scam, but not more than once. The Safety FAQ (http://www.couchsurfing.org/safety.html) explains how people get their name and actual address verified, for example.