My latest book entitled “Twenty-Two: A lucky dad savors 22 days on the road with his 22-year old gigging daughter” will be released in segments for free on this site starting Jan. 1. Come along with us on that magical ride!

It was almost six years ago and so much has changed, but I can still feel how I felt, sitting at a table or on a barstool and hearing my 22-year-old daughter’s voice captivating strangers across this cool country.

I can still see the curve of the earth on the way through Texas as we piled up 5,000 miles on highways from coast to coast.

And looking back, I realize even more how lucky of a dad I was to be allowed on this excursion. How many dads have done anything similar?

It was the summer of 2019, before COVID was engrained in our heads, and I was accompanying Kirsti on her “Dust” tour of bars and restaurants from D.C. to Breckenridge. She has just released her first EP of songs that were recorded by a fraternity brother at the University of Vermont and she wanted to the world to hear it.

The trip was punctuated by laughs and deep conversations about life on the highways, and enthusiastic ovations at venues that ranged from an Ecuadorian restaurant in D.C. to a biker bar in Amarillo, Texas.

She planned it all and I was along for the ride.

We bonded over guilty pleasure bad TV in both good and bad Airbnb’s. We saw 14 states through a windshield, met too many nice people to count, and strengthened a father-daughter bond that was already titanium strong.

Oh yes, there were lots of beers, some Mississippi moonshine, and even some tears.

This book project was started shortly after our return from the final destination in California. I was eager to write it and initially did a condensed version for The Post-Star in August 2019.

But work, life and that aforementioned COVID-19 pandemic paused it. Work on this halted as I pursued another book project called “COVID Chronicles,” a compilation of powerful stories told by my Media Writing students in the early, scary days of the pandemic when classes were all online.

After publishing that, I was burned out.

As a result, this sat untouched.

In recent years, I’ve pecked away at it. I feel it needs to see daylight. It concludes with a chapter from Kirsti, reflecting on what it meant to her.

It made me cry.  

I didn’t want to self-publish another book, however. It’s an arduous, costly process and I hate trying to sell myself. So, this book is free, and I’ll be releasing it a couple chapters at a time on my website david-blow.com.

I’m hoping to drag readers along with us on that magical 5,000-mile path across the country. I’m hoping you can feel what we felt through my words and see what we saw through our photos and videos.  

The first chapters will be released on Jan. 1.