The San Diego Trolley, Dan Croll, & A Scene That Became Fiction 🚃

On May 3, 2014, I tagged along with the team from A Trolley Show for an intimate acoustic performance with Dan Croll and his band on board the San Diego Trolley. Squeezed into a trolley car, sun pouring through the windows, Dan and the band played "Maway" — and it's a morning I've never forgotten.

I didn't know it at the time, but that morning — the sunlight, the trolley packed with fans, an artist playing songs just for the people in that car — became one of my favorite scenes in Musical Awakening.

You were my Lamplight: Saying Goodbye to A Silent Film

2026 Update: When I walked out of Larimer Lounge that night after seeing A Silent Film for the final time, I knew I was ready to move forward into a new chapter of life. But I had no idea I was carrying a novel with me. Musical Awakening — the story I didn't know I was already living — is available now on Amazon.

Exactly 5 years ago I heard the music that would change my life forever.

For my 30th birthday, I decided to go see a new band I had been obsessing over for a few months: A Silent Film. I lived in San Diego at the time and they came only a few days after my birthday, so I grabbed my girlfriends and we rocked out.

Exactly five years and a complete life 360 I'm saying goodbye.

Places That Inspired Musical Awakening ✈️

While the novel itself is fiction, many of the locations, feelings, and moments in Musical Awakening were inspired by places that left a lasting impression on me. Some I have called home. Some I have visited. 

These are the ones that found their way into June Snow's story.