b natural. c sharp.

Our show in Cleveland was originally at a venue called The Davenport, but it shut down out of nowhere in the middle of our tour. Fortunately the local band Vietnam Werewolf was nice enough to get it moved to a local house that does shows called The Soggy Dog. We got to town a little early so we got some Chipotle down the street. I swear we will never learn that eating a huge Mexican-ish meal before a show is a horrible idea, but it sure hit the spot. Since it was the second to last day of tour we were kind of just going through the motions, but there were a handful of people at the show who seemed to like us and all the bands were good. Our friends Slingshot Dakota also played and it was great seeing them again.

When the show was over we headed about an hour and a half away to Katie & Joe’s grandma’s house in Youngstown, OH. Mim is amazing - she is the most energetic and funny grandma I’ve ever met. She was the one disappointed when we wanted to go to bed at 1:30am instead of playing cards with her but we were exhausted. The next morning we got up early and drove with Mim to Katie & Joe’s other grandparents house in Pittsburgh. After having some lunch, the majority of us took a long nap. Katie and I were exhausted after not getting much sleep when a snorer who will not be named set up his bed right next to ours. Normally we sleep in separate rooms for that very reason but didn’t have a choice the previous night. After getting some rest we had a delicious meal with the grandparents and headed to the show at The Lava Lounge.

It was a neat little bar with the interior modeled after a volcano. Here’s Aaron changing his strings in the lava pit!

The show was well attended and we had some returning Pittsburgh friends. Our good friend Robby from Baltimore who is originally from Pittsburgh made the drive up and brought a crew along. He was also nice enough to take lots of pictures for me.

Slingshot Dakota played with us again (yay two day tour!) as well as our friends Bridgley Moore who set up the show. It was a lovely night of co-ed keyboard based bands.

We got up super early on Friday morning and headed to Baltimore. They dropped me off around noon so I got to catch up with my parents who had the day off before I crashed into another nap. Our show that night at Fletcher’s was fabulous. It was wonderful seeing all of our friends and family as well as a handful of surprise people that we don’t often see at shows.

I am just now getting a chance to write this blog because I haven’t had a break since getting home. Saturday was Katie’s wedding shower at my house which was lovely. We had a show at the Federal Hill Festival on Sunday morning which was also pretty fun. Needless to say, I’m not doing ANYTHING today except settling in and relaxing.

That brings my documentation for this tour to a close. Just a reminder - you can see all of Katie’s and my pictures here. You can also read Aaron’s account of the tour here.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for much more mundane posts about knitting and other random things until something exciting happens.

Our show in Minneapolis was at The Hexagon Bar.

It was a pretty good show, but had a kind of weird vibe. There was a decent crowd but nobody showed any particular interest while we played. Regardless, we ended up selling some stuff and had a few friends there to see us. We played with our friends Now Now Every Children who shared the bill with us last time were were in Minneapolis. They are really young but incredibly mature and awesome. Think of a really mellow Eisley if you’ve heard them… lady lead singer with very low key pop songs.

We also played with The Mood Swings and The Has Beens, both of which were very nice and let us take $100 for gas out of the bar money. Anyway, we stayed with my good friend Jen that I’ve known since fourth grade. She and her boyfriend were awesome and made us veggie burgers the next day - we planned on grilling, but didn’t have enough time to buy a grill, assemble it, and heat up the coals in time. The frying pan did an excellent job.

That night we played at The Annex in Madison. We played for a bunch of people, but didn’t sell too much in terms of merch. I think most people were holding out for Enon who were the headliners for the night. We had a handful of returning friends and fans so that was nice.

We got to hang out with our friend Alex along with his other friends. He’s a resident at a hospital and we constantly ask him a barrage of questions about what he does - his simple answer is that it’s just like Scrubs, but that leads to questions like: “Do you have constant inner dialogue and thought bubbles pop up over your head?” Poor Alex has to put up with our nonsense. He also happens to be the guy who made our super sweet tour poster, so he’s pretty much awesome. We stayed at his house and watched some Arrested Development before hitting the hay. We’re about a quarter of the way through season 2 now… it’s getting so good, I love it.

We got to sleep late on Monday morning and head to Chicago a little bit early to avoid traffic. We met up with our good friend Matt who is one of Wyatt’s best friends. We had dinner and went to the free zoo but unfortunately it was closed. Hopefully next time we can go earlier and get a zoo visit in.

Matt, his girlfriend Ellen, and their friend met up with us later at Quencher’s where we were playing. It’s an awesome bar with tons of beers from all over the world and they treat bands really well. When we sound checked we were having some amp problems which isn’t a surprise after playing around 26 shows almost in a row. My speaker cable got bent up against a wall at a previous show and finally died, but fortunately I was able to borrow one from the sound guy. Something is also up with Aaron’s amp, which we thought was also a speaker cable issue, but still have yet to figure it out for sure. It cut out a few times during the set but he was able to fiddle with some things and jump back in.

Unfortunately the local band canceled so there wasn’t a huge crowd but about 15 people watched us, most of which who were there for the open mic night afterwards. Along with Matt and friends, Dee from Baltimore came and her awesome mom sent her along with new earplugs for us (she works at Etymotic Research). The most dedicated fan award goes to our new friend Luiz and his girlfriend Anna. They are from Brazil and he’s been listening to us since our first EP… back in the days of mp3.com. They happened to be traveling in Chicago the week we came to town. We were embarrassed that the night was so was sub-par in attendance/excitement but tried to put on our best show for them. Our friend Phil from Sybris also came and hung out with us for the remainder of the evening. Late at night a guy comes to the bar and walks around with hot homemade tamales that are $5 for 6 of them. Phil, being the awesome person he is, bought us two dozen cheese tamales and we chowed down - they were amazing.

That night we drove about an hour northwest to our friend Mike’s house. He’s in a band called Dorm Life who we met a few years back at a show in NC and have been keeping in touch with ever since. Anyway, Mike’s parents are some of the nicest people in the world. He works the graveyard shift and wasn’t even home, but his parents let us show up in the middle of the night anyway. They said they do it because they hope other people would do the same for his son while he’s touring. They not only put us up for two nights in a row, but also made us several incredible meals and let us do some laundry.

After getting a solid 10 hours of sleep, Katie and I took a walk around the neighborhood then went to the music store with Aaron and Sam (also from Dorm Life) to get new speaker cables. We came home and vegged around the house a little more before going to our show in Wonder Lake, IL. It was a nice short 30 minute drive to the EWL House. This place is dirty and smokey as any good punk rock show house should be and probably produced one of the most energetic sets on our tour. The other two bands Stop Yeah Go and our friends Dorm Life were awesome.

There was a slight hold up when cops came because of a noise complaint right before our set but eventually they left and we were able to play. I think it added to the excitement of the night because we only had a short time to set up and play (which ended up being way longer I think) because if the cops came back somebody was rumored to get arrested. About 50 people packed into the small basement and a dance party ensued. I think Katie’s fabricated exclamations to the crowd that they better dance because we almost got arrested helped. It was so much fun - it makes such a difference to play for people who actually have a good time and express that they enjoy the music. In addition to the fabulous dance party, everyone threw donations our way and bought a ton of merch.

We stayed with Mike’s parents for the second night, then left early this morning for our show in Cleveland. It’s our last semi-long drive (around 7 hours) and we’re only two days from home!

On Thursday morning we had one last breakfast with the Yeargins and left for our show at Vino’s in Little Rock, AR. The venue was really cool and treated the bands well. We got a free large pizza, salads, some beer and $100. The first band brought a ton of people but the majority of them left right afterwards - they were mostly kids and parents and had to go because it was a school/work night. Too bad though because I think the kids would have liked us. The band after us was a screamo-ish band and their fans weren’t all that interested in us except for a few. We did end up selling a couple of things and the promoter said she would have us back with bands more stylistically similar next time. All in all not bad.

We found a place to stay with the last band but they were planning on partying and we were in for a long drive the next day. We decided that getting one hotel wouldn’t hurt since we’ve made a good amount of money so far on the tour. We stayed at a decent little hotel for and booked a room for two adults with two double beds. We usually have two of us check in then sneak all four of us in the room to save some money. This time proved to be much more difficult than usual because there were cameras all around the building and a security guard. Never fear - we are covert masters and knew their “security” would surely be no match for us!

Aaron and I hid in the van while Katie and Joe brought all of our stuff in only to find that the guard was watching our room from his car. It was probably pretty obvious when they brought a ton of stuff inside if they hadn’t already seen all of us in the van. The security guard drove around the building and soon as I saw his lights I screamed “Get down!” and we both dropped to the floor - are you jealous of our stealth skills? At one point 007-Joe brought the ice bucket to the van with the room key hiding under it.\

After about a half hour of this nonsense we just gave up because the security guard still hadn’t moved and we didn’t want Joe’s Travelocity account to get overcharged - it said four people in a room was like $175 on the door and we could’ve gotten another room for less than that. Joe called down to the desk and found that it was only $10 more for each person added to the room so Aaron and I joined them fair and square. Our secret mission failed, but it was still pretty hilarious.

The next morning we got our sub-par but free continental breakfast, checked out, and headed to Kansas City, MO. It was about a 7 hour drive, but I slept a good chunk of the way so it wasn’t bad. We met up with our friend Brandon from The Architects at his house before the show. He made us the best dinner ever - I swear he is a gourmet chef. We really appreciate all meals even if it’s simple “promoter pasta,” but his super fancy meals from scratch can’t be beat. He denies the fanciness but he doesn’t give himself enough credit. The salad consisted of watercress, chopped fennel, green grapes, and a orange/wasabi vinaigrette. He made a “poor man’s coq au vin” which consisted of chicken breast fried in bacon fat then simmered in red wine with potatoes and onions. Even our vegetarians ate it because it was that good. He also made sauteed mushrooms to top a super fancy macaroni and cheese made from a bechamel sauce, spices, and two kinds of cheeses. It was incredible!

We followed up dinner with a fabulous show at The Riot Room. We played with three other great local bands: Little Lost & Innocents, Lights & Siren, and The Kinetiks. We were worried about our spot (we were 3rd of 4) since we haven’t been lucky with crowds staying/liking us a lot but we were pleasantly surprised when we had a nice sized crowd and everybody seemed really into it. We sold some merch and met a lot of cool new friends. There was a guy who came to see us that had played with us back in 2003 at our first KCMO show! Several drinks later we went back to Brandon’s and stayed up until 5 in the morning talking crap about bands and sharing fun stories. Good times all around.

We had breakfast this morning with Brandon and his wife Jen, then headed to our next show in Minneapolis, MN. We’re about an hour and half away and I’m keeping Joe company in the front seat while he drives. He is a driving machine lately - he drove all of yesterday and today (about 14 hours all together). It’s my turn next so I’m not complaining. Normally we rotate every 5 or so hours and have assigned seats (girls in front/boys in back or vice versa… yes we’re little kids…), but I’m letting Aaron get some sleep since he’s been in the passenger seat for so long. We are good at sharing… sometimes.

After a lovely afternoon filled with snacks, naps, and Mexican food for dinner we stopped at Guitar Center before our show. Katie and I stayed in the van, but the boys shared their experience with us. After trying to convince the guy at the register that Joe was not the Joe O from Salt Lake City (they have a database that keeps track of what you buy) they were praised for their purchase by the guy at the door. “Every real musician needs a Monster Cable.” (Monster Cables are overpriced instrument cables that are supposed to last forever). The highlight, however, was that the door guy’s greeting/goodbye was “Rock and roll!” Naturally, a discussion arose over whether or not it’s required to be a moron to work there, or if it’s just a product of the environment once the person is hired. Although I think it’s a little of both, my theory is that the employees are so caught up in the constant noodling on the overpriced instruments that they aren’t physically unable to tell you anything useful. I’ve known a few intelligent GC employees, but more often than not you’ll leave with a good anecdote of the lameness encountered.

The show was at The Cavern in Dallas ,TX. Our new friend Tania from The Ramonalisas was really nice to set up the show for us.

It was a pretty cool place, but the majority crowd was kind of weird. We started playing to a full room and then suddenly everybody disappeared except for the people at the tables and bar. After finishing our second song I think a whole two people clapped out of the 15 or so in the room. It was so weird because they didn’t even clap for the the band after us who most of the people were clearly there to see. So I guess it wasn’t that they didn’t enjoy the music, they just didn’t care to express their appreciation? It was a prime example of lame-o hipsters that are too cool to clap. Fortunately, one of Wyatt’s friends came to see us as well a nice lady that we met at our first Dallas show on this tour. Although we only got paid $10, it still wasn’t the lowest profiting show because we sold some CDs.

We are sad to announce that our we got two nicks in our windshield from stupid trucks. One of them happened in New Mexico on the way to Oklahoma.

We have also massacred a significant portion of the bug population in several cities as suggested by the disgusting front of our van.

After another delicious breakfast made by Aaron’s aunt, we had to ship off to The Atomic Cantina in Albuquerque, NM. Grandma also sent us along with some of her famous banana bread, yum! It was actually pretty decent for a Monday night and especially with having no other bands. There was a little bit of a built in crowd that spilled over when Monday night trivia ended at the place next door. There were also some Ministry (yes, the industrial metal band) fans that came in during our set which made for an interesting mix. I challenged a 250 pound man to a fight when he tried to say that we weren’t from Baltimore because we didn’t have Natty Boh with us. Fortunately, said fight never came about. Katie’s old roommates who have since moved to Albuquerque came to the show with fantastic green chile burritos for our dinner. I love green chile. <3

We requested a place to crash on the mic and ended up staying at our new friend Hadley's house. We've actually only had to find a place to stay twice on this tour because we've known so many people in each city whether it be family or friends. It's really nice not to have to worry about where we're going to sleep, but we have been very lucky to meet generous people along the way when we're in unknown territory. We've been touring since fall '03 and we've only had to get a hotel two or three times in all of that time. Hotels would be nice, but if we want to make any money it's not an option.

The drive to Altus, OK was on the longer side (7 hours) but totally worth it in the end. Not very exciting scenery. A lot of it looked like this:

If we were lucky, we saw this:

We got hooked up with this random town on our last tour. The Rentals were playing music that they liked on a radio show and Ben Pringle played some tracks from our full length because he is so awesome. The promoter Stephen heard us on the show and saw that we were looking for dates in the area. He offered to book us a show and anytime people offer to take some of the load off we’re more that happy to accept. We had no idea how it would be the first time we came, but we have since vowed to plan our tour stops around Altus whenever possible.

Even on a Tuesday night our show was amazing! I knew we were in good shape when I saw a kid walk by wearing our t-shirt. Stephen brought us dinner from Pick Up Taco (they have the best green cilantro/avocado/delicious sauce ever), we sold almost $200 in merch, and got paid all of the door money. They rent the hall for free and the other bands didn’t take any money so we got paid $226! At $3 a head that’s about 75 kids. Incredible. So all said in done this one show in a tiny little town not only paid for itself, but also made up for the three shows we didn’t get paid. We stayed with Stephen and left early-ish so we could hang out more at the Yeargin estate before our show in Dallas.

Note to self: I need to remember to take some more pictures of band related things instead of just cacti. =P

Although we didn’t have high hopes for our show last night, it turned out to be really great. We played at a coffee shop called Fireside Espresso in Payson, AZ for the first time. Some of Aaron’s family lives here but we don’t know any bands or anything so we were the only act for the evening. We were thinking about playing a piano/vocals only set since we were all tired and didn’t think many people would show up. I’m glad we ended up playing a full set because all of the family came and brought a bunch of friends. All of his younger cousins are really into playing music too so I think everybody had a good time and enjoyed the music. We sold a bunch of merch, got a ton of donations, and even got paid $50 for gas from the shop - we didn’t expect to get anything since it was no cover and we’ve had bad luck on tour so far with that kind of thing.

The best thing is that we were done the show by 8pm and had the evening to hang out with the family. Aaron played an intense game of Scrabble with his cousin’s and Grandma - they are total professionals with the Scrabble dictionary and all. Joe joined in an even more intense game of ping pong with some of the other family members. Katie and I spent the evening knitting and chatting with the ladies - no competition for us.

After getting some much needed sleep we had a big fabulous breakfast at Aaron’s aunt & uncle’s house where Katie and I stayed. The boys slept over at Grandma’s right next door. It’s been a really relaxing day… playing music with the cousins, playing ping pong, having knitting lessons, and doing laundry. I even went on a walk and got some much needed exercise. It was intense though because I’m out of shape from sitting in the van all the time and that mountain air is thin! Katie stayed home and slept because she’s not feeling well - hopefully the day off will be enough time to shake it off.

I imagine much of the evening will be the same and am looking forward to all of this down time. Do we really have to go play a show tomorrow?

We’re currently in the van and I’m lounging in the very back after taking a nice nap. We have a fairly long drive to Payson, AZ (probably 8 hours) so I’m taking advantage of the down time to get some writing in. This week has been really busy so I haven’t had a chance since Tuesday. This update is five days worth of tour so sorry in advance for the super long post.

We had a blast in Tucson. After Katie and I had dinner with her aunt, uncle, and cousin, we got in the hot tub for a while and went to bed fairly early. The next day the same aunt (Joan) took Katie, Joe, and I out for the day while Aaron went to his favorite spots around town and got the van an oil change. Our first stop was Las Palomas Resort, which their uncle is associated with. It’s a gorgeous hotel with a golf course, spa, and huge pool area complete with a water slide, hot tubs, and various sized pools for kids and adults. We spent the afternoon swimming and Joan was so nice to treat us to a poolside lunch (plus dinner the night before!).

Our next adventure was taking a guided tour of the Sabino Canyon. A tram drove us around to two spots in the canyon where we had a chance to explore for a few minutes. It was so beautiful and amazing. As soon as we boarded the tram Katie and I freaked out because we saw a pair of quail right nearby. Then right as we started the tour a rattlesnake crossed the road ahead of us! Unfortunately that picture is stuck on Joe’s camera until we find a compatible cable for him. We also saw a few lizards, including a horny toad and a poisonous gila monster. Apparently gila monsters are very rare to see - even the tour guide took her camera out!

After a very lovely afternoon, Aaron’s aunt & uncle treated us to a yummy dinner at a place called Yoshimatsu. Once we were way too full, we headed to the show at Sports on Congress. Aaron was really excited to see all of his old friends and had a good time. One of our old friends that moved from Baltimore also came with a bunch of people too so it was a really fun show.

The next day we played in San Diego, CA at The Epicentre. If you’re a touring band I strongly suggest not playing there. The show wasn’t a total bust but only because we had some really awesome friends who showed up and made the night worthwhile. The promoter put us on 1st out of 5 bands even though he said he would put us in the middle. Since he wasn’t there, the guy running the show would not change it. When you play in an unknown town, it’s ideal to be sandwiched in between local bands so that you have a chance of people actually seeing you. I busted my ass to find some of the bands for this show and make it happen, so you think they would have the courtesy to let us play where we requested. All in all I don’t think it really mattered that we played first, but it was just an irritating start to a long night.

One of the bands after us had a lyric that we could not resist documenting: “I’m not too bright… but I just might… kick your ass.” Amazing. Two other bands that were really nice to help me make the show happen were The Fascination, and Love Campaign. They were both really nice to us so hopefully we’ll get a chance to play with them again in the future at a more band friendly place.

After the show was over we found out that we weren’t getting paid anything. This is venue #2 of the tour that has stiffed us.

*** RANT WARNING***

It infuriates me how some venues get away with running things the way they do. In the case of The Epicentre they require you to pre-sell tickets and only give you a whopping $1 per head off of $8 tickets. In addition to pre-selling they “tally” at the door asking who is there to see who. We had 9 friends pay to specifically see us, which isn’t a lot but pretty good considering we’ve never played in that town before and only really knew a few people. Their oh-so-accurate tally sheet said we drew 2 people. Even though there were 70 people in and out the entire night (roughly $560 in door money) they were only able to pay two bands who pre-sold tickets maybe $35 each. The rest of us got stiffed because the guy running it said they had to “eat it big time” since there weren’t more people in attendance. If the overhead for one night is over $500 for an all ages venue there is something seriously wrong.

There are so many things that are wrong with the way venues like that do business. It is a fact of life that a venue is going to have some really amazing nights and some not so great nights. Sometimes you might lose some money but it all balances out and there is no excuse not to be able to pay bands anything at all because it doesn’t balance out so easily for them. Bands are providing an entertainment service for venues regardless of if they bring a ton of people or not - it’s not the other way around. Tallying is something else that drives me up the wall. If a venue decides to tally to get a general idea of who is bringing who and then pays the bands a little more or less depending on their draw, I’m totally fine with that. However, in most cases these venues pay per the head you bring and will completely screw over anyone who doesn’t draw well. This is unbelievably unfair to touring bands, especially if they haven’t played in the area. I’m over slimy venues and promoters.

*** End Rant ***

Like I said, the night wasn’t totally a bust… The people who did come to see us were super awesome. Specifically there were two people that missed us but came anyway at the end to say hi and bought a ton of merch. It really made our night. Sometimes shows might not be great, but even if there is one person excited to see us or if we get one new fan it makes it worth it.

We were happy to finally get out of there and go crash Aaron’s friend’s house. She was super awesome and treated us to an amazing breakfast the next morning. We also bonded over our shared craft nerdiness. She crochets using plastic grocery bags that she cuts into strips for yarn. Using the plastic and other recycled materials she makes these awesome eco-friendly bags.

Our next stop was a nice short 2 hour drive to Long Beach, CA. Aaron grew up in Long Beach so his friend Brad made us a killer dinner. While Brad was cooking, his wife Carrie took us to see the beach which was only a few blocks away. We were totally excited to walk in the Pacific Ocean but unfortunately that’s all the California beach time we got in.

The show was at a small but awesome bar called The Prospector. It was packed, we had an open bar tab, and they paid us extremely well. We were super excited to see our friend Kyle who moved away from the Baltimore area a few years back. It was a great show and a relief after the rocky night before. Afterwards we drove to our friend Ben Pringle’s house in LA since it was only 40 minutes. Poor Katie had to listen to the alcohol influenced ramblings of the rest of us for the length of the drive because our radio had stopped working on the way to Long Beach. It turned out that our GPS plug came apart and blew the fuse when we plugged it in unknowingly. I’m so happy it was just a fuse because no radio is just not an option if we want to stay sane.

We got to Ben’s, crashed almost immediately, and slept until about noon. It was fantastic because we were exhausted from the past two days. Unfortunately Friday was one of the busiest days we had so far so that sleeping in was the only real downtime we had. At 2:00 we recorded a radio session for STAR 98.7. Adam’s friend Josh is a DJ there and hooks us up with some sweet radio promo. We recorded three of our new songs stripped down with vocals and piano in this totally smooth studio. There was a ridiculous pile of pillows in the middle of the rooms for studio audiences. The engineer was telling us how they had just had The Donnas, The Go-Gos, Evanescence… totally smooth. If you live in LA and can get the station, Josh’s show “The Adventure Club” airs on Sunday nights and he’s able to play some pretty cool music unlike most of the top stations. I think our session will be aired in about a month.

After the radio thing we went to In and Out Burger as per Aaron’s request and I got an “animal style” burger since I’ve heard so much about it. I don’t eat a lot of meat and haven’t had a cheeseburger in almost a year but it was pretty amazing. Even Aaron, who is a strict vegetarian, made an exception and loved every bite. A couple hours later we drove over to Sunset Strip where we were playing and parked our van in a crazy Hollywood hills neighborhood. That reminds me - I never saw the Hollywood sign! Oh well. Anyway, Katie and Joe’s friend Laurie picked us up and took us out to dinner with her husband and baby. She picked us up in her super smooth Bentley - I kid you not. It was at this point where I felt I was getting the true LA/Hollywood experience. They treated us to dinner at a nice french restaurant and it was delicious. We have been incredibly fortunate this tour to have had so many people make and buy dinner for us - we don’t ever expect it so we’re very thankful for it.

After dinner we had to go to the venue called On the Rox and load our stuff up a crazy steep flight of stairs. After loading in Aaron and I had to park the van which is always a feat in a busy city. We got a space, came back and set up our stuff, did a sound check, and doors opened right after that. I was so jittery and wound up from the business and also worried that we wouldn’t draw 30 people. The agreement with the promoter was that if we drew 30 people they would split the door with us - otherwise we wouldn’t get paid. We took the gamble since we didn’t have any better offers and wouldn’t have a show at all. If we could do it anywhere, we could do it there, but it a bunch of people couldn’t make it and the count ended up being 17. Regardless, it was a great show - the crowd was all really awesome friends that we haven’t seen in a long time as well as their friends. It was really nice of Ryan, the guitar player from Ozma, to come see us after playing together a while back in DC. Ben is also in The Rentals, so having two people that are in bands we’re big fans of geeking out over our keyboards was a pretty awesome sight.

After the show we parked our van back at Ben’s house so we wouldn’t have to deal with paying for parking on the strip. Then my friend Dani from college was super nice to pick us up and drive us around to all the cool Hollywood stops. After taking touristy pictures and seeing all the wackos we headed back to her house, played some Wii, and went back to Ben’s to crash when he got home from his gig. Him and his roommate Chuck were very nice to let us stay for two nights.

We had to get up pretty early this morning since we have an early load tonight and now we’re officially headed back east with a little under two weeks of tour left.

After being spoiled and relaxing for a few days in TX, we had to actually get back to playing shows (at least for a few days). We had a keyboard and pedal malfunction in Baton Rouge so Katie and I got to work on fixing our stuff.

We played at The Prophet Bar in Dallas on Saturday night with our good friends Cruiserweight. It was a good show - it was only our second time playing in Dallas so we were happy to get some new fans. We’ll be coming back later on tour so hopefully some of them will come to that show too.

Cruiserweight was amazing as usual and were very nice to let me and Katie pick some of our favorite songs off of their upcoming album for their set. I absolutely adore their new songs and can’t wait until they release it so I can force everyone I know to hear how fabulous they are.

After one last amazing breakfast at Barbara & Richard’s, we hit the road for a long 10 hour drive to El Paso, TX. Thankfully it wasn’t my turn to drive so I got to knit most of the day, watch For Your Consideration, and play Yoshi’s Island to entertain myself. Although the drive was long we saw a lot of really cool things on the way. I got tons of pictures of oilies and windies (windmills).

Other than that there wasn’t much else - just miles and miles of wide open space with the occasional ranch entrance (like on “Hey Dude!” - do you remember that show?). I’ve come to realize that just about all of my knowledge of the west and desert spans from movies, games, and cartoons. I’m expecting to see lots of sand dunes and the sun get really angry and start spinning around like in Super Mario 3. I have yet to see such things, however we did see a tumbleweed! A real tumbling tumbleweed! Just like you see on those intense western standoffs. *whistles*

Joe also got some amazing pictures of the sunset for me since he had the prime seat.

Anyway, the show in El Paso was pretty good considering it was a Sunday night and we’ve never played in the city before. The Crowd, The Town, and Everyone were wonderful and set up the show for us at a place called Zeppelin’s Underground. We were really surprised to find that a nice lady named Chris came specifically to see us and brought two of her friends. It turns out she saw us around 3 years ago at The Ottobar and has since moved to El Paso. We had no idea how the show would be and assumed we wouldn’t know anyone, so it was a pleasant surprise. She was also nice enough to immediately tell us we could crash at her place, which was a relief after the long day we had. Time zones are crazy! We ended up going to bed at 3:30 mountain time - that’s 5:30 eastern, so my concept of time is all wacky right now.

After getting some much needed rest, we headed to Aaron’s hometown of Tucson, AZ. I spent the day knitting and finished my first entrelac scarf. Entrelac is a cool technique that gives the illusion that the piece is woven. It’s currently drying out pinned to the ceiling of our van for on-the-go blocking purposes (blocking makes it look nicer - like ironing).

This trip was also full of some exciting sites. The mountains in New Mexico and Arizona are crazy. I’m so used to seeing green rolling hills - these are jagged, straight up road to Mordor type mountains.

There was also a really beautiful canyon called the Texas Canyon (in Arizona) with giant stacks of boulders.

I was fascinated by the mini dust storms and dust devils that popped up all throughout the desert as well. The closer we got to Tucson, the more varieties of cacti we saw. Katie and I freaked out when we saw our first saguaro cactus. They are the ones with the arms (sadly they don’t dance or have faces) but they are as big as trees! I had no idea.

So that brings us to now - I am currently laying on a hammock at Aaron’s aunt & uncle’s amazing house in Tucson, AZ. We have the day off and will be playing in town tomorrow night. It’s about 70 degrees and breezy - I think I’m in heaven. They even have a hot tub that she’s warming up for us to use later. The boys got some burritos and are going to get tattooed, while Katie and I stuff ourselves full of Mexican food with her aunt & uncle (apparently everyone’s family lives here!). Aaron’s Aunt Julie’s gardens of full of amazing cacti so once my camera batteries recharge I’m going to have a photographic heyday.

Wednesday’s show was our first mediocre one of the tour. It wasn’t horrible, but there weren’t many people there… maybe 10 or so. Even still, we played with a cool band called The Western Civilization, got paid a little bit for gas, and we had a comfortable place to stay. We’ve had much, much worse shows in the past.

We spent a good portion of yesterday driving to Grapevine, TX. Although the drive was long, it was really pretty a lot of the way. Everything is turning my favorite shades of green and there are wildflowers everywhere. There is this awesome stretch of I-10 going West from Baton Rouge that is miles of bridges. On one side of the bridge as far as you can see are trees growing sporadically out of a huge body of water, which I’m pretty sure is a swamp. It looks unreal but unfortunately I was driving so I couldn’t snap a picture. We also saw oil derricks later on, or “oilies” as we so affectionately call them. I’m fascinated by a few things that we never see in Maryland: armadillos (although sadly, they are usually dead on the side of the road), oilies, windmills, and cacti.

We are staying with Adam’s (Katie’s fiance) parents in their beautiful house. Barbara and Richard are incredibly nice and visiting is always like a mini-vacation. Our shows tonight and tomorrow were both canceled by the promoters. It’s a bummer to have shows fall through, especially on a weekend, but the longer we get to visit here the better!

Today the boys spent the day doing laundry and relaxing while Barbara, Katie, and I went shopping. We had some amazing Mexican food for dinner, watched some more Arrested Development and spent a little time in the hot tub, It’s been really rough.

That brings my blog up to date. I’m currently camped out watching Fellowship of the Ring being friends with Mudgy the cat! Are you jealous?

Hello from Mobile, AL. I’m currently in our friend’s /promoter’s really awesome loft. He has this beautiful greyhound dog named Jasmine that was rescued and although she’s super skittish, I am determined to make friends with her before we leave today.

We stayed at Chris’ house again and since Mobile is only 3 hours away from Pensacola, we had a lot of time to hang out during the day. Katie, Chris, and I went to the beach! It wasn’t exactly bask in the sun/play in the water weather, but it was still lovely. We walked around, they had daiquiris (I left my wallet/ID at the house), and we even saw dolphins in the water!

Check out this wacky UFO shaped house near the beach!

After watching some more Arrested Development (Joe and Aaron haven’t seen it and are tired of our constant references, so we’re all making our way through the 3 seasons) we said our goodbyes and hit the road to Mobile. Katie and I finished the knitting book on tape in perfect time to arrive at the venue.

We played at a place called Picklefish which is a restaurant that has some amazing food. There is another location in downtown Mobile, right nearby the venue we used t play. This is where we first had fried pickles, and oh boy are they good! Anyway, this new-to-us Picklefish is right on a college campus and they just started doing shows. They fed us even though the kitchen was about to close and gave us an employee discount.

All of the sudden a bunch of people started showing up, including the nice bands we played with. We sold a bunch of stuff the second I started putting merch on the table and had a great show thanks to our dedicated fans in Mobile. Our friend G.J. and his sister, who were nice enough to take pictures with my camera during our set, has been following us for 5 years now. How cool is that?!

We just went to check on our van to find that we had two $50 parking tickets for being parked in an unmarked spot. One for the van, one for the trailer. =(