Sometimes I feel like I'm a 90 year old woman, other times I feel like 9 year old, carefree and craving constant attention. It's life. It's patience. It's practice. It's practicing patience. It's sharing thoughts and experiences and memories and ideas and hugs and kisses and sarcasm and toasts and successes and misfortunes. It's exercising your body and your rights. It's keeping in touch with people you love though letters and phone calls and this day in age, emails and online social networks and above all, keeping it all in perspective. It's doing what you love and making every day count, because, well, what else is there? The sun showed its rays in Lincoln, NE. I felt it on my face and all the way to my bones. What a warm relief from spending the night in sub-zero temps, in Lawrence, KS. The weather wasn’t cold in Lawrence, but sadly, the artificial air in our kind hosts’ apartment made it feel like we were camping in the Himalayas. (With running water and electricity and fried chicken and soda pop).
The days are beginning to run together, which is not necessarily negative, by any means. And the northern leaves are changing into beautiful lovely patterns of paint by number pictures. The show in Kansas City was quaint and I reunited with my first Peace Corps friend since being on the road. It had been about 2 years since we last saw each other, which will be the case for most of the folks, and it was awesome to see her and catch up, even for just an evening. I know that’s something we’re all excited about-reconnecting with our friends that are sprinkled all around the country, like glitter that lands in your hair and only sparkles when you turn in a certain direction. After KC, we drove to Lincoln, NE and spent tour funds on a place to sleep for the first time since we left home. I wonder when the idea of staying in hotels became less preferable than crashing on a complete stranger’s couch, for me, or for anyone, but if you play your karmic cards right, you’ll meet some of the most amazing folks in the foreign town through which you’re passing. And many times, by the time you depart, you can’t wait to come back and visit your new friends and the newly familiar places.
We stayed two nights in Lincoln, where the boys played a house show, with more friendly folks. After Lincoln, we drove about 400 miles to Fargo, ND, which was just about the right amount of time to perfect our northern accents and joke about asking everyone where we could meet Steve Buscemi and Frances McDormand. We had a night off, after driving all day and Joey treated us to the movie, Contagion. All I can say about the movie, as someone who doesn’t follow new releases or box office sales, was that I’m guessing it didn’t go viral.
We stayed with the most gracious CouchSurfing hosts, on this tour, in Fargo. If it didn’t snow like 8 feet 8 months out of the year, it would be an awesome town in which to live. The girls we stayed with volunteered at a women’s bike collective and I got to ride a bicycle to the show!! Everyone in the town was so nice and the girls were incredibly generous, sharing their food, their sleeping space, and even coming to see the guys play. I personally enjoyed this set list the most, so far. The town also encourages not driving your car on Tuesdays, I saw picketing in action, did yoga under tall trees in the park, went on a run along a wooded bike path, spent time on the novel and now have freshly clean clothes. Cody was even able to fulfill his dream to watch Fargo, in Fargo. Endless thanks to our new family in Fargo. Come to OK, ladies, okay?!
The art is selling pretty well, too and helping us get by, tank by tank, along with the gracious tips from gracious folks we encounter at coffee shops, bakeries, house shows, music venues. We are so thankful to all of our friends, family and artists who contributed goods and beautiful works to help is get from one town to the next. The decorated light switch covers are a hit, as is the vegan soap that Cody's friend donated to us. Check out her website for those holiday gifts coming up:
We’re back on the road, on our way to Minnesota. I’ve heard nothing but wonderful rumors about Duluth and Minneapolis, and the folks putting on the show in Cologne couldn’t be more ecstatic about Luna Moth and Blue Valley Farmer gracing the town with their melodic magic.
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