Big Wind on the Highways

We were in Rapid City, SD for 5 days.  That's a long time to stay someplace without a conference to attend, or a relative to visit with.  The last day we stayed there I was finally recovered from the cold I'd been carrying around with me and, with Kristi, visited the local shopping mall.  It was just across the street from where we were staying so it wasn't a long journey to get there.  Kristi had already been there.  There's an old saying that I think I acquired from my maternal grandfather, Ben Hart.  "I didn't just ride into town on a load of hay."  or "I think he just rolled into town on a load of hay."  Please excuse me farmers.  We visited a store called "Happy Days".  I looked around a bit and very soon had to think that one had to be some kind of sucker to actually buy something there.

This is only one example.  They had full life mannequins of the "Rat Pack", and I only wish I could remember all of the things we saw there.  There WAS some entertainment value, short lived though it may have been.  The place was full of novelties.

On the other hand we stayed in that shop for about 20 minutes thinking how dumb someone had to be to buy this stuff, at the same time thinking about how an Elvis gas pump would look in the living room.  It was a nice respite off of the hay truck.

 We played at The Firehouse Wine Cellars on Friday night.  We played straight through two hours of music and had the opportunity to play a lot of songs off of our new CD, "Windows".  I had to have a souvenir so I bought a beer mug.  They have The Firehouse Brewery just a couple of doors down from the wine cellars.

In Rawlings, WY I bought a 4 pack of Boddington bitter to go with the mug.  The mug is quite satisfactory for drinking beer.  I guess you could put water in it too.

We hung around the winery for awhile after we played.  They gave us a taste of the wines that they make and I gotta say I was sorely tempted to spring for a bottle of the stuff, but was already well stocked for alcoholic beverages and there's only so much room for stuff in the car etc.

The night before we were watchng the news and they were doing a special story on the South Dakota drought.  Now there's something I hadn't thought about, heard about, knew nada about.  There were a couple of farmers being interviewed and they were talking about how without more water they wouldn't have enough grass to feed their cattle.  It was a sad story of expectations dashed, and dreams cancelled.  One of them was explaining how he couldn't afford another winter paying for out-of-state grass to feed his cattle, and that under the circumstances he was going to have to cut the size of his herd.  It really seemed like a classic example of bad things happening to good people.

Of course as I write this I realize that there are other perspectives.  I've been reading, listening to friends, etc about the inefficiency of using meat as a food source for humans.  Cattle add methane to the atmosphere, and you could grow another crop where the cattle are, and at the very least you could feed a lot of the food that goes to cattle to humans.  There's the shallow version.  On the other hand if you grew up on a farm growing cattle for the beef market, and it's all you know it is still a sad day when you are forced out of business by mother nature.

The next day we were on our way to Rawlings, WY and we decided to take a side trip to Devil's Tower.  We have been blowing through the prairies like a tumbleweed in a hurricane, seeing nothing that you can't see out of a windshield of a vehicle traveling between 65 and 85 mph.

It was about a 50 mile round trip.  Well, kinda round trip as we started in Sundance, WY and ended in Moorcroft, WY.   It was a more exciting experience than I expected it to be.  Perhaps part of it is just the idea that we were going to see something just to go see it.  I had heard about it for years so it was a thrill to see it poking out of the Wyoming landscape from a distance.

I stopped at a few of the viewing opportunities on our way and took pictures as it got bigger, and bigger, and bigger.

There weren't very many people living out that way, although I've seen a lot less populated parts of Wyoming by this time.  Kristi and I started to think of the little place along Kluane Lake where we used to stop from time to time on our way to Whitehorse, or Dawson City.  Finally we arrived at the door to the park.  I don't know what I was expecting.  I guess I was expecting I'd be able to just drive up a road and be at the foot of the thing so when the guard asked us if we had a senior pass it was a wakeup.  I had totally forgotten that I had bought the thing, and I don't even remember where I purchased it.  It was one of those deals that you get it now or you don't get it at all so I got it not knowing for sure if I'd ever need it.  It was $20 for under 62 and $10 if you were over 62.  So I'm looking through my wallet, and I don't really see the thing when the gate guard, who was a woman not much younger than me, said, "There it is!".  She was watching the contents of my wallet as I pulled them out.  What a surprise!  That was just when I was thinking I had lost the thing, or had hallucinated the very existence of it.

Once we got inside the park it wasn't too long a drive to the Visitor's Center and we immediately began behaving like proper tourists  We took each other's picture with the tower in back of us.

We went in the Visitor's Center and bought postcards.  We talked to the guy behind the counter who was from Moorcroft and after a life in retail sales thought that this was a pretty good career.  It pleases me to hear that folks are enjoying their lives and the people that they work for are treating them well, so it was a pleasant conversation.  Also when we drove out through Moorcroft I could say I knew someone from there.

These are the last two pictures I took of Devil's Tower.  By the time we got to Rawlings I had all but forgotten about our late morning excursion.

After Devil's Tower we got back on I-90, but pretty soon we were turning off onto a smaller road.  Very soon I saw two eagles on the side of the road dining on coyote carcass.  It was one of those things where you see "something" on the side of the road.  You're unsure just what it is you are viewing because it is not really light enough and maybe there was too much light behind them.  Besides you are driving on a two lane, ice covered road with the snow blowing across it so you're not really paying attention to what's going on elsewhere.  Nonetheless I was able to exclaim to Kristi that she should look and saw the four to six foot wingspan of an eagle taking off as we whizzed by.  We both were kind of in shock and discussed for awhile just what it was we had been seeing.  Then a little farther down the road there was another eagle casually dining on a carcass on the side of the road.  By then I was in a "get where we need to go" mode of travel, but thought about going back for a picture.

The rest of the day was driving, driving, driving stopping only for gasoline and restrooms.  We drove past acres and acres of oil fields and fracking stations.  We speculated on how much the farmers were making off of growing crops or beef, and how much they were making off of oil and gas.  We saw an antelope herd making friends with a herd of cattle.  I wondered if they realized that they were communicating with "food".  I posted this on Facebook and a Facebook friend pointed out that many people see the antelope as "food" as well.  "Give me a home, where the buffalo roam and the deer and the antelope play.  Where seldom is heard a discouraging word, and the skies are not cloudy all day."
This got stuck in my head and played over and over and over as we drove through the wild prairies of Wyoming.

It blew all day.  When we got to Rawlings it was still blowing.  The snow was drifting and the motel parking lots were all filled with snow.

Kristi was driving by the time we arrived and we got stuck in the motel parking lot of the first place we tried to check into.  Whoever was supposed to be at the desk was apparently taking a nap and we were tired, cold and impatient.  Even the place where we eventually stayed had snow drifts that we had to break through to get into the parking lot, and then the snow was drifted up to the door of our room so we were tracking in snow.  Pretty normal stuff huh?  OK.

The next day was more relaxed.  You could be tiring of hearing about snow, blowing winds, and tracts of rocks, and grassy plains full of snow by now.  It could seem boring to you.  Believe me, you don't want to get bored when driving through this stuff.  You want to be at your coffee best, watching carefully, keeping your hands on the wheel and the wheels on the road.  Honestly.  We had heard that it was warmer in the vicinity of the Great Salt Lake so after Rawlings, WY that was what we set our course for.  I'm not sure I've seen as many trucks on the highway anywhere as we saw between Rock Springs, Wyoming, and Layton, UT.  There were really a lot, and we've seen a lot of trucks so that means a LOT of trucks.  Once again there were times when you couldn't see the surface of the road for the snow blowing over it.  It even started snowing once.

Like I say it was a relatively relaxed day.  We decided to stop in Rock Springs, Wyoming to see if it was really the shithole that we remember it as.  I was optimistic that we were somehow mistaken about our impression of the town.  There was a sign pointing to the "historic" downtown area.

Let me just say that Jesse Kimmerling would probably recognize this town.  It is a petroleum products kind of a place surrounded by mining operations, fracking stations, oil wells etc.  There are also processing plants.  The original housing that Kristi and I remember seeing in the hills surrounding Rock Springs in the summer of 1982 was mostly doublewide trailers.  Now there are prefabricated homes, and I think probably some pretty nice houses.  There is gold in them thar hills.  I'm pretty sure of that.  I think that is the point.  Rock Springs is aptly named.  If there hadn't been snow on the hills all we would have seen would have been mud and rocks.  Hardly anything grows around there.  The historic downtown looks very haphazard.  Here.  I'll put some illustrations in.

Lingeries, Bachellorette Party Supplies, Novelties, Piercing and Tattooing,
Exotic Shoes and Boots

This is the "nice" part of town.  It is the "historic" part of town.  I would play there, but I don't think I want to live there.  My intuition is that if anybody really wanted to live there the town would look a lot nicer than it does.  It's really a big place actually, and this is just a tiny part of it.  The population was over 23,000 in 2016.

Welcome to Utah

It was really  nice to drive into  the  vicinity of Salt Lake City.  We are staying in Layton, just a few miles out of the city.  It is very urban here.  There are spectacular views of mountains all around us here, and the Great Salt Lake is just a few miles away.  We moved into a motel room and immediately set out to see the Great Salt Lake.  We went to Antelope Island State Park.  It is a really nice park immediately adjacent to Layton.  It was after 4 in the afternoon by the time we got there.  The park closes at 6, and the visitor's center closes at 5.  It was Sunday afternoon.

We've had some time to get around town a little bit now.  SLC, Layton, and environs are pretty much another stop along the way.  The same businesses service anything you want to do, and the TV says the same thing it says in other places.  I don't hear much radio around here, but that's OK.  I think I'll have a look at Democracy Now at democracynow.org when I log off of here.  I won't say anything about the possibilities of national theocracy, or when religion holds excessive power in a region (and there a lot of them in this country that have these characteristics). 

At any rate, this is a beautiful locale where there are no people present.  Nothing against people, but I'm more a fan of the natural world than I am of humanity.  Please don't take that personally.  I love people too.  This communication stuff can get downright difficult at times.

Don't let the wind blow you into the snow off the road.  We'll see you soon.  Steve N.

Valentines to Rapid City

We arrived in Kansas City, Missouri the day before Valentine's Day.  The next morning . . . well
what a nice way to get our first morning in Kansas City underway.  A handmade valentine with a couple of Tootsie Pops were on the kitchen table when we got upstairs from our basement lair.  I have to say right here that I have had a bad cold for awhile now that severely impacted the entire stay in Kansas City.  I had laryngitis for a couple of days.  I was running on cold medication.

We were volunteers for the conference.  For that we were able to attend the conference without fees.  On the other hand we were busy being volunteers when other people were out listening to whatever music they wanted to hear.  We renewed old contacts, and made new contacts, which was good.  We were out of the house fairly early every morning, and we were back at the house late at night.  We were running the entire time.  That is the nature of the Folk Alliance International Conference.

Our friend Elmo

Our host and hostess in KC were Don and Laura who graciously gave us a space in their house for the duration.  We can't thank them enough.  It was warm, or should I say "relatively" warm in KC while we were there.  The trip across Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and South Dakota was pretty much in the teens and lower in temperature.  We had been spoiled by earlier trips where the weather was mild in February and right up into March and our arrival home.  Right now I've seen weather reports of snow in the PNW, and it is below zero here in Rapid City at night.

It has been awhile since we have had the time to write at all.  We have been driving, driving, driving, or doing the conference.  I think it also has impacted me a great deal to be ill (more than usual).  I guess the last time I posted was on Face book, not a blog, and it was about the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD.  That was the last tourist fun that we had, and it was brief.  It was cold in Mitchell.  The night before we had gone out for just a little while and like Gillette, went running back to our motel room as fast as our little feet would carry us to escape from that deep freeze cold.

The Corn Palace (front on top, side on bottom)

The Corn Palace is, I suppose, just another tourist trap.  It is, however, more interesting to me in that it actually incorporates it's own unique art form into the tourist trap.  Also, it is an art form that has been ongoing in Mitchell since 1892.  Every year the collage art pieces on the building are redone.  There is a local farmer who grows the special colors of corn needed for the collages, and for quite awhile I think it has been the same artist who draws the initial images and supervises their conversion into corn collages and places the murals on the building (both inside and out).   The Corn Palace is a basketball court inside, and there are murals over the basketball court.  The sheer effort involved is admirable.

Original Corn Palace Art

I was amazed to see that they even make political statements sometimes in the art.  The pictures actually cover a wide range of subjects.  Truthfully, I didn't look closely enough at all of them to absorb what they have done through all of the years.

The drive to KC was uplifting as the snow  disappeared,  and at gas stops I didn't feel the need to wear gloves and have myself all buttoned up against the bitter cold as I had been.  When we walked outside our host's house to leave the warmth hit us in the face even though there were dark clouds on the horizon and thunderstorms were forecast.  I almost could believe that we were free of the cold for the rest of our journey, but truthfully, I knew better.

It is cold enough here in Rapid City to take the fun out of any journey outside as the cold hits you hard the moment you step out the door.  It is sunny, however, but that only reinforces the staying power of the icy cold.

Cold Outside

The cold here is so intense that it stretches from here to next November.  It becomes a creature and you are sure that it is stalking you, not out of a desire to feed on you but simply to watch you dry up cold and shrink down into a tiny ball of forgotten flesh.  It is sadistic, or would be if it were indeed a creature.  It is not, and this is only a figment of my imagination.  No doubt though that I feel nice and warm now and intend to continue in this state for awhile.  You can see from looking at the outside doors to the motel rooms that most guests use the inner doors to the motel most often.  Then you look at our door (the closest one) and you see that our reality shifts to a different dimension.

From Mitchell, SD - A short inspiration.  I am one of these people whether I like it or not.  Nonetheless I put this short rhyme in the second person.

You killed all the buffalo
You killed the natives
You killed the native grasses too
Don't be surprised
When old mother nature
Decides to kill killers like you

I guess by now George Custer isn't the icon he once was.  I certainly hope not, but there are plenty of references to him and the Battle of the Little Bighorn in museums, plaques, and roadside signs directing you to the scene of the battle.  Did I mention that when I looked for NPR on the radio that there you can find three to five Christian broadcasters in the vicinity of the radio dial that I usually look for NPR?  Well, no I didn't, but that's the facts folks.  Maybe it's the cold, or memories of the flood of 1972?

On the drive from KC to South Sioux City, NE we had a bit of freezing rain.  We were fortunate in that it was a piddling little rain, more of a mist than a rain.  I understand that sometimes in these parts the rain falls an inch at a time and is more like a waterfall from the sky than rain.  This was a very fine rain.  The kind that sells at auction for millions if you get it just in the right context.  It was only annoying but we had a bad windshield wiper blade.  Just like the rain it wasn't enough to seriously derail our plans, just annoying.  If you didn't run the wiper blades the rain became a collage of ice on the windshield.  You could have Rorschached the thing if you'd been creative enough.  I could have found out about my recurring dream with someone with whom I am acquainted but don't recognize by name in the dream.  I could have found out a lot of things.  I still could.  Maybe.

Here we are in Rapid City, SD.  We've been here a number of times.  It is somewhat irrelevant where we have been because if you really were to look at the situation closely you would realize that in actuality we have been at a Safeway Store in Rapid City, and another grocery store whose name I cannot remember.  We have been in one Air B&B, and one Howard Johnson's, and now we are having the experience of the Econo Lodge in Rapid City, SD.  We went to The Journey Museum today.  A lot of it is for kids, but not too bad.  A lot better than the Spokane museum we went to.

We will play at a couple of institutional places tomorrow.  On Friday we play the Firehouse Wine Cellar.  On Saturday we will be footloose, and fancy free for a few days.  There is bad weather coming according to the weather channel.  I think we can avoid the floods.  I don't think we are going to get around the snow.  We'll try to keep you posted.  Steve N.

PS - One nice thing about today is it is the first day that I've actually been able to act like I'm ill.  I had a nice long nap and now all I have to worry about is being able to sleep tonight.  The Firehouse has these billboards up all along the highway, each one with a vintage fire truck.

In the Journey Museum in Rapid City Steve tickles the chin of a dinosaur.

(from Kristi)

Here we are on our twenty-first day of our tour and we’ve made the turn back in the gradual direction towards home.  We left Kansas City this morning with a farewell token of shared folk music love from our wonderful host Don.  He gave us a copy of a curated collection of 85 songs from the famed folk music magazine, Broadside.  These classics from the past 80 years or more should give us plenty of entertainment in our travels and make the miles of driving fly by.

What a difference a day makes.  We walked from Don’s house to his driveway and were met by a blast of warm air.  Then a couple of hours later a freezing mist kept adhering to our windshield as we drove north and the temperature dropped forty-five degrees.

We settled restfully into the South Sioux City Iowa “Best Family Values Inn”.   I’m tried not to over-think that name.  Hey, it was cheap, quiet, clean and comfortable and I got my dirty clothes laundered. 

But I am trying to think through our experiences at Folk Alliance International.  At this level of the game many of the acts are sent by their management to be seen by what are called “anchor” venues bookers; that is to say bigger theatres pay thousands for acts they expect to be attended by hundreds of fans.  As well there were some house concert hosts who likewise book acts with nationally known names who expect big guarantees.  But in looking at the bios of attending artists, most were unsigned and unknown.  Again this year we were in the company of old friends Jim Page and Rick Ruskin of Seattle.

We found for our own purposes several panels with information and contacts that were helpful.  I went to three.   The first was called “De-colonizing Folk”.  For anyone wondering about the term “colonizing”, it may have been a little puzzling.  The definition was not explained in the panel.  I can explain from my understanding that it refers to any group that for economic reasons takes over another culture and attempts to eradicate or overpower it with an end gains that last for many years.  In this sense it also refers to the long-term damaging economic effects over generations on the oppressed culture.  And it doesn’t necessarily refer to race.  For example, Mexico was re-colonized by Americans after it was colonized by Spaniards.

It’s far from a secret that folk music performances, venues, conferences, and festivals in America have been sorely lacking in attendance and involvement by minorities.  As a result this year Folk Alliance International did an improved job of attempting to remedy the situation by offering three panels addressing this issue.  It also offered the coveted positions of showcases to a greater number of Latino as well as African American acts.  In the panel I attended, the host, Karmina Daoudi, mentioned that this subject is being discussed and addressed increasingly at conferences and meetings she attends while representing the Old Town School of Folk Music.   She remarked that it is multi-leveled and complex.  Her parting words indicated that those who are involved at all levels in folk music need to share the power commonly called “colonial” by thinking creatively about how to put efforts into long-term relationships with minority groups and individuals.  The subject of music appropriation was discussed by the panel.  Guy Davis, a black folk musician, illustrated with a great story from his dad, how he believes it’s fine for white people to play blues music but they should never forget the hardships and pain from which it came.  Julian Zugazagoitia, CEO and Chair of the Nelson Atkins Museum, explained from the perspective of visual art, the legal definition of appropriation as related to their current Picasso exhibition which directly utilizes African art.  He says that the art must be transformative as well as be attributed to its original source from which it is appropriated.  Pablo Sanhueza, a Latino musician, posited the opinion that colonization occurs when cultural representation lacks the necessary depth of immersion, such as when Latin-based groups are led by Euro-centric American bandleaders.   From my perspective, having booked a Tacoma ethnic festival a few years ago, it can be nearly impossible to find ethnic groups led by an individual from the country of origin of the music performed by the band.  So this conversation can lead to no end of argument and controversy.

   

Other panels included this year presented a commendable level of improvement over last year in addressing gender and ethnic issues of empowerment, engagement, oppression, and discrimination.  For example there was a ”Community Gathering Addressing Harrassment and Discrimination” with trained advocates to provide emotional support to people who have suffered gender problems in the music business.    Another panel, called “Diversifying the Approach”, delved into how to reach more diverse audiences with folk music.  And yet another, “Showing Up for Social Justice Training”, was hosted by a local chapter of a group of the same name that offered specific points of training to win a racial justice movement.

Steve and I found the hour devoted to “Meet the Folk DJs” most helpful.  This year it was improved in that each DJ had a table with a folded card identifying him or her.  This meant they were very much easier to access.  Next year hopefully a time limit will be imposed on each act so they won’t be monopolized by bands wanting all their exclusive attention.  The hour ran out before I was able to speak to a number of them due to this problem.  I should have come better prepared with a list of DJ’s who have played our music in the past as my memory is faulty.

Yet another panel we attended was “Exploring Performing Arts Centers”.  The panel included a varied set of administrators of college, large, and small local theatre venues.  One artist and one management booker also sat on the panel, as a means of showing how they were able to get into the roster of booked acts in these coveted stages.  They explained how these decisions are made at their respective and varied levels.  It would appear that even in the cases of publicly supported theatres and venues, attendance is key to decisions so if an act doesn’t have a predetermined draw, administrators can’t justify statistics to sponsors in a year-end summary.  But in some cases, lesser-known acts are hired, depending on policies of outreach as well as how well an act is presented and the size of the theatre.  For example, if an unknown artist can offer an educational school program to go along with the stage act, he may get the job.  Or he may get it because he joins efforts with a better-known artist in his act.  And if he can be inventive in making a personal contact with an administrator, his chances improve dramatically.  One of the panelists said something that stuck with me: “Everyone now knows that the music business is about the curation of personal experience”.  I found that phrase somehow encouraging in that it engages a creative approach to the business of music.  The presenters gave us artists a couple of useful tips for booking ourselves.  One point is that an artist needs to show up repeatedly at booking conferences in order to make and reinforce meaningful contacts with the bookers, which may result in a booking years after the first connection.  Another is that emails are frequently overlooked on Mondays and Fridays.  And in that vein, “pleasant persistence” is a key to getting attention, so don’t be put off by not getting a reply to an initial email.

We were thrilled to see Flaco Jimenez as one of the two biggest featured acts in the folk festival in the grand finale on the main stage of the festival.  His inclusion is an important aspect of the revival and maintenance of Tex-Mex Conjunto, a style of music Steve and I particularly love.  It is by definition as important as any form of North American music in that it evolved regionally, which according to Charles Seeger and John Lomax, puts it squarely into authenticity as true folk music.  I guess that means that sooner or later our very own local grunge music will be categorized as folk as it originated in the Pacific Northwest.  Flaco and his accompanying band Max Baca and Los Texmaniacs, played a couple of Tex-Mex Conjunto classic songs he learned from his father who was a premiere artist and pioneer recorder of this music in the 1930’s.  He also played some of the more contemporary tunes made popular in the recordings of Dwight Yoakum “and Ry Cooder.  He sounded as fired-up and impassioned as ever on his accordion.  He makes me want to play that kind of music every chance I can get.  Steve and I both swooned over his heart-wrenching masterpiece, “Across the Borderline”.

Getting closer to the Black Hills of South Dakota it gets a bit hilly.

We’ve made it to Rapid City, South Dakota now and spring doesn’t appear anywhere around the corner though I guess the days are longer now than when we left home twenty days ago.  Steve drove two hundred miles and then turned the wheel over to me.  I got into the driver’s seat at a rest stop in a snowstorm and drove the remaining three hours through intermittent patches of packed snow and ice though the pavement was mercifully mostly dry and bare. The Missouri River was frozen solid with a blanket of snow over it.  I think I heard a forecast of 17 degrees below zero Fahrenheit for tonight.  It’s currently  minus 11 degrees.  I haven’t experienced this kind of cold since we were in Dawson City, Yukon Territory in 1986, playing music in a lounge for the Yukon Quest Dogsled Race. 

No Ordinary Pile of Rocks: Gillette, Wyoming 2/11

Goodbye Bozeman

(from Kristi)

Our final performance in Bozeman last night confirmed my notion of our mission on this trip.  It isn’t so much about our farthest destination, Folk Alliance International Conference in Kansas City, MO, as much as it is about the experience of touring with our music.  Wild Joe’s Coffee Spot is a very carefully overseen performance venue which somehow has succeeded in that oh-so-difficult task of gaining respectful attention for the musicians in a commercial entity, effectively creating a concert atmosphere.  At least that’s how it worked out for us.  Perhaps my publicity efforts brought in folks who were interested in us.  Or maybe we succeeded on the merits of our music alone.  In any case the gratification was sublime.  Thanks to Matt, the sound man and emcee, for his very effective and skilled contributions to the cause.  And needless to say, thanks to Steve for his exemplary songwriting.

The wild blue yonder

My arrogant ignorance about new places no longer holds any kind of water now that internet research is always just a click away.  I have a tendency to show up in a place that is alien to me and assume that whatever phenomenon that seems strange to me is perfectly normal in this new place.  For example, in the summer of 2009 when we were about to board a plane to leave Tokyo, there was a small earthquake, a flood, and a typhoon in the same 24 hours.  It all seemed fairly normal to me, not being used to the routine of natural elements there.  As we flew into the typhoon it seemed fairly normal for Japan Air to treat us to as many free cocktails as we wanted.  The always-polite Japanese seemed to be apologizing for the extremely bumpy ride.  

Liquor store drive-in window service in Gillette, Wyoming

So here we are in Gillette Wyoming and it seems fairly normal to me that we're getting a little exercise after a day of sitting in a car, by stomping around in 6" of freshly-fallen snow with more coming down, and the temperature is 8 degrees Fahrenheit  and dropping like a rock.  We're wandering around parking lots and it would appear also normal that cars come to a halt for us, giving us about twenty yards of right-away.  That happened three times in a matter of minutes though there was hardly any traffic.  Either people are extremely sweet toward their fellow community members who are making their way around on foot, or there has been a recent rash of ice-related pedestrian deaths in this neighborhood.  In any case it's quite nice. The people of Gillette, Wyoming appear to be extremely considerate of pedestrians.  Maybe we're such a rarity they're shocked into paralysis.

 Okayokayokay I'll do it, this is easy; Google says the average high temperature in February here is 38 and the low is 16; furthermore it only rains or snows three days during an ordinary February.  So this is not ordinary.  The new clodhoppers work like a charm in this snow and cold, and likewise the new silk long-johns.

Tomorrow given that we’re not in an all-fired race to get to Kansas City, we may stop for a visit to the Rockpile Museum.  All indications point to the possibility that there’s more in it than meets the eye with that inauspicious name.

  

 

Norris Hot Springs

The Dome @ Norris Hot Springs

We played at Norris Hot Springs last night.  I'm not sure what the exact temperature was  outside, certainly not more than 10 degrees, which is cold enough in my opinion.  The structure pictured above was our stage, or more appropriate "staging area".  Well . . . I guess it's a stage.  Kristi is in this picture, so you get the picture.  We couldn't really see our audience, and truthfully, they couldn't see much of us either.

Our Audience @ Norris Hot Springs

The adventure began when Kristi reeled in this hot booking.  It was the second time we had played here.  It was warmer the last time we played here, but not a lot.  Norris Hot Springs is 37 miles out of Bozeman Montana.  Apparently there is some kind of community there, but not much evidence of it from the hot springs.  They have a small restaurant, and serve beer to their patrons as well.  The last time we played here was with Gen Obata, and now that I think about it he actually booked it, although I can't imagine him playing it with us last night.

We had been watching the weather reports, and the night before we played here I looked out the window of our motel room in the middle of the night and it was snowing to beat the band.  One thing I have learned about snow and ice driving is that the first drive of the year is the most challenging as you have a psychological disadvantage.  It would seem that I always remember the worst of snow and ice for the first time every year, but pretty quickly once I drive a ways and there are no serious repercussions I regain my confidence .  That was the topmost consideration in my thoughts as we discussed what a night at Norris Hot Springs was going to be like.

We had a favorite hot springs in British Columbia that we would stop at every time we went through.  It has been a lot of years since we've visited Liard Hot Springs.  Liard Hot Springs is much farther from any semblance of civilization than Norris is.  In those days we carried our swim suits just for that stop, and we almost always met someone interesting there.  It is much smaller than Norris Hot Springs, and just a natural pond at that.  The first time we stopped at Liard Hot Springs was in the middle of winter.  It was even colder than last night and there was nobody around.  It was so cold that your feet would freeze to the boards that surrounded the springs when you got out.  Liard has some big trees (or did) that hovered over the springs and the condensation on the trees made them like those fake xmas trees.  That was a long time ago though, and I see that now they actually have a fee you have to pay to get into the hot springs.

It was an hour drive to Norris from Bozeman.  We mostly just followed other cars, and drove at a moderate speed.  It was kind of strange to me to see a 70 mph speed limit on a two lane highway in the snow and ice, and much of it directly on the road.  All things considered, the driving was ok.  There was plenty of traction and we had no problems, as we had hoped.  There aren't even very many ranches out towards Norris.  It is scenic and a lot of the drive is along the Madison River.

We arrived about 6:20 and started playing at 7 pm.  A young fellow by the name of Dylan set us up and he had complete control over our sound as the speakers were outside and we were inside with just monitor speakers to hear ourselves.  They were okay monitors and we could hear just fine.  It is a different experience for certain to play in a structure wherein you can only vaguely see your audience, although we were able to hear their response to us.  If it was as much as 60 degrees in that dome, I'd be surprised.  Both of us were dressed for cold weather, and we played completely dressed in coat and hat.  I had my Afghan sheep herders hat under my western hat.  I guess I wasn't so concerned about image.

Steve and Kristi dressed to play Norris Hot Springs

The drive back to Bozeman was unremarkable except that it started to snow a bit.  The snow was not so bad though, did not impede our progress whatsoever.  Tonight we'll be playing in Bozeman proper.  They have a lovely downtown here in Bozeman.  It is really geared for entertainment, with lots of antique stores, and coffee shops.  A couple of nights ago we stopped at a tea house.  That was a nice experience.  I won't be so intimidated by a tea menu after visiting there.

Kristi Boom Boom

Kristi here.  Please take note in the above photo of my levitating hair.  This extreme cold creates dryness that does electric things to my hair which I find quite curious.  I look in the mirror and I appear pretty excited with my hair spontaneously standing on end.

Last night at Norris Hot Springs was the first test of my newly acquired winter undergarments which did their intended jobs very well.  I'm a big fan of silk; it's so lightweight and yet warm.  I couldn't help but ponder all those young faces in the hot pool below.  Each of them made a conscious decision to drive those 37 miles in falling snow on icy winding roads to experience this kind of fun.  Maybe that determination was to our advantage; they were seemingly all quite cheery in their appreciation of our music as we passed them in leaving.  Of course the beer probably helped their dispositions.  But I haven't heard of any mishaps on that road so presumably they have ample experience and expertise in driving such roads after that kind of fun.  It makes me wonder about the Montanan sense of rough-and-tumble heartiness in general.  This particular gig is exotic enough to keep me pondering and talking about it for a long while, I predict.  There is something exhilarating about just getting home safely to a warm comfortable spot.

Kristi has started this "Kristi Here" thing, so guess who this is?  Thank you Dylan for your help last night and thanks to all of the folks who frolicked in the hot springs while we played.

Leaving Missoula

We are in Bozeman now.  This is our third trek through these cities of the west.  We left Spokane on Sunday, Feb. 4th after playing an assisted living facility, and an independent living retirement home.  By the time we got out of Spokane I was already a bit weary from playing, and I think most of all being loose in the city without anything to do in between the bookings.  You go to a museum, a parking lot where there is wifi access, and think of things you could buy that if you weren't loose in the city with nothing to do you wouldn't consider.  It is a disgusting habit.  Probably not as bad as smoking cigarettes, or consuming great quantities of alcohol, or sugar, but really, just consuming to fill up the land fills and keep the big box stores in business.  That said, we didn't really buy much, and we've been using some of what we  bought.  We really did need sandwich bags, and although we have never needed gallon zip lock bags before, have found them to be handy.

We left Spokane somewhere between 7:45 and 8pm.  We played pretty late at that last place.  They were all coming from Superbowl parties and there weren't many ready for more entertainment after that.  It was dark, and as we drove through the night to Missoula it rained like hell.  I was amazed to see the speed limit get up to 80mph, and felt obligated to drive even faster than that through the curvy mountain roads with the rain obscuring my vision.  As some point Kristi spoke out of the darkness as the rain pounded our windshield, and our tires floated on the wet road.  "This is dangerous."  My reply was that driving at night is always dangerous.  I could have further said that driving on highways always has some measure of danger, especially when the road is crowded with other vehicles with unpredictable drivers.  At least the road was mostly empty except for our Ford Escape.

There is something of an endorphin rush when you arrive at your destination after such a drive.  Also the weariness kicks in and you realize that you've been running on adrenalin.  It's so nice that our bodies have these built-in drugs to help us survive and then make us appreciate the fact of our survival with another little push.  I have thought that the adrenaline/endorphin thing is what is really pushing me to be a performer.  It is subtle, but pleasant when the endorphins really get going and you can express the nice feeling that you have by singing to someone, if not about it, certainly feeling like you are singing about it when you do.

Thursday

Do you have a favorite movie, or maybe not even favorite, just familiar that keeps popping up in your consciousness as you make your way through your life?  I think the most prevalent one for me is "The Wizard of Oz".  I often wish I could tap the heels of my red shoes together with the mantra, "There's no place like home" and magically speed away to our own familiar haunts.  For that matter there's the Star Trek transporter beam.  Another scene from Oz is the scene where the curtain is pulled away and there's a little man back of the curtain using technology to be something he's not.  Sometimes when I'm tired or not feeling like myself, but I'm doing my best to pretend, I feel like that man.

I'm telling you, I was pretty tired by the time we got to our room in Missoula.  We played a retirement home there on Monday, and another one on Tuesday.  We had played the one on Tuesday twice before, once with Gen as Cosmo's Dream.  Some of the folks there remembered us.  They were very nice.  Kristi says everyone has invited us to come back another time.  I suppose I should take all this for granted.  I don't.

Yesterday, our last day in Missoula, I decided to get some printing done.  It was just printing from a copy machine.  We have had enough experience with these things by now that we don't take it for granted that we're going to find printing at a reasonable price or from someone who knows what the hell they are doing.

We had stopped by Staples in Spokane and the person who waited on us was immediately a little obnoxious.  When you give these places a thumb drive with a file they usually immediately insert it in a computer near where you are situated and bring up the file so you can discuss just what you want done.  She put it in a computer across the room from us so I couldn't see for sure that she had the right file or not.  Then she gave us a price that was twice what we had gotten in Tacoma.  I gave up.  It was too much, and I think the idea of being temporarily homeless was starting to affect how I was feeling. We just moved on from that store without getting anything done there except harshing our buzz.

We ended up going to the Staples in Missoula.  You know?  I just thought that it wasn't likely that two stores could possibly have these kinds of problems.  The copy department at this Staples had a lady who was nice enough but she was having network problems with her computer and then it turned out that the color printer wasn't working so she couldn't do the job anyway.  I asked for a referral and the other woman working there suggested FedEx (formerly Kinkos).

I know that by now you have to be thinking that I'm wasting an awful lot of time writing about getting a postcard printed.  Really though!  It did turn out to be an adventure.  When I got into Kinkos right away it turned into a positive experience.  The guy who waited on us had way cool software for converting an MS Publisher file to a format that they could work with.  He understood right away what I wanted to have done.  I was close to having an endorphin high!  He got my file on his computer and explained that I didn't have to pay until the job was done and I had approved it.  Ooooh yeah!  Nice.  He said they would have the job done by 8 pm if not sooner.  It was about 5 pm.  They stay open until 9..

We went for a walk downtown as we hadn't been getting enough exercise.  We walked until our parking meter was ready to be in overtime then we started to drive back to our motel.  About ten minutes into the drive we got a call.  Our copying was ready!   Oh man!  That was such a thrill.  More endorphins.  We headed back to FedEx.  Now there was a nice young lady waiting on us.  We started to proof read our card.  I hadn't noticed in the setup stage that the Kinkos software had turned a yellow font into a black font on a dark red background and made it illegible.  It also turned out that I hadn't saved all of my changes on the text part of the card on the flash drive.  As I said, the young woman was very nice, and quite helpful. She said it was alright if I took the flash drive back to the motel so I could fix my text.

We did go back to the motel and I found the work I'd done saved on the computer.  I put it on the flash drive and took it back to FedEx and the nice young lady finished the job on the spot and I am now living happily ever after.  Thank you Kinkos!

Driving in Montana is something of an adventure as well.  We drove to Bozeman today.  A lot of the drive was at a legal speed of 80 mph with 5 mph added that it is my understanding the cops give you. We slowed down going through Butte, and I think a few other places along the way.  Before we left the motel in Missoula I looked at the odometer and it was at exactly 200,000 miles.  Wow!  I'll remem ber that for awhile.

Friday

We are playing out in Bozeman a bit.  Well . . .one of the gigs is in Norris, MT about 30 miles from Bozeman at Norris Hot Springs.  The last time we played there we were a trio.  I think it will be a fun gig.  We are playing a coffeehouse on Saturday night. I hope we have a good crowd.  My publicist says we've been getting some press so who knows?   Kristi says it is going to get colder.  Maybe it will be snowing at Norris Hot Springs?  Would that be cool?  Or what! 

Ready for the cold!

Well, whaddayknow?  Kristi was absolutely right.  It has snowed.  I'm sure there is plenty of snow in Norris, Montana where we are going tonight.  Last night we went out to play and it was fairly warm when we left the motel.  We stopped downtown for a cup of tea and by the time we got to our gig it was in the teens and blowing like crazy.  It got really cold here really fast.  We always knew this could happen, and have always been lucky about the weather in the past.  All our best.  Keep your tires on the road!  Steve Nebel

This morning (Friday)

Big Cloudy Sky Country (Kristi)

Missoula

   
We are on as of this date seven of our thirty-three days into this tour, with 2,200 miles and seven of our sixteen performances behind.  We broke 200,000 miles on the odometer of our Ford Escape Hybrid this afternoon.  I’m the tour manager.  If anyone wonders why we have in past years missed important events such as family and class reunions and shared holidays, I can tell you that I begin planning these tours up to two years ahead and put countless hours into them before they even begin.  This year we have a “cloud”-y assistant recommended by the sage of tour management, Mary McFaul.  It is Google Sheets.  As she points out, the columns on this app put the tour together in such a manner as to allow a tally of expenses versus gains, making the questions of whether the tour is financial folly clear at a glance.
 

     That leads to the subject of how I make my decisions about lodging, which is kind of an obsession for me.  I’m not one to leave to the last minute my plans for the place where I lay my head at night.  Call me insecure; that’s just who I am.  On this tour my motel reservations weren’t determined strictly by price.  I’m thankful for on-line feedback as it helps me determine where to avoid noisy rooms and bad beds.  Sleep is ever-more vital to our ability to perform these days.  So far so good; we’ve had only one noisy night in a motel.

      The weather has been good too with no snow so far.  A dark, rainy, late drive from Spokane to Missoula is bound to be a little creepy over Lolo Pass in February but the worst we had to worry about were big trucks on wet, winding, steep hairpin curves.  Today’s drive was a three –hour breeze from Missoula to Bozeman.  I make very careful calculations to avoid long driving days that conclude with performances as soon as we arrive.  I recently heard Lyle Lovett talk about this problem in a story about a tour he did with Guy Clark.  Exhaustion plays nasty tricks with our concentration and memory skills.  On this epic drive to Kansas City I’ve planned the last legs of the journey with daylight drives not to exceed six hours.  We both get some sort of circadian rhythm affect at dusk that makes us dangerously sleepy behind the wheel.  And that has nothing to do with how well-rested we are at the beginning of the day.

My new costume for performing.

     Today I finally got good use from my new “costume” shoes purchased for this trip.  Much to my  good luck I see young women wearing just what I need for wading in parking lots full of slush.  Bozeman has such slush. Call them clodhoppers or shit-kickers; Steve says those terms are synonymous.  I bought them in the men’s department of a shoe store and they were labeled “Heavy-duty steel-toed work boots”.  Steve suggests we go dancing together in them as his grace and agility on the dance floor are somewhat challenged.  That is to say my toes would be safe.

     Steve’s observations about Spokane couldn’t be much different from mine.  While there is some truth to the notion that all Midwest towns look a bit the same, Spokane has deep roots for me and each trip is a personal pilgrimage revealing something new these days.  For a few decades the trips back were uneventful and unchanging until my family passed away.  Then I began reaching out to discover the city it had become in my willful ignorance as I had concentrated my attentions all those years exclusively to them.  Suddenly I’m seeing so much I can’t help comparing to Tacoma constantly.  It’s growing and with the growth I see more traffic, a larger homeless population, a much improved downtown, wonderful public art, and generally a pretty similar demographic. There are a few minor differences though.   I speculate that the two most expensive neighborhoods in each town are Spokane’s South Hill and Tacoma’s North Slope.  And I suspect that in Spokane those aforementioned neighbors are mostly Republicans whereas in Tacoma they’re Democrats.   I should add that the most recent statistics show Tacoma has more crime and twice the count of homeless people that Spokane has.  And I truly believe Tacoma's natural beauty makes Spokane pale in comparison, though Spokane's greater sunshine ratio can make everything look better.  Of course I continue to ponder whether I could or should have chosen Spokane over Tacoma as a home.  At this point it looks like I could be equally happy in either place, though I’m now firmly and happily anchored in Tacoma.