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)