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On our way home. We played our last show last night in Upland California at a club called "the wire". it is an all-ages music venue and art gallery space. The owners are amazingly nice people and completely inspiring to me. They put everything they have into this club in the hopes that it would take off. The last time I played there, they just started out and were a bit nervous about whether or not it would work. Last night, a sunday, it was packed with enthusiastic kids out to see live music. I am so happy and inspired to see two wonderful people's dream coming to fruition, not to mention, thrilled to have a venue that I look forward to visiting the next time we are on the road.

We will be making the long drive back today. Faith and I are both really excited to get back to Seattle for a little R&R before our benefit show at Zeitgeist on the 24th. that night will be a fun celebration!

The south. We are officially out of the south now. Since my last post, we have been to NC (where we had the most amazing meal and scenic drive) TN, AR, TX and OK. We had a show in Dallas and OK city, which brought us to that part of the country.

Texas = American, apparently, at least according to all the American flags posted on all the SUVs and Hummers. But on land, away from all the cars, Texas is like another country. It wins the prize for the state with the most state pride, where the state flag is displayed much more prominently than the national flag. It is also the land of the cheapest gas, which would explain all the SUVs and Hummers. I can't get too political on this point though, after all I am driving a complete circle around the country. No hypocrisy here.

I had never been to Dallas before and was pleasantly surprised with the areas we got to see. Most of the time when we travel to a new city, we don't make it to the downtown district, we generally hit the outskirts. In Dallas we played in an upcoming area in which half the street is trendy, the other half is struggling to keep up, or is fighting to keep the hipsters out. Not sure which, exactly. We played our show at a place called the Cavern for Faith's HS friend BB, who was kind enough to let us crash at his place. He lives in a really cute part of Dallas. We later learned that Dallas has the highest number of Billionaire residents. The next day as we were driving to find the highway, we were detoured through a neighborhood where at least all the millionaires lived.

Speaking of Texas, did you know that in the panhandle of the state resides the biggest cross in the northern hemisphere? We felt a lot safer traveling in these parts with the American flag we acquired in DC displayed in our van.



The next evening we played in Oklahoma City at the conservatory. We found the people of OKC to be super-helpful and friendly. We had a nice man give us his card and told us he grew up in OKC and if there was anything we needed when we were in town to please give him a call. Now that is southern hospitality.

I am sitting in Albuquerque NM right now, where we spent the night. I am looking forward to having more food with green chili and seeing the adobe houses before heading out.

We are on our way to San Diego where we will see the pacific ocean again...and of course lots of yummy mexican food! We are really proud of Guisepe for all his hard work.

Taxation without representation. We had two days to indulge in DC. This was exciting for me because I hadn't seen the sights since I was in 8th grade and took a field trip with my class to the Capitol. My memories from that trip are blurred at best, so it was great to have a guided tour from my friend Max, who has lived there for a few years.

When we got to town, Max took us to an amazing Mexican restaurant, where it all started to go downhill. I had one margarita too many, and the next day I woke up sounding like Barry White. I didn't know my voice could hit those low notes. Not very becoming for a female, and especially not too attractive for my music. It didn't stop us from wandering around DC to look at the sights, in pretty nippy weather.

That evening, we played at the Red and the Black, which is a pretty cool club. The room is small but has a really nice vibe to it. It was a saturday night show, so the room was pretty full...the most attended show we have had on this tour....and then, mid-set, I lost my voice. I went from sounding like Barry white to Peter Brady going through "the change". It was very frustrating and unfortunate, but a fun night and visit to DC nonetheless.

We cancelled our show in Greensboro and Ashville NC in the hopes that I get my pipes back. Our next show is in Dallas tomorrow night.

I am sitting in a hotel just outside of baltimore waiting for faith go get ready. we have the day off today and are heading to Washington DC. We are going to try to tour the white house. It is a long shot since you need to have reservations a month in advance, but we are hoping there are some cancellations.

Did I mention in previous posts how amazingly fun it is to be touring with another woman? Yesterday in NYC we found a beauty products store and got a bunch of samples. We gave ourselves mini-facials last night and OH MY GOD! We look amazing! Serious girl time on the road. I think I may actually look better upon our return to seattle. this will be a first! We need to be looking our very best for the nations capitol! Now our stink is another story. We need to do laundry in a serious way.

We are back in NYC again. I love this town. The energy in the crowd is unmatchable to any of our other shows. This was what I was looking forward to most, and it definitely lived up to my expectations. We played last night at Cake Shop, which is a really cool venue, where they actually sell cake. Faith was very excited about this. She has been talking about eating cake for about a week. I haven't asked if the cake lived up to the hype, but I am pretty sure it did.

Michael made it out for this show, it is so amazing to see him again! We have only been gone two weeks, but seeing him again only makes me realize how much I miss him when I am on the road. A few of his friends from high school came to the show, as well as some of his family, which made the night especially fun. At the end of the evening, we saw a pretty intoxicated man get onto his scooter to drive home, and full on pass out and face plant it into the street. It was pretty scary for a few minutes...seeing him all contorted on the street, not knowing if he had broken his neck or not. He finally came too, as faith was clapping in his face to wake him up, and me rubbing his hands to see if he had movement in his limbs and about 10 other people around him on cell phones trying to get help. I was impressed with how quickly people came to his aid. As the paramedics arrived we decided to get something to eat, since our van was pretty much gridlocked behind the action. We walked a block away, where the whole street was blocked off to film a movie. Michael was looking for Jack Nicholson, convinced that it was a movie with him as the star...we didn't see any actors, just a bunch of best boys and key grips running around looking stressed out. This city isn't lacking for action, and we saw our fair share last night.

Outside of being able to play music to the masses, one of the most beautiful things about being on the road is the chance to visit friends and family. Now that we are on the eastern half of the country, every night we have had the opportunity to stay with the people we love. We started in Pittsburgh, where I had the chance to see one of my favorite people in the world, my friend Nate. We stayed at his new home, with wife Laura and daughter Ava. It was a beautiful sunny day, a perfect way to see the city. Unfortunately, the show wasn't a pleasurable experience, but the trip was worthwhile, just to see Nate and his family. We had been warned by our friends in Tartufi, that Garfield Artworks was an "interesting" place and that we should reconsider playing there. We decided to go for it in light of their warnings. I won't go into detail about the evening, it is a little too depressing, but I will sum it up by what the owner said to me as we were loading our gear into the gallery..."pittsburgh doesn't have any sort of a music scene. It is hard to get people to come out here..." or something along those lines. We should have just packed up our stuff and taken off at that point. Good times.

After Pittsburgh, we drove to New Jersey, where we stayed with Faith's step-mom, Sharon. It was nice to have the evening off where we could relax and watch TV, an episode of "most haunted", pure genius! If you haven't seen it yet, I would highly recommend it. I don't know if it is supposed to be a comedy, but it was one of the funniest things I have seen on TV in a long time. The next morning we got up and did a little yoga and took off for New Haven, Connecticut, for our show Saturday Night. It was great to finally play to a crowd again. We had a great response, but the night was special to me because my sister and brother-in-law and their sons came to see us play.

Tonight we are at my brother-in-law, Russel's apartment with his dog, Frog in NYC. We decided to cancel our show tonight after watching the first act of the evening. There wasn't anyone in the club other than the other bands and staff, and honestly, I wasn't in the mood for busting our arses loading and unloading gear to play to another empty room. We took the night off to experience NYC. We spent the night walking around the East Village to window shop and find a bite to eat. It was a wonderful evening! Now that we are back in Russ's apartment, we notice Russ lighting matches every five minutes to clear the air. Apparently, Frog ate too many treats while he was away this weekend. The evening will be filled with lighting matches every five minutes to clear the air of Frog's flatulence.