We received beauty secrets from my sister-in-law, Ana, who is brazilian. She said in order to straighten your hair, it is helpful to wear pantyhose on your head while you sleep. Why limit it to the bedroom?

Brazilian Beauty Secrets.....So Sexy!

Happy Halloween! We played a show last night at Reggie's in Chicago. Reggie's is a pretty cool club, with two sides to it, so even more bands can play in one evening. It is almost like a music festival every night! It makes total sense, since we ended up playing to 4 people that actually ventured out on a tuesday evening (two being my brother and friend Ben from HS) and of course there were the other bands and staff. I mean, they do need all that space to accommodate all those people. We probably totaled 10 people watching us shred! As we were playing, there was a metal band playing next door, which created some nice ambiance between songs.

Even though this scenario would be brutal to most touring (or local) bands, it was a good night for me. I was excited that everything went off without a hitch, all things considered. I don't think I mentioned that in Kansas City, the worst possible scenario happened when we were on stage. Something with my computer started acting funny and mid-way through a song, the backing track triggers stopped working. It took about 15 minutes to re-boot and get things back online, while Faith had to entertain the audience with as much banter she could think of. We got back online, and then about 2 minutes into the next song...CRASH. WTF?!? Turns out, it wasn't my computer at all, we were plugged into a faulty power source and it was tweaking ALL MY GEAR! We plugged into a different receptacle, but the damage was done. We lost all our mojo. I was really concerned that my gear would be permanently effected. SO, last night, went perfectly well, both with our performance and the gear still works great. I think we made those 4 people very happy. Thank goodness!

So happy today is Halloween. I wish we had a show, but my friend Ben is Djing a party that will be fun to check out. Happy Halloween to all!

We spent the day off today enjoying chicago. I found my favorite chocolate in the world, whose company is HQd in Portland OR, Moonstruck Chocolate. They have a dark chocolate with chili pepper in it, that is so amazing it makes my mouth water thinking of it. We also went to the best shoe store in, possibly the whole world, City soles. They have amazing taste, it was difficult to walk out of there without spending $1,000 worth of merchandise. Good thing we have limited room in the van, and I have a limit on my credit card.

We spent the afternoon in Kansas City yesterday with my friend Kirsten Pauludan, who was kind enough to let us stay at her boyfriends beautiful home for the evening. It was great to see Kirsten again, we played together twice on my last tour and really hit it off. She showed us around the city a bit, and drove us by the art museum and took us to her amazing new practice space/recording studio. It is so nice to meet other women that have the same musical ambitions.

Late last night, we arrived in Chicago at my brothers house. It is so great to be here. I am so happy to see my brother doug and his wife ana, and especially my neice, elise! Again, another beautiful sunny day. We have the evening off, so we are going to take the L downtown and shop for shoes, among other things. So great to be touring with another lady...I mean, c'mon! SHOES!

Here are some photos of KC.

We made it to Kansas City. We were lucky enough to get a full 8 hours of sleep today and I think both of our moods show it. Amazing what a little sleep will do for you. We spent the morning eating a delicious breakfast at a local vegan restaurant after driving around following directions from our GPS (whom we have given the name Guisepe, our autistic and tempramental child). The instructions promised to deliver us to a grocery store that would have lots of wholesome food. Instead, we found a building with the windows broken out of it at the address where the grocery store should be. We moved on and decided to eat a meal out in a real live restaurant. It proved to be a good choice. I am posting photos from Tartufi, my new favorite band, from last nights show as well as shots from our day today.

If you get the chance, go see the band Tartufi. They are a kick-ass duo that makes more noise than a 10 piece metal band. 10,000 times of awesome. They are amazingly nice people too. Such a great inspiring night. Go support them, you won't be disappointed!

We spent the night in Denver last night with Faith's friend Colin, who plays in the band "byrdie" and owns the recording studio NFA. It was really cool to meet Faith's friends and see the studio, where we spent the night. Hopefully Faith will post some of the photos from the evening.

Today we drove from Denver to Omaha, where we will have our first show. We already met some of the colorful local barflies, which can be a bit of culture shock when you are gazing at pavement for ten hours...well 9, we sped a little. I am looking forward to the first show to get the kinks out.

Rainbows, sunsets and a full moon rising. that is how the tour has begun. Actually, it didn't start that way at all. It started out with the most torrential downpour you can imagine in seattle, just in time to load our gear. Once we made it over to eastern washington, what did we see? a rainbow? is this a sign of what is to come. Faith and I sure have convinced ourselves that this is so.

We saw the most incredible sunset over the mountains, reflecting amber and purple streaks across the sky that reflected in all the clouds. We were driving along with our jaws in our laps at the beauty. If that weren't enough, we saw the full moon rise over the horizon, which was incredible. One thing about being in the van all day, you get to see the beauty of this country. It is truly stunning (this portion of the leg, anyway).

We made it to Twin Falls Idaho last night where we crashed for 4 HOURS! and we are on our way to denver bright and early this morning to make it for our possible show. that's right, not a real show yet, just a possible one. Faith has friends in Denver that happen to be playing tonight and they are trying to add us to their bill. either way, it will be fun to start the tour with Faith's old posse from college.

Here's looking at another beautiful sunny day.