California

Well, it's been a hectic past few days, but I do believe things are about to calm down a little bit. Although, the new transmission was a huge deal, we've been having a few other minor problems that have just been adding insult to injury. For example, when we stopped for gas in KS, the wind was so strong that it blew the door open with such force it bent the front panel of the van. So, now the passenger side door is inoperable. Great. That's convenient. Then, our trailer door decided to fall off the hinges. Luckily I noticed it and we were able to repair it easily, but it could have been disastrous. And, just when we thought we were in the clear, we opened up the trailer yesterday to find all our equipment covered in a layer of dust. Perhaps we should stay on paved roads from now on.

But enough complaining. Although the drives have been pretty taxing, things have been pretty good. After the KS show, we stayed with Greg's good buddy Jesse in Boulder, CO. The views were amazing, and with our lack of AC, it was good to get into some cooler air. The next day we navigated our way through the mountains to our show in Utah. The crowd was small, but it was a good vibe, and also good to play a show again with everyone feeling a little better. Knowing we had a long drive ahead, we woke up at 7 am the next day to make our way to Fallon, NV. Now, it just so happened that we needed to take a combination of state roads to get there. Some of them were paved. Some, much to our surprise, were not. There were plenty of cattle crossings, as they have lots of open ranges in the area. For part of the trip, we were on a road called the Extraterrestrial Highway. In general, though, it totally blew our minds just how open and unpopulated this area of the country actually was. We stopped a few times for photos and such, but I don't even think they can come close to capturing how crazy things were.

In other news, we rolled up to the Nevada show plenty earlier and finally met Seth and Andrew. They're the guys who worked really hard to make all these west coast shows happen. It was a good time. Andrew's parents fed us, gave us a place to sleep, and then fed us again. I think we all benefited from the much need rest and repair.

So now, it's off to CA and maybe a music store along the way. Somehow, Greg managed to break all his cables last night, and take a nice chip out of the back of his guitar. Perhaps we need to calm down a bit.