Northwest America

Off we go...

Tuesday: Flew from Atlanta to Reno, Nevada (through Salt Lake City).

Checked into the hotel. We had individual rooms for our time here. I was given room 666, and it was just like any other hotel room.

Everybody was kind of wrecked from the travel and the time zones. I wandered a couple of blocks in search of Indian food, and landed at a place called Thali, which served sampler plates, but all you can eat. A guy would come by occasionally and ladle more food into each cup. I went nuts, ate too much, and got a belly ache.

On the way back to the hotel, I found the dog park, so I stopped to visit even though I didn't have a dog.

this dog did not like me, and it hurt my soul

home for 48 hours

Later that evening, I went for a run and burped a lot.

Wednesday: I got up and went swimming.

Then it was time for lunch, so I went to Maya's (which was the same place as Thali, but somehow a different restaurant during the day). Anyway, more Indian food.

The afternoon was hot and Reno frankly just wasn't very exciting, so I hid in my hotel room with my iPad for a few hours. For dinner, I wandered off to a different Indian place.

Vegetable Jalfrezi

Aaaaand, I squeezed in a run after the sun went down.

We were originally going to be playing a show Wednesday night here in Reno, but the gig died/got canceled the week before due to low ticket sales. At that point, it was too expensive to alter our flights, so that's the reason for this day and a half of non-musical stuff.

Thursday: On to the next gig! We finally left Reno, headed west into California to play the Sonoma County Fair.

We stopped for lunch in Auburn, California. If pay attention to running stuff, you might know that Auburn is where the Western States 100 (100 mile trail race) finishes. Maybe only interesting to me...

Anyway, such damn fine luck landed another Indian restaurant (once again, an all-you-can-eat situation!), this time across the street from a running store and a bike shop. Sounds like a nice afternoon.

some kind of dahl and some vegetable rice

main street

And then it was back in the van, working our way to Santa Rosa for the fair.

no Indian food--I had a veggie burrito

This was not the most exciting of gigs, for sure. I'm guessing that was a hundred people in attendance? It was certainly nice to finally get on stage and play, though. Too much down time is too much.

After the show, we piled back in the van and drove ninety minutes to Sacramento. A long day in the van.

Friday:  Off we go! Our crew drove the van and trailer to the next gig, but the band was afforded the luxury of flying. From Sacramento, we headed up the coast to Seattle.

McClellan, CA

inbound to Seattle, WA

We landed at SeTac, changed planes, and headed south to Portland, Oregon. 

Notice that the engine and wing are now facing the other direction!

Seattle, WA

Tacoma, WA

Tacoma, WA (again)

Vancouver, WA (very confusing, eh?)

Alright. Landed in Oregon.

Another night off! I started with a little exploring.

Then, I went for a run down by the river.

And then, the usual...

Saturday: Coffee in the lobby. This place was pretty hip(ster).

Seriously--you could borrow a record player to play all the vintage vinyl you bought yesterday.

Anyway, another run around the river loop...

...and a different Indian restaurant.

vegetable vindaloo

Finally, to the gig! We played at Revolution Hall, a former school that had been converted into a venue. Wow--what a cool property!

The performance hall holds about 800 people.

Groovy green rooms.

Plus a restaurant with veggie options and comfortable outdoor seating. I dig it!

We had 660 or so people in the room for our first shot at Portland--incredible!--and they were REALLY into it. Awesome crowd. I liked everything about this one.

I decided to try a stiffer tenor sax reed on this gig, hoping that it would stand up to a little more jaw and air pressure when I lean into solos. We played Ambrosia's Biggest Part of Me tonight;  my solo went well (so well, in fact, that we went longer than usual), and the reed did exactly what I wanted, but...I got tired! My embouchure wasn't used to the harder reed, and my face was TOAST by the time we got the cadenza at the end. I'm going to need a week or so to get used to it. Definitely the right move, though. I probably should've moved up a while ago.

Sunday: One last run around Portland before we left for Seattle. The plan was either coffee, run, lunch; or run, lunch, coffee. Instead, it was run, coffee, Apple store (for new headphones), lunch, frantic shower.

yes! they are serious about recycling here

Seattle. The internet said that Portland and Seattle were only about three hours apart, but there were several traffic obstacles, and we ended up in the van for more like four and a half hours. Why would there be so much traffic on a Sunday? Nobody knows...this part of the country (in between the cities) definitely felt like the frontier--trees and space and right-wing militia types.

Neumos (which apparently replaced a place called "Moe's", and the quirky spelling stuck), was dark and dirty room with lots of flies. Much different than the vast majority of gigs we play these days! It felt like we were back to playing bar gigs (albeit without all the cigarette smoke).

One last round of Indian food...

For a Sunday, this was definitely a good show, particularly considering this was our first time here. I had a couple of giant houseflies on my keyboards at the beginning of the gig, but I guess they didn't like it. The crowd sure did!

I felt better about my reed situation on this night, but this setlist didn't involve much sax playing.

Monday: Flying diagonally across the country takes a long time. I slept through the first third of it, waking up just east of the Rocky Mountains.

With this flight, I achieved Gold Medallion status on Delta. Slightly more legroom for all these cross country naps.