January 10th, 2014.

Since our true first show of the year had been canceled due to snow and ice on Thursday night, our functional first show was Saturday the 4th at the Dogfish Head Alehouse in Falls Church, VA. Unfortunately, it had been booked only a couple of days and we didn’t get the advertisement run-up that we normally get so we didn’t have the support of our own peeps so much. But they did draw our name covered in birds – so that’s a plus!

We’re rushing and I feel bad about that. We should’ve left a day earlier and taken more time? It wouldn’t have worked because of the gig on Wednesday and the desire to be in Houston by Sunday. We’ll get to slow down once we DO hit Houston, but until then I’m realizing you can’t really “vacation” the way you “tour”.

Gah! So – I had to go to my mom’s to get a chainsaw. It’s complicated. But I did. So – on the morning where we’re going to drive five hours to Raleigh, NC we take a detour to go drop by my mother’s house to pick up a box for my brother. It turned out to have a chainsaw – forgive me my fixation on this, but it really was a surprise – but an even GREAT surprise was seeing a massive crane poking up from the end of the neighbourhood. Upon further exploration, the crane was in the process of constructing absolutely massive minarets at what appears to be a giant mosque! Where the population is coming from to support such a structure in Lanham, MD I haven’t a clue, and I imagine there are plenty of locals who aren’t terrifically open-minded about it. That being said – holy shit – huge mosque!

I knew that – I swear I did – there was even an article about it recently in one of the online music magazines I often have contempt for but occasionally actually read. The gist of THAT article was more about the fact that if you want a vacation, don’t plan a tour. That’s a no-brainer to me. I know tours are work, but we’ve always planned our tours with time to stop and smell the roses (or pet the cats, or visit the alligators, or sample the goat cheese, or meander the path less wandered… whatever). If you’re not enjoying yourself, what’s the point?

*As always, one of the wonders of travel is encountering the local fauna. Here’s some sort of junquebuild cybercow roaming the woods next to a gas station in southern Virginia. Cool beestie!*

But I’ve done sort of the opposite here, at least for Savannah and New Orleans. We don’t have enough time to savour them at ALL which is a real shame. We just whirlwinded through Savannah last night and this morning. We centered ourselves around the idea that “if you walk through an historic district looking for food, eventually you’ll find it, and you’ll see lots of cool stuff on the way”.

This has MOSTLY worked out. The night we got in (crashing at the ‘Retro’ Thunderbird Inn) we wandered down to the water, and strolled around, climbing up and down dangerously “historic” stairs and sampling sights and sounds and smells. We grabbed dinner (oh my GOD good crawfish etouffe – I figured we were south enough for that) on the river and watched people go by. Stared at some toffee-making machinery for long enough that the guy who was running us tossed us some. The maple toffee was delicious – and probably the only time I’ve ever enjoyed toffee.

*Jamie and Barnaby joined us at the Pickled Onion for a night of great music, decent food and mediocre beer. (Raleigh, NC).*

Flaming Amy’s is our first stop in Wilmington, NC because it’s STILL my favourite lesbian-owned velvet-Elvis-themed homemade salsa-bar-havin’ burrito bar. I had an amazing jerked chicken burrito salad and it was every bit as delicious as I’d remembered.

We poked our head into touristy shops and watched some musicians set up their gear and play on the balconies and squares and walkways. I wonder how you get booked on Market Square and how much a busking license costs. Research for later.

As the sun went down we got misted on and eventually slightly rained on. We listened to a trumpet player on the river and meandered our way back to our hotel for the night to get an actual full-night’s sleep.

This morning we got up and walked to the Colonial Park Cemetery. We wandered the grave stones and photographed the trees and generally thought that even in the rain it probably would’ve been a good thing to take one of the ghost tours that everyone was recommending… the night before, getting in before the rain came down seemed like a good idea… our only encounter with one of the tours had been the one that I was warned about – the second review about the Hearse Tours was that the drivers were maniacs and assholes to boot… while we were walking back to our hotel last night we nearly got smacked by a hearse filled with panic-stricken-looking tourists running a red light in front of our waiting feet.

As we were wandering the streets of Wilmington, NC we heard a weird buzzing sound and spotted a guy standing on the sidewalk peering intently into the sky with some sort of controller in his hand. It took us a couple of seconds to put together but we realized he was operating this quadcopter hovering above us. The future is indeed nigh….

BUT – one of the walking tours would’ve been an ideal way to see this cemetery. During the day it was… pleasant. And beautiful. And during the daytime maybe I was also wishing that at nighttime I’d been a little more interested in being creeped out.

I’m just such a delicate flower.

We found breakfast, found friendly dogs, found a random closing comic book store sale. We wandered SCAD’s campus and found ourselves still about a half mile from the Thunderbird as the rain came again in earnest.

We enjoyed the warm air and the cold rain though and made our way back to the car… and now we head West to Atlanta. We’ll stay with my cousins just north of Atlanta before zig sagging West and South through Alabama to the other travesty of this trip : less than 24 hours in New Orleans.

Yeah. I’m a bad rob for that one. Sigh.

*Sue and Kim (Folkstar) have a REAL rock and roll Christmas tree!*

Well – the highway stretches ahead of us and Savannah swiftly dropped away behind. The skies have stopped precipitating upon us, but they remain a sullen grey full of promise and threat. We’re trying our best to ignore them.