October 4th, 2014.

ilyAIMY Tour: Day 20 – Coffeyville, KS – In which a little Matt Nakoa helps ilyAIMY slog through an early morning drive to Kansas, rob eviscerates a pineapple, and we discover the strange secrets of Coffeyville’s past. rob fools around with guitar-cam.

*I have no idea what this is about. We didn’t stop to find out because we were racing to Coffeyville, KS!*

Greetings from Goodland, KS. We’re quite literally ramping up to the Rockies right now and I’m aquiver with anticipation. I Love the moment when you suddenly realize the cloud bank ahead of you is actually a thrusting ridge of tectonic friskiness! Over the past 24 hour hours we’ve climbed about 3,000 feet as we’ve driven up the slow incline of Kansas and we’re now almost 4,000 feet above our home in Baltimore, MD. I can feel it in my gut.

Quite literally. Not that you need to know that. But decreased pressure at higher elevations can multiply any…. Errr…. Gassinesses… and my stomach has just been kind of… alert to my environment….

But let’s not talk about that. I Love the desert, I Love the mountains, and I woke up first this morning and have probably been something of a pain in the ass as I’ve TRIED not to rush Heather and Kristen. I’m really, really eager to see the mountains on the horizon and overnight we’ve already crossed that line where you can feel that the air is different, the dirt around you is different – the rocks that have come to the surface are different. The light’s different – dustier somehow. Slowly we’ll lose the moisture in the air and things literally DO look different as we lose the haze and diffraction that we as East-coasters are so very used to.

When we finally had downtime our first day in Coffeyville, it was time for dinner – and finding dinner that’s not fast food in a small town in Kansas after 5pm is easier said than down. Amongst the deserted streets we DID finally dound a deserted Mexican restaurant – and it was DELICIOUS. +/- Heather getting really, really sick from what we suspect was underdone chicken. Sigh. Just goes to show. Always get the giant pineapple dish!!! I learned THAT in Mexico!

*During some of our downtime in Coffeyville, KS – we managed to finally visit the Dalton Museum. And take a Dalton Selfie. It took some doing.*

At the moment we’re sitting at a beautiful coffeeshop in Goodland, catching up on some work and though it’s a cool space that I’d normally be more than happy to kill some time in – a repurposed church called Clark Crossing that sells books and shows movies with friendly people behind the bar and plenty of small conversations fluttering around us – I feel the pull of the road to the west almost viscerally. I want to GET there. Frank Sinatra’s on the speakers hidden in the arched ceiling above us and it’s all I can do not to stand over Kristen and Heather, tapping my foot and then shoving them back in the car and getting GOING.

We’ve climbed 3,000 feet since Coffeyville. We’ll climb another 3,000 before we play tonight, and in the shadows of the Rockies we shall cavort.