The last day of August. Ohio is hot and dry and we’re passing through it once again. This tour is fast, whirlwind and tiny. More a weekend trip than an actual tour – a better proving ground for experimenting with a different vehicle. Heather’s parents’ SUV has been serving us well with FAR better gas mileage than the truck and FAR more space than the Saturn. We would still be very hard-pressed to fit a PA in here with us (though maybe we’ll eventually get some more compact speakers that would allow for such a thing) and splitting money three ways on top of the extra gas consumption is again pretty hard to swallow economically, but on a short trip like this one, hardly the brutal lesson in economics that our truck-trip of late last year was. We’re STILL kind of recovering from that, the echoes still visible in my credit card statements.
Kenny, our barista at Sunergos Coffee was our kind host on friday night. He knew his coffee and he and Rowan had crazy-intense coffee conversations over the above 1960’s capuccino machine.
Teneia Sanders performing at Sunergos Coffee in Louisville, KY.
The next morning, Heather and Rowan and I went to Lynn’s Paradise Cafe in Louisville, KY for breakfast. While waiting for food one of our neighbouring tables has a birthday and received lots and lots of balloons. That got us singing Keegan Corbey’s tune “Balloons”.. Rowan followed that up by loading a video of Keegan up on youtube.com so we could rock to it over omelettes and goodness.
There’s a map at Lynn’s so you can show where you’re from. I went ahead and added ANOTHER DC-area sticker, but parts of the map (like that one) were so encrusted that they appeared to be a relief map of some sort, perhaps denoting that our elevation could save us from rising coastal waters after all….
So, we were eating at Lynn’s Paradise Cafe in Louisville, KY and Rowan was taking our picture… this is seconds after we whack our heads together in an ill-advised pose.
It’s just a short ride from Louisville to Columbus so we could really take it easy – we got to the Columbus Bar plenty early and continued our Day of Food there. Chicken chili and made-in-the-bar pretzels, some of Rowan’s favourite beers, yum.
This visit they’d built a stage for us outside and blocked off the street to make a little block party out of us and we had a great time playing to everyone who came along. At the end of the first set there were even conveniently-timed fireworks exploding behind us – we tried to keep time with them with “Steel” and had a big rock out ending with pyrotechnics and bassy explosions. Apparently, that was actually the ending of the nearby Nelson concert, but we decided to own the boom.
After the show (one with a rare-for-us encore!) we hung out as the bar closed and chatted and molested Star Wars figures. Eventually we headed back to a friend’s house and met his dog, some cats, some fish, some spiders and various other denizens. We had the luxury of beds, hot, hot water and breakfast in the morning – all to prep us for our last night out… we’re halfway through Ohio and plan to be in MD after our show tonight but before we sleep.
It’s going to be a long night!
