2008 Spring/Summer Tour - Day 105

I had two shows this morning at the Sand Creek Library, and both had big and fun crowds. Karen and Christina and Peter came out for the second show, as well as Roseann's friend, Mazz, and her 5 year-old daughter, Angel. We went out to lunch with Mazz and Angel and the girls had fun playing together at the Playland. After lunch, Becca and I stopped into Walmart for a few things while Roseann and Evee had a nap, then we went back to Karen's, where Becca and Christina and Peter did some more chalk drawings. The weather started getting nasty, so when Roseann and Evee woke up, we hung out inside and played some games together, including Tier auf Tier, Acrobats, and the spray bottle game that Brent and Cheryl had taught us in Dallas. We had a lot of fun with that and had a nice dinner together and then we went back to the RV park for bed.

Boy, the kids sure do hate the squirt gun part of "Monster in My House"...




With Mazz and Angel...

2008 Spring/Summer Tour - Day 104

I had two shows this morning at the Briargate Library in Colorado Springs. There were several people in the audience who had seen me last time we were in town, and apparently they told some of their friends to come, because the first show had a huge audience... the biggest they've had there all year. The second show wasn't quite as packed, but was still pretty crowded, and both audiences were very enthusiastic. I had a Power Bar before each show and seemed to do pretty well, energy-wise, though I still held back a little from what I might usually have done as far as my activity level.

We went back to the RV park after the shows to get naps, and then we met Karen and her husband, Andreas, and Peter and Christina and my folks at the Flying W Ranch, where they have an Old West kind of town and one of the oldest running Western (not country, just "western") bands in the world. The dinner was great and the band was quite good... the fiddle player in particular was amazing... and the girls had fun dancing along. But Evee had skipped having a nap earlier and was getting pretty tired and edgy, so we said goodbyes to my folks (they're flying back home tomorrow morning) and headed back to the RV park for the night.







My beautiful cowgirls...






Becca enjoying "Hopa Hopa Rider", a Gramma Inge classic...


Evee pretending to be asleep (she soon was for real)...

2008 Spring/Summer Tour - Day 103

We went to Karen's for breakfast, then drove over to the mall. The ladies and girls all went shopping together while my Dad, Peter and I went to see Indiana Jones movie. I've always been a big fan of that series, and my father and I went to see the first three movies together, so we had to go this time while we had the chance. I thought it started out really well, but kind of lost steam after a while and wasn't quite as good as the other three, though still very entertaining.

After the movie, Christina and Peter came with us in the bus to my show at the Ute Pass Library in Cascade. This was the one branch I didn't get to perform for the last time we came through here in the spring of 2007, and it turned out to be a really tiny library, probably among the three or four smallest I've played in. But there ended up being 27 people in the audience, which the librarian said was a huge crowd for that place, and they were a lot of fun and very enthusiastic. I did another "bug songs" show (most of my shows coming up in the next couple of weeks will be that program) and it went much smoother than it had in Tulsa, though I'm still working out a few details with the transitions and patter.

Cascade is actually quite a bit higher up than the main part of Colorado Springs, which is already one of the highest elevations in the U.S., and I definitely felt the difficulty of performing at my usual level of activity in the high altitude. When we came here in 2007 I made the mistake of booking four shows a day over the four days we were here. I had been to Colorado Springs a few other times over the years and knew of the altitude situation, but when we got to town I thought, ah, I feel fine! But halfway through the first song of my first show, I realized that it really effects you most when you exert yourself (it makes sense that the US Olympic training facilities are here). I remember singing "Hot Sand" and doing my usual frenetic running through the audience and thinking, whoa, am I moving in slow motion, or what? It always seemed to be the first show of the day that was the hardest, and then I was okay, so tomorrow I'll have to drink some water and have a Power Bar before the first show. That seemed to help last time.

After the show, we stopped at Walmart and the post office before going back to Karen's, where we had dinner and talked for quite a while as the girls did some chalk drawings on the driveway. They made everyone's names in our family (who is currently here), with corresponding pictures. Afterwards, we broke out the sparklers we had picked up for the girls (on July 5th) and Becca, Evee and Peter enjoyed waving those around.

We said "goodnight" and headed back to the RV park and went to bed pretty quickly.

An appropriate shirt that Karen picked out for Becca...

2008 Spring/Summer Tour - Day 102

I got up at about 5 am to get to the airport for my 7:15 flight back to Denver. I checked in my sound system and headed toward the gate and noticed an enormous line for the security check. I took a picture but it doesn't really even begin to show the extent of the line... it ran up a big flight of stairs, then down a hallway quite a way, then back up the same hallway past the point of the stairs, and finally into the security area. It took about an hour to get through and many of us ended up getting into the plane at about 7:05.

Roseann and the girls picked me up in Denver... this time taking the correct lane. I started to drive out on our way to Colorado Springs, but I suddenly got very tired. I didn't know you could get jet lag while traveling within the same time zone. We stopped and I got a nap, and then we continued on. I missed my GPS while I was gone... the rental car I used had one, but it wasn't as good as ours in several ways... but Roseann said that ours is passive-agressive and tried to kill her the other day by suggesting she drive off a cliff into a small creek while approaching the RV park.

We arrived at my sister Karen's house and had a happy reunion with her and her kids, Peter and Christina, and my folks, who flew in from Buffalo yesterday. We hadn't seen Karen and her family since spring of 2004, which of course means that they've never met Evee before now, and Becca was only a year and a half old. Since that time, Karen's family has had quite the journey... They had lived in Colorado Springs for several years prior to that, but then moved to Austria, then to Vermont, and then back to Colorado Springs earlier this year. It is really nice to see them and my parents again and we look forward to hanging out with them for a few days this week. We're just disappointed that my sister Diane wasn't able to make it here with her kids... we haven't all been together as a family since 2001. But hopefully we can organize some kind of complete family reunion while we're here and get together next year sometime.

The girls played with Christina for quite a while, who graciously played along with them (she's 14 now) with a strange combination of old Polly Pockets that Christina had and dinosaurs of Peters, and the rest of us talked and had dinner. Later, we played a game of Quiddler, which was fun. I started out strong but ended poorly and Christina did well throughout and won the game.

We made some plans for the coming days, and then headed to our RV park for the night.

The airport security line... well, part of it...


Evee, Christina and Becca...


Fashionable dinosaurs...


Mom, Pops, Karen, Roseann and Christina...

2008 Spring/Summer Tour - Day 101

I had a show this morning at the Helena Middle School on behalf of the Mom's Club of Helena and it turned out to be a really terrific audience and one of my favorite overall shows of this trip. There are some shows in venues like that, where there is a big separation between the stage and the audience seating (they actually had a locked gate separating the stage and the audience, which I had someone unlock and open before the show) and a bright spotlight that makes it hard to see anybody, where I might feel a little disconnected from the audience and have a harder time getting every nuance across. But this time it didn't matter... Everything went over particularly well, and the kids and parents and I all shared in a really fun experience.

After the show I went out to lunch with Joe, Jim and Jim, who were the promoters of the show. They are really great guys and we had a lot to talk about. I drove from there to Bozeman to see Roseann's nephew Stephen and his family. We'd seen them a few times when they lived out in Seattle, but haven't had a chance to see them in their new home. We all went over to the home of their friends, Glen and Denice, and had a barbecue dinner and chatted until the mosquitos came out in force, then we went back to their place and I went to bed early (7:30 am flight tomorrow).

Roseann and the girls spent much of the day at Rachel's and ended up staying overnight there. Apparently, Becca got a hold of James and Carl's Fisher Price camera and took a bunch of pictures... we'll have to look into getting one of those cameras for the girls.

At the show, with Radio Joe judging the dance contest...


With Jim, Joe and Jim...


Baby Aaron meeting the "feather duster" dog...


Stephen, Merissa, Lindsey, Ashlyn and Aaron...


Becca and Evee with James and Carl...

2008 Spring/Summer Tour - Day 100

We drove to the Denver airport this morning. When I told the girls that they'd be dropping me off at the airport, Becca said that I would get hurt if they dropped me off. I'm pretty sure she was joking, but she said it straight, so it was hard to tell. Regardless, in case she was serious, I explained that we would stop the bus before dropping me off.

As we pulled into the airport terminal, we had a major snafu when we took the left driving lanes at a fork where it had said only authorized commercial vehicles could go to the right. The problem was that the left lanes led into a parking garage, and the height limit was 9 feet (our bus is about 11.5 feet at its highest point). You couldn't see that sign until after you turned into that area, though, so we had to stop and then back up quite a ways to get to those right turn lanes again. Roseann got out and set up our cones and directed cars to the other lane while I backed up, and she had to work her way backwards, moving the cones several times. Someone must have alerted security, because finally a security vehicle showed up and helped us get the rest of the way back. The security guy said that happens all the time, and they really need to get better signage in place to indicate which way to go.

I flew out to Bozeman for a show I have tomorrow morning in Helena. I had told the girls earlier that I was doing a "Daddy concert" tomorrow morning and needed to fly somewhere, but when Roseann told them again later that I was doing a show in Montana, Evee got excited, thinking that I was going to see a Hannah Montana show. Heheh...

After dropping me off (safely) at the airport, Roseann and the girls went to see her niece Rachel and her family. We had visited with them for a few days when we were in Colorado last year, and I'm disappointed that I won't be able to see them this time. The girls played with Rachel and Jim's twin boys, James and Carl, and after dinner Roseann and the girls drove to an RV park where they stayed for the night. I checked into my hotel and watched some tube for a while before going to bed.

The camera ended up coming along with me, so Rachel will try to take some pictures of the kids tomorrow and hopefully we'll be able to exchange them so I can post them here for tomorrow's post. All I've got from today are a couple of pics from the airplane, which put me in mind of a verse from a song on my next album, called "What a Ride"...

Life is like an aeroplane that takes you through the sky
The biggest things seem really small the higher up you fly
So when you see that great horizon stretching out so wide
Take a while to laugh and smile and say, "Hey, what a ride!"

2008 Spring/Summer Tour - Day 99

Not much to report today... We left the RV park and drove a few hours to another RV park, this one in Seibert, just inside the border of Colorado. We had some dinner, went over to a playground at a nearby park for a while, did some laundry, worked on computers, made some calls, and went to bed.

Becca making a silly/scary face...






Meeting a cute puppy at the park...

2008 Spring/Summer Tour - Day 98

This morning we drove into Overland Park where I had a show for the Beth Shalom Early Childhood Center. It was a lively bunch of kids and we had a fun time. The girls also enjoyed playing out in their nice playground.

In our meetings recently with Monty Harper and Ezra Idlet, both of them had told us that if we were going through Kansas City, we should really get in touch with the popular children's performer, Jim Cosgrove, aka Mr. Stinky Feet. I had hoped to get in touch with him and also with Krista "Funky Mama" Eyler, a cool kids' singer from KC, but we were literally coming into town to do the one show and then driving on towards Colorado, so I didn't think it would be a likely thing to work into our collective schedules, so I kind of spaced it. But then Judy, my contact at the Beth Shalom Center, told me when I got there that both Jim and Krista had been hoping to make it to my show... both of them have performed or worked at that same venue... so I felt bad and tried to get in touch with Jim when Judy gave me his number. He was heading out to a gig, but his wife, Jeni, was able to meet up with us for lunch. She does booking for him, and like Roseann is for me, she is an integral part of what makes it all work for Jim. We had a really great time talking with her and hope we can meet up again with them next time we're out this way.

From there, we drove a few hours and stayed at an RV park in... um, I don't even know exactly where it is... the GPS pointed it out... somewhere about four hours past Kansas City on the way to Denver.





With Jeni, aka Mrs. Stinky Feet (she told us that at their wedding, the priest actually pronounced them as Mr. and Mrs. Stinky Feet)...

2008 Spring/Summer Tour - Day 97

We slept in pretty late and then got up and joined Ezra and Karen for some breakfast. We brought in the girls' laptops, so they played on those for a while. Roseann and Karen talked together while I recorded an interview with Ezra. (I promise that all of these interviews I've done on this trip will be posted on my other blog before too long... but realistically speaking, that probably won't begin happening until I'm back home in August.)

After the interview, Roseann and I had the special treat of hearing a good chunk of the new Trout Fishing album, which will be released in September. It's hard to really get a true sense of your feelings about an album from one listen through, especially with some songs just played in snippets, but I really think this may be their strongest work yet... there were so many great songs that instantly connected with me. Their signature sense of humor and fun is evident throughout and the music is approached in some fresh ways (which is amazing considering how long they've been doing this and how many different albums they've already put out), and they also hit some very touching and poignant notes on some of the tracks. I can't wait to hear the whole thing once it's out. It's great to see someone like Ezra, who has been making music about as long as I've been alive, still getting so excited about what he does and about the creative process, and how his work connects with others. What an inspiration!

We had lunch and hung out some more and got to talking at length again... Ezra and Karen were very generous the whole time we were there in sharing of their experience and their encouragement for what we're doing, and we feel very grateful for having been able to spend some personal time together with them. But then we suddenly realized, oh gosh, we've got to drive four hours to Kansas City, and they had things to get done that they'd put aside for our visit, so we headed out and drove most of the way to Kansas City, stopping at an RV park just off the 71 about an hour before KC.

Becca working on some chalk art...


Evee modeling a trout hat...


Ezra and Karen...

2008 Spring/Summer Tour - Day 96

We dropped off Petie and left Branson, heading to Arkansas for a special sidetrip. The other day I received an e-mail from Ezra Idlet of Trout Fishing in America. He wanted to get a CD of mine to feature a song on a guest DJ spot he's doing for Sirius next week, so I called him up and when we realized how close we were to each other he invited us to come out for their 4th of July party. We couldn't make it out there then but made arrangements to stop by today. This was a big deal for me because Trout Fishing in America was one of the most influential acts for when I started getting into doing kids/family music, and I've been a really big fan of theirs ever since. They've been nominated for a Grammy three times now and have played all over the place for many thousands of people and they are really legends in this genre (and in music, in general). When I say "they", it is Ezra on guitar and vocals and Keith Grimwood on bass and vocals and the two of them have been making music together for over 32 years now and show no signs of stopping. Unfortunately, we missed seeing Keith by the time we made it out there... he had been over there earlier in the day but had some things to take care of at home and couldn't stick around... but we had a really wonderful time visiting with Ezra and his wife, Karen (who, among other things, is in charge of their record label).

Earlier this morning, Becca had asked us where "the middle of nowhere" was, and we explained that it was really just an expression, but when we arrived out at Ezra and Karen's place, I thought that might have been it, after all. They have a really beautiful piece of property way off the beaten path in Arkansas, and we especially enjoyed taking a drive out in the back of their pickup truck through the woods nearby to see Ezra's treehouse. He built that (and is still working on it) over the past eight years. You can hear the great Trout Fishing song "Dreaming", which describes the inspiration of the treehouse, and find out more about how it was built at this link: http://www.troutmusic.com/treehouse.asp

We came back and had some dinner, then put the girls down for bed and did some song swapping and jamming together, which was really fun. We all probably could have talked and shared music all night, but we eventually dragged ourselves off to bed.

Karen introducing the girls to their puppy, Pearl...


Evee pointing out the treehouse picture...




Inside the treehouse...

2008 Spring/Summer Tour - Day 95

Roseann and the girls went with Jason to look at some properties around the area while I stayed back and got some rest. The girls had baths over at Jason and Mara's house and then we went to church. After church, we went back to their house for dinner and had a fun time talking together, playing some games (once again, they asked for us to bring Pandemic to play) and eating some amazing pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. I did a dramatic reading of The Cat in the Hat for all of the kids, and then we went back to the bus. It was another very late night for everyone.

We had a really great time here and are so grateful for the friendship of the Hughes family and the time we had to spend with all of them. We wish we could have also spent more time with the Duttons but it didn't work out with their vacation schedule. And there were some shows and attractions we'd have liked to see (for example, they have a Segway track here and I've always wanted to try one of those), but as always, there's only so much time. As we knew going in, Branson isn't really an ideal place for a kids' entertainer... I was grateful to be able to do what I did here, but this was really more of a vacation side-trip for us that happened to have a few smaller shows... so I'm not sure what kind of things I'd be able to do here in the future, work-wise, but we'll definitely stop by anytime we're out this way to see our friends and have some fun.

Evee playing Cranium Hullabaloo with Emeline and Hannah...

2008 Spring/Summer Tour - Day 94

I had a show at the KOA at 10:30 this morning, but it was pouring rain up until about 10:40, so most of the people that came didn't come in until after that point. It was a fun group, though. After that, we went over to the church where I did another fireside assembly program for the primary group which went very well. We came back to the bus to regroup for a bit, then went back to the Hughes Theatre where I opened for their show again. This time, it went more like it did the first time, which was good. We stayed and watched their show again, and they added in an impromptu a capella version of "The Star Spangled Banner" that was really awesome. I guess they're performing that for a St. Louis Cardinals game next week. We were all pretty exhausted, so we headed back to the bus and went right to bed.









The kids all watching a TV show backstage while waiting for their cue to go on...


A few cars from the Hughes Brothers' fleet. They look nice, but just think how cool it would be to have a fleet of cartoon motorhomes...