tuesday april 17, 6:14pm, CST
we are currently driving in North Dakota, a couple hours from Fargo. this american life is the podcast keeping stu awake. bootle is in shotgun, so i will actually get some sleep, unlike stuey stu, the driving machine. this will at least keep me up for our likely overnight drive, as we are way behind, which will help me keep stu awake, which will get us to Madison safely. we are so behind. we are going to be just as weird when we get to Peterborogh tomorrow night as we were during C'mon's last tour and we arent even going to be hungover. just sleep weird. hopefully getting on stage this time around will have the same effect and get us normal again.
after almost a good nights sleep last night we had our free breakfast and drove to the border. this was exciting for me as it was my first time crossing over as a band! we didnt have any paperwork or anything besides our passports, but we also had nothing to hide- we NEEDED to cross over and take the usa shortcut, big time. we were each brought in for individual questioning.
them: "any alcohol in the van?"
me: "i think there's still a tallboy in the cooler."
them: "a what??"
me: "a tall boy.. a beer… pilsner… a big beer… we can throw it out!"
them: "how old are you??"
me: "25! i mean… 27!"
them: "you can keep it."
they searched our bags with dogs, but like i said, nothing to hide, and we were set on our way with a warning that bootle and i better sign our passports. i still have not.
drive drive drive. no real big population stops. everywhere is super small. mostly looks like saskatchewan still. mostly fried food. we havent seen any grocery stores for me to grab my typical avacados, hot sauce, tuna, and V8s. i had a milkshake earlier that i completely regret. but if you can believe it, I've had only two tallboys (big pilsner beers), the entirety of the journey. i might change that after i write this with #3.
gas isnt a lot cheaper. but this van, A New Hope, is miraculous on gas. we have only filled up three times the whole journey. thank god. i cant wait to start our sequence of five shows in close vicinity, get paid, sell some merch. most importantly of course i cant wait to play these shows, but grant money (thank you Alberta Music) is running low, and it would just be nice to not worry at all.
i wish we had done something fun to report on, but so far this is really all business. stuey stu gave bootle his first driving lesson today. thats something. but i was mostly asleep for that.
xo.