Tour... Check!

Frogs Gone Fishin' rolled into Denver on Saturday, weary and tired from 50 days on the road. The mountains have never looked so good. Traveling west on I-70, you don't see the distant purple outline of the Front Range until you are well inside Colorado, a beacon for your arrival in Denver.

The final driving leg of tour was particularly grueling, 23 hours and 1,141 miles in the car after our last gig in Asheville, NC. We stopped for a Halloween get-together with our friends Kinetix, another Denver-based band, in Columbia, MO. Switching off in the driver's seat every three to four hours, I drove the 6 30am shift through that less-than-scenic neighbor state, Kansas. The sunrise over the cornfields was pink and inviting as we approached the Colorado border.

We've had a short break from music since Saturday, but rehearsed yesterday in preparation for our homecoming gig in Boulder tonight at The Fox Theater. This will be our biggest show in Colorado to date, and we couldn't be more excited. We'll have more of an extended break from touring through the winter, as we plan on playing shows within Colorado until we depart for New Orleans for another semi-permanent stay in February.

Some highlights of tour included:

- Making it to Flagstaff for the first gig of tour, after our car failed to start in New Mexico.
- Discovering Bar PM in Lubbock, TX. They treated us well and the kids at Tech know how to get down.
- Austin City Limits (I scored a free ticket!).
- Helping people in Houston feel some sense of normalcy after Hurricane Gustav wreaked havoc on their city. (After going through Katrina in NOLA, I could relate).
- Discovering Lake Charles, LA.
- Everything in New Orleans, always. See the post here for a more complete write-up.
- Playing for the debate watch party in Nashville. For a town as conservative as Nashville, the Democrats really know how to party and get behind their candidate.
- The surprisingly chill atmosphere and creative energy of Dubuque, Iowa.
- Carbondale and Normal, Illinois. Cool people all over Illinois.
- Staying at Carl the sound guy's house in Minneapolis. This house is filled with musicians, sound-guys, light-guys, creativity and energy. A house like this would benefit the music scene in any city.
- Too many car-bombs at the Irish pub show in Milwaukee.
- Thanksgiving dinner, prepared for us in Green Bay.
- Going to sleep back in Nashville after driving straight from Green Bay.
- Collaborating with our friends DJ Bowls and The Green Horns in Tennessee.
- The hotel room in Kentucky, a luxury so late in tour.
- Discovering North Carolina and Asheville, a heady town in a beautiful state.
- The first glimpse of our beautiful home under the mountains, Denver.

To distill all the events and faces of tour down to such a simple list would betray tour itself. In private we will thank everyone that fed, housed, helped, handled, handed-down, and tolerated us for their hospitality.

It takes me several days to adjust to life at home after tour. Sleeping in a bed, eating regular meals and interacting with the same set of people everyday outside of the band all feel awkward. Driving a car less than 30 feet long feels like driving a go-kart. The show tomorrow night at The Fox will help ease us back into the routine... We get to see all our friends at once.