The US of A!! Or - we kicked Ass! (at least some of the time....)

Hi Y'all - I have wanted to draw up a diary of my part of our collective experience all week but have been dogged with technology nightmares so I'm just going to describe my highlights in brief, before I forget all the detail!

Firstly, Larry was excellent in so many ways - a kind host, our driver everywhere (and we covered miles!! I never appreciated America was so big, so full of trees and interstates - even though I should have known) and he introduced us to his excellent 6 year old son, Jacob Otis Brown - Jakie, who I fell in love with. He makes up words, can do maths in his head spontaneously, knows every car on the road  - Mustangs, Dodge Chargers, Corvettes, El Caminos -and described the finer distinctions of 'bad ass', 'bad bad ass' and 'suck ass' as terms of approval or not! He is also a very cool player of Rock Star, whereas I could not master the rudiments of playing Message in a Bottle even at dirge-like speed! Larry also had these amazing dogs and one had a massive head and reminded me of Cerberus, the dog of the underworld, but had rather a nicer disposition!

We drove a lot and visited loads of Walmarts, it seems, across the three states we played in, where we performed all of our morning ablutions whilst on the road in the RV - with these weird body sensing water dispensers in the loos, which made getting washed pretty challenging without spending about three hours in there and being evicted by 'restroom' attendants!

The gig venues were generally fantastic - big stages, with people making you feel welcome (with a couple of notable exceptions which Steve has already mentioned!!) and other bands being supportive and helpful - notably the Woo Hoo Band and 240 North. But it was very hot - over 100 degrees for large parts of the time. Being of an auburn hue (!), I managed to get heat prostration at Larry's and melted most nights on stage and ended up living in shorts. Pittsburgh was a gorgeous city. Larry, Ruth and I indulged in retail therapy - we bought stones for our necklaces - very beautiful, scintillating green (Ruth's) and iridescent purples, turquoise and green (mine - a Brazilian Druzy stone) and Larry cheerfully indulged us as we tried on outfits - catsuits (growwllll!), dresses etc and gave useful comments, patiently!! David, Steve and I checked out the Hard Rock Cafe which was very cool - I took some pics of Beatles memorabilia, including John Lennon's leather jacket and Janis Joplin's hippy coat.

Ruth and I had a white water rafting expedition on the Yough River in Pennsylvania which almost turned into Deliverance when we capsized at Dimple Rapids, lost the other women in the boat and then laughed hysterically as we spun down the 'washing machine' with one paddle, rudderless! We had to squelch back, drenched, on a bus after 13 miles of paddling through level 3 and 4 rapids. It rocked! Quite literally. 

The highlight gig-wise was Potsdam - what a great audience! There is something ineffably wonderful about seeing people mouthing the words of our own songs back as I was singing - that really felt amazing for me!And Ruth and I danced like dervishes to a 14 minutes version of a Sugarhill gang song - excellent!

I will never forget the whole thing - the highs and the lows were all worth it and I would go back again tomorrow - well, perhaps in a few months time.....you never know