The Good Life

Thanks and photo credit to Stephen Abbas.

Thanks and photo credit to William Pepple.

Thanks! and photo credits to Albert D. Soto. (If you like, click on each thumbnail to bring up a larger image.)

The pizza was good, thanks Kerri!

Today we drove and drove and drove. We loaded all our hefty heavy gear in the van this morning and left Omaha around noon. We flicked on the radio somewhere west of Lincoln and listened to the Huskers get destroyed by Texas A&M as we drove across the plains. In Kearney, we stopped at Runza, the least crappy fast food chain in Nebraska.

We entered the desert of eastern Colorado and saw the sun begin to set through a model teepee on the land at the visitors center. We stopped for gas outside of Julesberg. The cashier was trying to give away one of her four dogs. One of the other four was dying of rectal cancer.

We saw two or three UFOs above the horizon, no joke. They’d shine and disappear as we continued toward Denver. They never attacked, but they were real.

In the city, a sign above the highway informed us of winter weather. And it was true. West of Denver, we were trying to outrun the storm. The van was a pontoon boat moving slowly backward in the dark of a still lake. The lines of the road and the blowing snow created a swirling mirage, a mesmerizing illusion of stillness. Cars passed us and we rode the brakes, pulsing them as we looked at the runaway truck ramp out of the corners of our eyes.

We debated: should we continue into the storm in an attempt to outrun it; or should we stop in Frisco at our already-reserved hotel room? We chose the latter.

We checked in and rode a free bus to a snowboarder frat bar in Frisco. A girl in a green t-shirt danced like an ostrich and smelled like a leftover burrito. We danced and laughed and played darts badly. We rode the free bus back and Double D at the hotel bar gave us way too many free drinks. We learned that “cherry pow pow gnar gnar” means really pretty good snow, sort of.

We watched television and saw the professional carpet cleaner’s haircut. We talked on the phone when we shouldn’t have. We looked up the weather report online and decided to sleep in.

Hi hi hi hi hi hi hi - Who am i writing to right now? Whomever you may be, we are in Minneapolis at the moment, and our collective heads hurt. Our apologies for getting on top of this a little late, seems we need to update you on Omaha and St. Louis and Iowa City. But what happened, really? Anything? I guess we played some songs and ate hot dogs and had the hiccups and drank a little too much whiskey and didn’t see any good movies and slept a little too long and missed our Daytrotter session because we had the hiccups and had a lame ass burrito in Springfield, MO (but Ephraim, our sound lover, claims to have had an astonishingly good sandwich, but come on, it was Jimmy John’s) and Roger had his first girfriend and got dumped already (will show pics in a minute) and we watched Capgun Coup and 4th of July and it was good. I loves you.

Photos from our instore at Vintage Vinyl in St. Louis, MO on 9/25.

We’re kicking off our tour tonight at The Waiting Room in Omaha, NE. For a full list of dates check the Tours page.

Welcome to The Good Life’s new site. We’ll be keeping a Tour Diary from the road, so check back for news, updates, and photos from our US tour! You can also post your experiences from The Good Life tour in the Fan Diary. (Requires registration to the site).