Day 18 was a pretty long driving day from our rest stop to Columbus, OH. I'll admit right now to being a bit of a foodie, which leads me to doing a bit of research prior to going on tour to find the "best of" or "biggest" types of places. This time my research led me to an episode of the travel channel's Man Vs. Food where he goes to a hamburger joint called "The Thurman Cafe". Having seen this episode I thought I had a good idea of what we all were in for... I was horribly wrong. After putting our name in a waiting for a good hour and a half, we were seated at a small table. We placed our order... which meant that both Ben and me were going to go for it and attempt to conquer "The Thurman Burger" when Ben placed his order the waiter actually made a fist and gave the good oll "YES" gesture with his hand. It was at this point that we both knew we were in trouble. We started the meal with an order of "Fried Pickles"... yes... they do exist and are alive and well in the midwest. When the food came out all we could do at first was stare in amazement. These things were so larger that there was no possible way to fit the thing in your mouth. Ben and I managed to choke down the entire thing, but both felt as if we slipped into a drug induced coma afterwards. After our dinner, we headed over to Bernies Distillery to play our set... which was rough for Ben and Me after consuming what we did. I can only describe it as if someone had tied an anchor to each of us. It hurt to move...but luckily, we were able to pull it off. The show for the night had a smaller attendance, but was a good one none the less. That night we drove a couple of hours... to our typical lodging place, another rest stop... this time about 4 hours out of St. Louis where we would be heading the next day.
Day 19 - This has to be one of the most dissapointing days of the tour so far. After awakening from our rest stop slumber and driving the 4.5 hours or so to St. Louis, we holled up in a Starbucks to kill some time. Upon arriving at the venue we were told that one of the local bands had dropped off the show that morning. Not really all that big of a deal because there were still l2 other locals on the bill. We loaded in our gear to the Wedge Bar, and sat down for an early dinner. Close to the finish of our meal an hour or so later we were approached by the sound guy who told us that the show was supposed to start a half hour ago and that no one was here at all for the show. He then explained that the sound guy is paid out of money from the door and that it then becomes the responsibility of the bands to pay out the sound guy if they want the show to happen. We were then told that the other 2 bands had refused to pay the soundguy so the show would be cancelled. We then loaded up, and decided that we would make the trip most of the way to Lawrence so we could enjoy a day with very little driving. Thanks to Tom for hooking us up with gas money as to make the evening not a total bust.
Day 20.5 - Here I sit in beautiful Lawrence Kansas... home of KU and the Jayhawks. We've been here since noon or so... which has allowed us to enjoy BBQ, $1.50 beers, and the time that I needed to play catch up at this coffee shop. We have an acoustic show tonight at a place called the Bachelor Pad on Mass. St. that we're looking forward to. I'll end for now... The next time I do this will be from somewhere in Vegas where I may or may not be drunk... so it should be interesting.
Cheers,
Nino and Setoff.