We're home! This weekend was fun, though not without the usual mishaps. . . We played in Johnson City, TN on Friday (right before heading home) and had a great time, as usual. While we were there, we heard a rumor that Johnson City was all out of gas. When we left, we saw that it was not only Johnson City. . .we ran out of gas by the time we got to Weaverville, NC (just north of Asheville, NC) and, inconveniently, so had all of the gas stations around. We gave up and decided to wait till morning for the tankers to come deliver, but not until we got out the phone book and called every 24 hour gas station within the our-gas-light-has-been-on-since-Tennessee-distance.

So, we wound up our Northeast tour by sleeping in a grocery store parking lot 30 minutes away from home. How appropriate. . .

Saturday was fun playing in Flat Rock, NC for a home-field crowd--it's great to be travelling, but it's good to be home too. We'll do our best to rest up for the busy week ahead; we'll be finishing up recording Only Sleeping!

Well we finally got out the new memory card for the camera before we got into DC, so get ready for lots of pictures. Going into Washington, DC yesterday we drove through Chinatown; I guess every Chinatown needs a Kung Fu Gift Shop. . . We took advantage of our taxpayer dollars (thank you all!) and visited the Smithsonian.

We came face-to-face with some straight gansters

and some serious bling (the Hope diamond). . . If you think this geode is big this piece of quartz is HUGE! (Chris obviously thought so too)

At the Air and Space Museum, I got to find out that I wouldn't have been a stewardess back in the day. Did you know that they only selected white girls between 5'2" and 5'4"? (I'm just barely 5') Hmmm. . .high heels?

I did get to fly a Cessna though--I was even making airplane noises!

And then we were going to storm the capitol but then we realized we were illegally parked. . . We had a great time last night at the Red and the Black on the H Street corridor (that's what all the locals call it) Chris even got solicited. . . The show was FANTASTIC though; we played with Alexis George and Whiz Bang Three, two really fun acts from DC. We haven't seen our friend Vitka in over a year and she and some friends showed up last night!

The crowd last night was so awesome--we had a blast playing for you all! We'll be back to DC in February if not before. . .

The last few days we were in rural Vermont, so our access to the internet was very limited--like almost none at all. So we have some catching up to do! On Saturday we played an acoustic concert in Post Mills, VT. The natural acoustics of the room were great, as was the audience and the refreshments (the flourless chocolate cake was amazing!) Here we are at the end of the concert with George and Pippa, our hosts. We had a great time and love the state of Vermont (great beer, ice cream, cheese, and chocolate--what's not to love?) so we decided to head over to Burlington to spend our two days off, then we'll start heading back down south. . .

We enjoyed our day off in the Adirondacks, swimming at a mountain lake, trying to get some more shows booked for our CD release tour (hint, hint--it's coming up!) re-organizing the car, and building a huge fire--complete with marshmallows and chocolate chip cookie smores!

So I guess in Montpelier, they're selling babies?? We almost got one, thought it'd be cool, but then we decided it'd probably be a good idea to buy a dog first, see how we do with that, and go from there. . .

Thanks to Sam Ganly, we have Orange Peel pictures! I'll post a few before we run out of internet. . .

We want to thank everyone who came out to the show last night a Cyber Cafe West and made last night such a special evening. You all rock!
Yesterday we spent some quality time at the library in Binghamton, NY before our show, got an oil change, and Chris got a haircut (it looks very nice). However, Chris has decided to grow a beard, so that kinda cancels out the nice haircut. . . we'll keep you updated on his progress. . .
We've got one day off before we're in Montpelier, VT on Friday and we've decided to spend it in the Adirondacks. Very relaxing and good for beard-growing. . .

We managed to hit the city with some daylight left, so we got to see the sunset by the skyline while we were waiting in traffic. . .The traffic wasn't nearly as bad as it was the last time we played in Brooklyn; in fact, we got to the venue so early that we had time to walk around and get some famous NY pizza. Delicious!

We played at Goodbye Blue Monday, a wonderful room that's crammed full of books and cool, random things and has a tiny stage in one corner. The crowd was great and we really enjoyed our short stay in Brooklyn. . .

. . .but on the drive out of the city we got pulled over by an NYPD cop in a taxi. Who knew you couldn't turn right on red in NY? At least it was obvious that we're not New Yorkers. . .

Yesterday on our way to New Jersey, we saw a sign for Sesame Place and just had to see what it was all about (turns out it's a kids amusement park)


We stopped at Bull's Island Recreation Area in Stockton, NJ to spend the day. Most of it was spent working, but we managed to climb out on the dam and enjoy the Delaware River for a little while before our radio show.

Last night we were Thom's musical guests on Common Threads on WDVR, an eastern PA/western NJ radio station. We played and chatted for about an hour and had big fun, Sergeantsville, NJ style.

We stood around and visited on the stoop outside for a while afterwards and tried to soak up the small-town evening because today it's off to Brooklyn!

Happy Labor Day! We had a full day yesterday--and thanks to some pretty rad Boy Scouts at a rest area in WV, we had hot food for lunch! Mmmmm hot dogs. . .

Once we got to Philly, we went to the Art Museum (unfortunately, not with enough time to actually go in) and saw Rocky after we ran up the steps and did our best Rocky impressions.The amount of art that was outside of the museum was quite a bit to digest on its own--this one is a slightly more highbrow statue that was surrounded by a huge fountain.

When we finally arrived at the Fire, the acoustic early show was going on so we got to enjoy some fine specimens of Philly's acoustic scene before our show started. The Fire (conveniently connected to the fire station) is a really cool venue, as you can tell from the old piano insides on the wall in the back room. . . We met some really friendly folks (it IS the city of brotherly love after all) and had a very enjoyable Labor Day Sunday show!