St Louis was kinda strange but fun

None of us had been to St. Louis, MO until yesterday afternoon. We had an easy drive from Nashville and when we arrived to the city of the majestic arch we went to Abby Flanagan's, who was our most gracious hostess. Abby is a friend from childhood who is now teaching art at UMSL.  She had prepared delicious tacos for us, which we ate a bit ravenously, and she showed us our comfortable sleeping accommodations. Her apartment is beautiful and quaint, with exposed brick and instruments and sweet nicknacks hanging from the walls. She told us she was going to stay at her boyfriends so we could have the whole place. Too generous! All of you!! 

The famous midwest arch

The venue (Platypus) was right down the road, so we scurried off to load in our equipment. The other bands were nice and chill, but we had some time before the show so we all went our separate ways and walked through what is called "The Grove", which is seemingly a strip of hip bars, coffee shops and tattoo shops. I ran into Dan walking along, and he informed me he was planning to get a tattoo before the show. He did it ! No photos to show yet, but will share when he is next wearing a t shirt.. 

The show was kinda weird, but enjoyable enough. The venue was a bar with three different rooms, two of which happened to be hosting a very loud DJ dance set, and the third (ours) a small cavernous space, separated from the others with a thick curtain. The sound was questionable, especially with the trap music bleeding through from the room over, but there was a small crowd who seemed to be holding strong, devoted to the moody folk rock bands - Wilson Ridge, Surtsey, Tawain Himself, and us! 

Elisabeth holding it down at the merch booth

We played third, and this is how it went - The mic was shocking my mouth whenever my lips touched it, Elisabeth couldn't hear her harmonies, Dave thought it all sounded terrible, and Dan seemingly had a fine time. I just told myself - you gotta have at least one bad gig on tour, right? And it wasn't even that bad in the grand scheme. I still enjoyed singing my songs even with the sudden jolts of electricity, and Abby said she thought people were really into it, in their own midwestern way of showing it. We got our payout and very yummy free food and headed out. Said goodbye to the talented other folks and went to a bar down the street that had tasty margaritas and this sweet puppy on the counter, along with the most obviously staged wrestling I've ever seen playing on the tv. 

Cute 10 year old pup

This was a very fun hang with Abby and her friends Nathan and Anika. We sat outside in the back, and had much to talk about, despite having not seen Abby in 5 years and never having met the others. Anika is super cool and is from Boston and also teaches art at UMSL. Nathan is a sweet guy living in his home state of Missouri and I don't recall what he does with his time for the most part, but perhaps someone else can fill that detail in once we are done listening to this enticing episode of Leviathon that is playing at the moment. I have my handy AirPod Pros in so I can't hear a damn thing, and that is fine because I have listened to the entire story of Leviathon, and although it is epic, it is also incredibly dumb. We love it. 

We had one drink and went back to Abby's. She came home in the morning and made us coffee. More awesome conversation and we were on our merry way. Thank you Abby!! 

Sweet Abby !

We went to City Museum and had our own adventures within. Here are just a few shots that do not capture the vastness of creativity and wild trippyness that this place is. 

We made the mistake of stopping at McDonald's on our way out of town and Dave had a slightly traumatizing experience waiting for his food and trying to communicate with the unhappy people working there. The food was cold when he finally got it.. But we made another stop at Aldi's not too long after and we all recovered quite nicely. 

Now we are on our way to Kansas City to play at Lemonade Park with Darlingside once again. It is a bit surreal that this tour is just passing us by. We are about to drive SO MUCH and I have been thinking about this next part for such a long time now. I was honestly a bit worried about it a week ago, but now
I am looking forward to the journey, and welcome the weirdess that may ensue during this upcoming 30 hour drive. We will be driving after the show this evening, camping near Omaha, NE at Lake Cunningham Campground.

:)