Tour blog #2

It's actually amazing how difficult it is to find time off to blog about tour. The only time spent not playing shows or sleeping (for far too little) in crappy hotels is spent driving, or attempting to sleep in the car. And call me lazy, but getting out my laptop and making a huge production of getting the charger and plugging it into our car's fancy powerstrip thing while on the road is a bit too much effort for the amount of energy I have at this point.

I've gotten into a rhythm where I pretty much have to save all my energy for the 45 minutes or so I spend on stage each night, and the rest of the time I am conserving. Ha. I had some issues with vocal nodes about a year and a half ago, and I have been kind of stressed out that I am going to accidentally make them come back on this tour. It's not even really the singing every day that's the worst part; it's the talking in the car, the shouting over loud music in clubs and at conferences, and the sheer amount of talking I've been doing to fans and friends. Which sucks, because I love talking to people. So it's been hard. But I am drinking lots of tea (I hate tea) and trying not to talk much except for at shows, so we'll see how it goes.

Seattle, WA - It was so nice to be back in Seattle! After driving across the country on unfamiliar freeways, it was nice to be around roads I knew for a couple of days. We played at this country club type place that was fairly close to my house, but in a neighborhood I'd never been in before. All of our friends came to the show, like roommate Justin, Ariana and her boyfriend, other friend Justin, Liz, Kayley, etc. I also had my pseudo stand-in family; Carol, Carrie and Chrysta (some of the people who went to Mexico with me back in February, family friends) because my real family couldn't be there. After the show we had a party at mine and Eia's house that included Wingzone (my favorite!) and a long game of Apples to Apples.

4th of July (Day Off) - This was a much needed day off. We all slept in, and then the girls plus Kayley left the boys at home and went shopping! The focus was new bathing suits, and it took pretty much the whole day to make this happen for everyone. It was kind of fun to ditch the boys for an afternoon as well.

This evening was the 4th of July, and while we had every intention of going outside and finding a good spot to watch the fireworks over Lake Union (Gasworks park was out of control - thousands of people and the Presidents of the United States of America were playing a live show, mere miles from my house) we ended up just watching the fireworks on TV in my living room. In lawn chairs. Indoors.

I was pretty okay with how we ended up spending the evening.

Portland, OR - The Portland show was a really good show. We played in this fun room that kind of looked like a miniature Great Hall, and had another great turnout. The thing that made me the happiest, though, was that my dad and my brother drove down to see it. Our schedule worked out so crappily in Seattle - my whole family was in North Dakota until the 4th of July, and we played Seattle on the 3rd, so they didn't get to see me perform. It meant a lot to me that they drove three hours to see me the next day then, knowing they'd be just driving 3 hours home right after. Kayley also came down with her mom to be able to make it to a second show, which was nice of her.

The weirdest part about this Portland show - okay, wait. Let me stop myself. There were actually two incredibly weird parts about this show. I will tell them to you in order.

Weird part 1: My dad and Nick stopped at a rest area on their way down to the show, and of all the places in the world to run into old friends, they ran into some people we used to spend a lot of time with when I was younger. My dad's friend Rob and his daughter Mackenzie were on their way down to Portland for Mackenzie's basketball tournament or something, and my dad managed to convince them to use the extra half hour they had to stop in and catch the first 20 minutes or so of my show. So that was awesome. I haven't seen them in probably over 5 years.

Weird part 2: Literally three minutes before I had to go onstage to do the fiveawesomegirls segment of our show and then immediately go right into the ALL CAPS set, I was standing in the back talking to my dad and Kayley's mom (in a crowded room indoors mind you) when suddenly I had this excruciating pain in my left ankle. I looked down and there was A GIANT BEE ON ME. I swatted it away, but it was too late. There was a stinger poking out of my leg, and I had to get my dad to pull it out, and then I freaked out for a few minutes before going on stage and doing the show anyway. All the while my ankle was swelling up and throbbing and I couldn't decide if I wanted to cry or if I was being a total rockstar about it.

Milpitas, CA - The venue for this show was a big auditorium style room with a stage, so upon walking in we already knew it was going to be great. This was also the show of presents, it seemed, as I walked away from it with pictures, a new die, cookies, pumpkin bread, a funky green and orange stress ball, a large collection of Grateful Dead music, and these amazing clay models someone made of everyone on tour. The only disappointing part of this show was that Meghan and Shawna (strawburry17 and Nanalew) were supposed to be coming, and Meghan's car broke down. But we would be meeting them in just a few days at VidCon so it was alright.

Arbitrary place to stop blogging - my writeup about VidCon is next!

Random road sign right now: Carmel - 1 mile (exit 177)
Chipotle burritos: 14