Arizona, you
Never cease to amaze!
The dust storm
Shaken and stirred with
Desert typhoon coats the van with red
Paste catastrophic. And yet
This desert home lets you past her
Brambles. Bless these folks. I wish I was sane enough to call this
Home.

West Texas. Grandpa is purported to have left his home here at 12, swept pool halls, joined the navy, the legend broad and dusty as his native landscape. Later in southern California we would love the way he would "warsh" and "reckon," and take us looking for Bighorn Sheep in the Mohave desert. I wish I'd known him a little better. Amen.

Christmas light show house, Fort Worth, TX

All your snow, New Yorkers, piled up around the air planes, fixed us in Fort Worth another night. Young nephew, they have a whole museum about raising beef!

We just passed a sign that said "Hope, 1 Mile." This is reassuring.
It's that time of day when, if you're driving due west, the sun is
pointed at you like a searchlight. The roadside shadows are deep, the
traffic is light, we are crossing what's left of Arkansas on our way
to starry Texas. I am sorry, you folks back home, about the blizzard
that will seal you inside this weekend. May you go west real soon.

We are in Nashville after our 12 hour Blue Mountain odyssey. Our show is back on tonight, so we're playing in a couple hours in a sweet living room.

Highlights: stopping at Hatch Show Prints, which is pretty much the greatest American graphic design pilgrimage. Eating the first barbecue of the trip. Also I got my first tattoo.

Tonight we'll get back in the van and head to Memphis to sleep. Missing everyone like the dickens.

We are 6.5 hours in to an 11.5 hour drive to Nashville. This is our van pet, you can't see but it has an enormous feathery tail glued on. Earlier today we drove through the blue ridge mountains. I don't know why I was so surprised that the rocks there are actually blue, but they are. Very beautiful. Our show in Nashville is cancelled, but we're going to go hang out there anyway. It sounds like a cool place.