Albuquerque, New Mexico- As we drove out of the Grand Canyon State, it took about a half hour drive to go from sun and dry to overcast, cold and snow. We stopped at a rest stop and while I was waiting for Tony, an older couple came out and asked where I was headed. I told him New Mexico and he began to tell me that he and his wife had come from Sedona. “Watch out for the cops. I think Flagstaff should be clear for passing”, he said. It was amazing that in less than one hour I went from warm and sun to cold and snow-covered highways.

Ever since I first drove out to the West Coast, I have been in love with the Western part of the country. I remember driving to Las Vegas from Texas and taking I 10. I was stopped at two checkpoints and asked several questions similar to if I was crossing the border into another country. This time, we weren’t stopped but instead they had police vehicles with tall poles mounted to roof with a camera on top of that. My mild paranoia was heightened at this image and I wondered, what are they doing? I am often bothered by the Big Brother direction our country has turned, but it is going beyond, “this is what we have to do to be safe” and heading more towards peering into each and everyone of our vehicles. I should have grabbed a picture of them taking a picture of me. I guess it isn’t enough to have every stoplight armed with a camera, we now need manned police vehicles with them.

Before I digress too far and begin a tirade on the abuse of our civil liberties, I’ll move on for the benefit of the readers. This week started off with my birthday. I have had to work on most my past birthdays and this was the first one I had off and it rocked! I didn’t care what time I got up that day, I was in NO rush to do ANYthing, I didn’t have to go to work that day, Tony didn’t work on the computer (most of the day, he cracked at the end) and I was going to eat whatever I wanted and NOT workout. I wanted to see Avatar so we paid our $15 ticket (are ya’ll sure we’re in a recession?). I sat down in my chair in the movie theatre holding on to my extra large popcorn and extra large Mr. Pipp. The whole experience was so refreshing. I finished up the day with two huge pieces of cake and Tony succumbing to his computer work.

We started off this week’s gig by going to the wrong club. And on our way to the club we drove past a car that was on fire on the side of the road. I mean flames shooting out of all four doors fire. Ignoring this bad omen we went from T.D.’s Showclub with a packed parking lot to Fantasy World with a less than packed parking lot. So we did what we always do and made a party happen anyway. It turns out our performances were going to be between two clubs, with a promotional visit to the third, the busy one. We met the manager, d.j., and helper, named D.J., T.J. and R.J. (yeah, I’m serious). R.J. was the best helper we have had to date. He was there at the club ready to go about an hour before we got there, he drove us where we needed to go, made sure we had drinks, got the promo table ready, knew the local good eating spots and little tid bits about Albuquerque, like the fake mountain that has missiles built into so when there is a threat the tops of the mountains are blown off to reveal the missiles underneath. That was the second omen.

Determined to stay on our healthy diet, Tony and I always find two things in each city, a gym and a salad bar. Each carries it’s own adventure as we mingle with the locals yet everyone knows you are the foreigner. Apparently we found, THE gym in Albuquerque. When you workout regularly you notice when are the peak times and peak days of working out, so we try to avoid those times. We did and it didn’t matter, this place was packed all the freakin’ time. It was like being in a sweaty crowd headed towards Mecca. Then we went to the salad bar, my life sounds so glamorous, right? Right before we pulled in to the parking lot, two school buses arrived. Tony had a look on his face like someone just told him he was going to pay for all those kids. “Let’s just try it” I said. We walked in…. and we walked out. So we found another salad bar, which our trusty helper R.J. mentioned and had salad.

Keeping a close eye on the weather all week, we noticed it started behind us, then was on top of us, then ahead of us as it moved perilously across the country. This drama has followed us on our sixteen-week tour, but we have been lucky to avoid it…until now. Today we head to Florida for our two million mile drive into the frigid air. I can’t wait for the warm Florida sun.

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