Minneapolis Tour Diary (Part 2)
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We start the day together at Galactic Pizza in Minneapolis, which has been mentioned in every prior conversation related to this Minneapolis show, all past Twin Cities shows, past touring of any kind, our website, and (natch) our upcoming Pizza Fest gig. (It's that good.) We order six pizzas, each at least medium-sized, two of which have white sauces on them, which I think should count as at least 33% more filling than normal in the competitive eating standards set by our fearless leader. Some of us feel slightly ill from this amount of pizza, but had we known at this point that the return trip would take 10 hours, I think we would have eaten more.
Our first delay happens near the Wisconsin border, a slight gaper's block as we pass an RV, pulled over, that has reportedly run a car with stolen tires into the shoulder. Stolen Tire Car bolts the scene upon realizing their tires have been identified, presumably in some sort of interstate database of Stolen Tires and The Vehicles They Propel. All of this is related to me by a friendly road crew worker on the shoulder of the highway, staring at a gas gauge slightly above empty.
Slightly. The gas gauge was totally wrong.
While we are waiting for the other half of the band to rescue us with a gas canister, a deer approaches the highway near the car. Perhaps the deer was looking for its friends, many of whom are dead in the breakdown lane behind us. Sad. I'm preparing to be traumatized watching this stupid deer lope across the highway into an SUV. El is envisioning, perhaps, that the deer even ricochets into our windshield as an added bonus trauma. Matt, in the driver's seat, honks the horn repeatedly. Nothing. The deer maybe thinks that since our car is stopped, the rest of the highway is going to follow suit. Stupid, stupid deer. The honking finally convinces it to turn back to the forest, which kind of makes us running out of gas worth it, El reasons, because we have saved a deer's life today.
A few hours later, a lake floods one of the eastbound lanes of I-90. Awesome. We finish an entire crossword puzzle in the time it takes to pass the flooded area. At this point it's not even thunderstorming, which starts soon enough, about the same time we receive a call from the other car. During a gas stop they've been told that a tornado touched down about 20 miles in the direction we're driving in. Awesome. We stop at a McDonald's to try to figure out if driving further south is stupid. If we were deer, this is when we would start listening for insistent honking. We hear a lot about Cedar Rapids, not a lot about Wisconsin. We book it back to Chicago.
And if you thought all of that was exciting, we're playing with the Battle Royale again next Tuesday at the Empty Bottle.
We start the day together at Galactic Pizza in Minneapolis, which has been mentioned in every prior conversation related to this Minneapolis show, all past Twin Cities shows, past touring of any kind, our website, and (natch) our upcoming Pizza Fest gig. (It's that good.) We order six pizzas, each at least medium-sized, two of which have white sauces on them, which I think should count as at least 33% more filling than normal in the competitive eating standards set by our fearless leader. Some of us feel slightly ill from this amount of pizza, but had we known at this point that the return trip would take 10 hours, I think we would have eaten more.
Our first delay happens near the Wisconsin border, a slight gaper's block as we pass an RV, pulled over, that has reportedly run a car with stolen tires into the shoulder. Stolen Tire Car bolts the scene upon realizing their tires have been identified, presumably in some sort of interstate database of Stolen Tires and The Vehicles They Propel. All of this is related to me by a friendly road crew worker on the shoulder of the highway, staring at a gas gauge slightly above empty.
Slightly. The gas gauge was totally wrong.
While we are waiting for the other half of the band to rescue us with a gas canister, a deer approaches the highway near the car. Perhaps the deer was looking for its friends, many of whom are dead in the breakdown lane behind us. Sad. I'm preparing to be traumatized watching this stupid deer lope across the highway into an SUV. El is envisioning, perhaps, that the deer even ricochets into our windshield as an added bonus trauma. Matt, in the driver's seat, honks the horn repeatedly. Nothing. The deer maybe thinks that since our car is stopped, the rest of the highway is going to follow suit. Stupid, stupid deer. The honking finally convinces it to turn back to the forest, which kind of makes us running out of gas worth it, El reasons, because we have saved a deer's life today.
A few hours later, a lake floods one of the eastbound lanes of I-90. Awesome. We finish an entire crossword puzzle in the time it takes to pass the flooded area. At this point it's not even thunderstorming, which starts soon enough, about the same time we receive a call from the other car. During a gas stop they've been told that a tornado touched down about 20 miles in the direction we're driving in. Awesome. We stop at a McDonald's to try to figure out if driving further south is stupid. If we were deer, this is when we would start listening for insistent honking. We hear a lot about Cedar Rapids, not a lot about Wisconsin. We book it back to Chicago.
And if you thought all of that was exciting, we're playing with the Battle Royale again next Tuesday at the Empty Bottle.
Labels: shows canasta, tour diary, travel
posted by Ian at 6/17/2008 05:37:00 PM
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