Tour #18: Iowa and South Dakota

Long.  Road.  Trip.

RedCo took on the world by travelling by van to Storm Lake, IA, Ottumwa, IA, Watertown, SD and back.  It started with a radio phone interview...

 Derek, Ross and I all did interviews for the shows in Watertown.  They were apparently very excited to have us.  But first, we stopped in Storm Lake...

 Much of the drive looked like this.

And in Storm Lake our dressing room looked like this.  I'm always delighted by our make-shift dressing rooms that are normally classrooms.  The show was fun, and the theatre was lovely, but we found that the town was...quiet.  Back in the van to Ottumwa! 

Edgar wanted to gift us all by contributing a van muffin.  What a great bit, I thought!  Let's take a photo.  Oh man...I didn't need to clarify what the van really looks like.  The muffin didn't stay long.

Oh hi, Jess.  How's that iPod going?

 Here's our press in Ottumwa, in the lobby of the performing arts center where we played.  Another good show.  We found some seriously great Mexican food in Ottumwa (weird?) before we were served a huge pork chop dinner by the theatre.  Bleh.  Delicious and painful.  Back in the van to our final stop...


 Garmin wanted us to take this mud road to our hotel.  We listened, but learned to ignore it on the way back.  Kyle was a real trooper getting through this mess.

 At the end of the dirt road was our casino hotel, haloed by a dreamcatcher.  Nice work, Dakota Sioux!

 Our venue in Watertown was amazing.  The Goss Opera House was really beautiful.  And besides being historic, lovely and welcoming we got to hang out in this living room...

 We even got to hang out after our Saturday show to see Vanessa and Paul's SNL debut.  Huge thanks to our new friend Eric for taking care of us.

 The beautiful stage.  And look at all those ghost orbs!!  Seriously!!!

The trip was awesome, and despite a combined 28 hours in the van together RedCo remained happy.  Things I learned about this part of the country: there was a surprising amount of Mexican food, Tilliski is a terrible Black Jack player, and you may just find a few actual "Oath Keepers" in your audience.  Ok, the middle thing isn't region-specific.  Sorry, buddy.

Next Stop: Salt Lake City, UT