DAY NINETEEN: Canon City, Colorado

We’re starting to base our hotel choice mostly on the quality of the mattress. That’s what it boils down to; a good nights sleep. Good moods for both of us this morning. Pillow top mattress. There’s also a view of the mountains from my window here at the Quality Inn.
That’s an added bonus. We don’t care anymore about the complementary continental breakfasts; Frank calls the food “sludge,” and I loose my appetite. Also, as you may have gathered so far, we’re “coffee snobs.” We had a bit of a trial this morning to get our much-needed good first cup of coffee. We bought ground Starbucks to make our own at each stop, but we left the special filters in the last hotel. Frank tried to improvise with our room’s coffee maker using toilet paper. What a mess! After a trip to the Wall Mart next door, Frank made us happy again.
You can probably tell by now whether I’m writing under the influence of coffee or Chardonnay. It’s morning, so we’re good.

Some of you have inquired about some of the nuts and bolts of our trip. Here’s what we do, and here’s what we’ve learned:
Safety tips:
1. Don’t fall off the stage! Really. When scoping out each new venue, some orchestra pits blend right in with the color of the stage. Of course, there are no railings. Look Out!
2. Don’t slip on the ice. It’s that first step getting out of the car. Everywhere!
3. Don’t lock the keys in the car. We had extra keys made for this reason. Survival gear in sub-zero temperatures doesn’t do you much good if it’s locked inside the car!
4. Don’t talk on the phone while trying to navigate. We’ve added some mileage in the wrong direction because of that.
Our Car:
We’re driving a 2008 Saturn Outlook with all-wheel drive and we love it. We flew to Chicago and rented it there. After an 8000-mile loop, we’ll return it to the same place and fly back. After two weeks of snow, salt, sand and ice, we finally washed it and it’s black again. We’ve gone through several gallons of wiper fluid so far.
Clothes:
We sweet-talk dry cleaners to do my gowns the same day. I’m hard on clothes. If you’ve seen me on stage, you’ll know why. Add warm spotlights to that. On non dry cleaning days, Frank steams by gowns before each performance with a hand-held steamer we bought. (Frank grew up in a family of dry cleaners and knows his stuff!)
Our day clothes are pretty utility. Let’s put it this way: there’s quite a transformation from rehearsal to concert.
Today we’re at concert #10, and I still have two gowns packed that I haven’t worn yet.

Now I’ll fill you in about these Community Concerts we’re doing everywhere:
The Community Concert Series is something anyone can join in all these towns across America. It’s a bargain. For $35.00, one gets the whole season, including four to seven concerts. That’s as little as $5.00 per concert! (At least I’m not sweating how much these people paid to see me!) They have a board of volunteers who takes care of everything from choosing the acts for the season to all that goes on behind the scenes for each concert. We’re finding that the average number of subscribers for each town is about 400 to 800 people.
Allied Concert Services presents each town on this series with a choice of 40 different acts. The board members get to make the decision for the following year’s series based on their budget. Usually they like variety from year to year, so it would be unusual for us to play at any of these 36 stops next year. (Yes, we would LOVE to do this again next year! We just have to see what happens, and how many other venues Allied services.)
We are amazed at the fact that we got such an extensive tour! Maybe we were just the right price! (By the way, we are paid the same for each concert whether we have a crowd or not. That was comforting on Super Bowl Sunday!) One more thing: we cover our own expenses and we like it that way.

The audiences we’re experiencing are of all ages, including families. Just think of the group you would find at symphony pops concerts, the ballet, or the opera. There is a fair amount of people in their golden years, too. These people are NOT to be underestimated. They know their stuff! They are also kind, gentile, dressed up, and fun-loving. They are usually not the downloading type, so they generously purchase CD’s, knowing they won’t find us in their local record store. Are there even any record stores anymore?

Canon City is nestled in one of the most beautiful parts of the country. Interestingly enough, one of its biggest industries is the prison industry! There are 13 of them in this small town, including a prison museum. The other is tourism, and it’s easy to see why with all there is to do here, including The Royal Gorge. My only complaint is that the traffic lights seem to take their sweet ol’ time.

We walked along the River Walk today for miles on this glorious 46-degree sunny day. We so needed that! We also had lunch with Brian Konty, the son of a good friend of ours in Portland. He gave us some interesting facts about this area, as well as recommended one of the best burgers so far.

The concert tonight was in a church this time. We had to re-configure our show to accommodate the seating, and our performing area. It worked out fine, in fact, amazingly well. Being a smaller venue, the place was packed! Also, we were playing just three or four feet away from the front row. Naturally, with no stage lighting, the house lights were up slightly. We saw people smiling, tapping their feet, and being attentive. Little comments people made were audible to us. There was also the faint smell of incense.
These people blew us away! When you have an audience like that, it’s worth a lifetime of practice and all the rigors of this tour. Comments that people made after the show were so heartwarming, intelligent and specific that I thought I’d died and gone to heaven! Well, we were close; we were in a church! We had record CD sales for our tour so far. I love this town!

The next few days will be challenging. It’s as if we’re doing a Marathon and this is the long, uphill stretch. Tomorrow we travel 250 miles to Kansas, and play a concert that very night. The four days after that will be similar. We’ll be back in flat country, though, and hopefully the driving will be less treacherous if maybe a little less dramatic. We’ll see.
I have to wake up Frank to publish this blog by today. Well, Goodbye Colorado! We’ll be back!