EPILOGUE: March 12, 2008

I got the window seat in an exit row on this Alaska flight back to Portland. Good thing, because Frank could block me from the other passengers view during takeoff, while I had the best cry of my life! It all started when I handed off my boarding pass to the kind-faced flight attendant. I said, “I’m going home!” It’s release time. We no longer are tasking, or particularly focused, or trying to stay safe or beat the weather and the clock. I wouldn’t allow myself the luxury of being homesick much during the entire tour, and now I realized just how strong those feelings were.

Looking out this airplane window, I remember what I said in Concordia, Kansas. The late afternoon sun is hitting the clouds with an orange glow, as I spot a patchwork of greens and browns through a milky mist far below. “There’s a lot of good stuff down there!” is what I told my audiences, after revealing that I was a first-timer in all these places. The pilot came on and mentioned some towns along our way. They’re like new friends now!

Yesterday we made it all 600 miles to my brother Randy’s house, the last three blocks being the hardest. I could see the redbrick second story from down the street, and I wanted to get out and run the rest of the way! That familiar big brother hug was like crossing the finish line. We also had a nice visit with Julie and Ross, and it almost felt as if this whole thing was just a dream. Randy took our picture, as promised, to compare it to the “before tour” photo, to see if we’d aged. Well, two months with a little fatigue thrown in, and some well-warn clothes. Our faces looked content, though.

This morning we spread all our stuff out on their garage floor to pack for the plane. It looked like a bomb hit, once again! Each of us was allowed two checked bags, not to exceed 50 pounds each. We were also allowed two carry-ons, with all the applied rules and restrictions. What a puzzle! We had Frank’s bass, amplifier, CDs, a toy piano and bench, Video equipment, files and files of paperwork and clothes and costumes for two months and 36 concerts! It got down to taking pantyhose out of one suitcase and putting them into another just to come out ounces under 50 pounds each. We ended up giving some stuff to Randy.

At check-in, the ticket agent looked at our load and shook her head. She was sure we were overweight on at least some bags! Well, they all weighed in at only ounces less than 50 pounds. Still with a cart full of carry-on luggage, including Frank’s bass, we sauntered through the airport with time to kill. We did it!

It’s dusk now, as we’re flying over The Rockies. It’s hard to tell where the clouds stop and the snowcaps begin. It’s amazing now, how we’re conquering these jagged peaks with such ease! I know Delta and Canon City are down there, and some of the most breathtaking sights I’ve ever seen in my life.

Frank suggested that I put my Email address at the bottom of each page to make it easier for you all to respond. I would love to stay in touch with all of you who have read this blog, even the ones who had difficulty responding. So, here it is:
sallyeharmon@yahoo.com

We can keep these wonderful new friendships going!
God Bless!
Sally

DAY FIFTY-TWO: March 11, 2008 600-mile drive to Chicago

We just saw the most amazing sunrise! After pulling out at 5:45AM this morning to a sky screaming with stars, we drove on a dark two-lane road to our first freeway, being careful of pre-dawn wandering deer. Out here the stars go all the way to the horizon! There were two enormous shooting stars to guide us on our journey east. Then, there was a dark pink glow out my side of the car, and a giant ball of fire emerged from the horizon, gently lighting the brown, swaying grasses with the optimism of a new day.

As we drive through the entire state if Iowa on the I-80, I can’t stop thinking about last night. There was so much love in the air; you could cut it with a knife! People had driven all the way from Concordia, Kansas just to see us one more time. Everyone is reading this blog, it seems, which I had no idea about during those sometimes-lonely days on the road.

Last night before the concert I sat behind the curtain, as usual, hoping and praying we would have a good crowd for our final performance. There was two people who preceded us: Marv, who told jokes, and then Mary, who announced us. Marv was a stitch! He looked like a straight-ahead guy, dressed in a business-like suit, when he asked me before going on what I thought he did for a living. Not wanting to say “insurance salesman,” I said, “actor.” He laughed and said he was now a professional jokester, and that he had been playing piano for about a year with his nose. He had a rather nice nose, but I was hoping that if he preceded me he didn’t have a cold!

I walked on stage to a full house. All during the first set the thought kept entering my head that each piece would be its last performance for a long while. There was no time to be sentimental, I had to play my best for this audience and stay focused, this concert being just like all the others. I hung up my green dress at intermission and slipped on the black one for the last time. Those gowns had really held up! I knew the second half would go lickety-split and then we would be done.

The audience was like a powerful ocean last night, with waves of laughter and applause that seemed to go on forever. They even rose to their feet before we had finished the last song! Frank had just finished a hotshot cadenza, and people went wild! We had to calm them down so that we could finish our “last song,” then tease them into the encore. My microphone had died by then, and I had to yell into the crowd. Frank then came on stage with a camera to take a picture of this. Imagine, asking an audience to freeze themselves in time, just so Frank could get them with his cell phone camera like an enormous family photo! They seemed charmed, knowing this was our last big moment of our tour.

There was a frenzy of activity at the CD table as I shook hundreds of hands and nearly ran out of ink from signing programs and CDs. It was weird; as joyful as it all was, we were still working. We had to concentrate while performing. We had crowd control and much commerce later. It was like being the host and hostess at our own elaborate party, paying attention to every detail. We then had to change clothes, pack up, load the car one more time not letting the stage door automatically close and lock on us before being finished, and drive to our hotel and try to sleep before our long drive today. Our real moment was the night before at the theater, relaxed, realizing the enormity of what we had almost completed.

While this blog has been a record of our daily adventures, I guess it is also somewhat of a love story. It’s a story of the power and joy between two people radiating from the stage and making others happy for a while. It’s about our sheer love of music, which we never grow tired of. It’s about laughing and learning through the difficult times, and appreciating all the wonderful little surprises each day brings. Would we do this again?
Wait a minute… let us catch our breath…
ABSOLUTELY!

DAY FIFTY-ONE: March 10, 2008 Fairbury, NE Two concerts

Frank was the star of our afternoon show. As soon as these 500 little kids started filing into the auditorium, I saw his face light up. The sound from the opposite side of the curtain was higher pitched this time. We walked out and played all we knew from “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” then I asked Frank to give a bass demonstration. Wow, was he HOT! The kids started raising their hands with questions such as, ”How much money do you make playing that bass?” or, “Do you play Rock ‘n Roll?” or, “Do you play any Kiss?” Frank eloquently responded with, “We have an agreement; they don’t play any of our stuff if we don’t play any of theirs.” some of these children, we were informed, were from less fortunate families having never been to a concert before, or never having heard any different music than what their parents played. It was a really fun experience in which Frank was the master of ceremonies. The kids cheered and clapped to the music in the last number, the claps sounding like pounding, rolling waves across the room. I predict that in ten years or so, there will be an abundance of bass players coming out of Fairbury, Nebraska. Frank actually came back to the hotel exhausted, but happy.

Our room right now looks like a bomb hit. We’ve gotten all our stuff out of the car from 51 days on the road, and into this space to pack and reorganize. There will be a big pile of goodies we don’t want to take home for the housekeepers. We’ve also worn some of our stuff out. That’s a good feeling in this land of plenty.

We’re watching David Letterman now, winding down from an amazing night! I was so afraid we’d both “loose it” tonight, but we treated tonight like any other night. I’ll tell you more from the car tomorrow during our 600-mile drive to Chicago. It’s supposed to go up to 64 degrees! I wish we could put the top down. It’s 11:45PM and we’re getting up at 5:00 tomorrow morning. I guess this time we won’t have to worry about icy morning roads. I plan to read Frank the entire blog during the drive, like book on tape. It’s all such a blur to us at this point; we’ll have fun re-capping.
Nighty-night, sweet dreams.

DAY FIFTY: March 9, 2008 Fairbury, Nebraska DAY OFF!

Last night’s concert went from having to struggle for our concentration, to suddenly being flooded with emotion that it was our second to last. We got another cheering standing ovation, then packed up, and finally collapsed in our room at the last Super 8 of the tour.

Today was a 350-mile drive, but we had a wonderful stop in Lincoln, Nebraska. We went to the historic part of town, by the train station. It is a pretty hip place, with upscale coffee houses, and a brewery-restaurant. We ate there and had some world-famous Nebraska beef.

Fairbury is a nice little town with things to do. We’re staying in the Capri Motel, the only place to stay in town. Frank upgraded our room to the biggest and most expensive, at $40.00.
We went to their wonderful little movie theater, and saw “The Bucket List.”
When the movie was over we both just sat there and cried, all the way through the credits until the lights turned on. It was a touching movie, and it must have sparked something in us. It’s hitting us hard that our tour is almost over, and we’ve realized we’ve had the time of our lives together. Yes, the concerts have gone better than our wildest dreams, but the true happiness has been going through all this together.

I mused with Frank that just earlier today we were tired, jokingly sarcastic about everything, and ready to go home. Yes, that’s true, but we’re now not used to being more than ten feet away from each other at any time! Holding hands in the cold night air, we saw there was a bowling alley still open. Why not? Frank’s pretty good, while I go from strikes to alley shots. What a nice change of pace!

Tomorrow will be busy. We’re doing a mini concert for grades Kindergarten through sixth grade, then our final concert is tomorrow night. There will be no fireworks, no marching bands, and no cast party; just a 600-mile drive the next day back to Chicago.
I hope we won’t be too overcome with emotion to play. We’ll just give it our all, like we always do.

We’re eating up all our spare food and I’ve lit all the candles I brought to use them up, It’s beautiful in here! Goodnight all; feel the love.

DAY FORTY-NINE: March 8, 2008 Windom, MN

I’m lying here on the bed three hours before we go to our second-to-last venue, in our last Super 8. There’s a slight vaulted ceiling in our room. Anything for excitement in interiors! Tomorrow’s final hotel in Fairbury, Nebraska, is for two nights and is in a town not big enough for a Super 8.
So, this is it, Super 888888888888888888888888888888!

I was thinking about last night’s old, slightly tattered Baldwin. On this tour, you have to accept what’s given to you graciously and do your best, whether it’s the stage limitations, the piano, lighting or no, sound and acoustics challenges, dressing room accommodations, and tech help. The key word here is flexibility. You just adapt cheerfully and quickly, with no complaints. I have to admit I was a little grumpy on this 34th concert, entering last night’s venue and finding things not quite right. There was a permanent set on the stage for the Junior High school play that was still under construction. They wanted me to play with the Grand Curtain fully closed, which I haven’t done yet up to this point. There was very little room left on the stage for the piano and us, and the curtain, touching the left side of the piano, was so dusty I was constantly sneezing. I probably showed my discontent for the lack of proper dressing room facilities and only a public bathroom to use. Then I remembered that Laurie, our contact person, is simply a volunteer doing her best to welcome us and make us as comfortable as possible. These things were not anybody’s fault! It was a building built in 1938, which was badly in need of repairs. We would make it work somehow! We opened the curtains enough to free the piano of dust, and worked with the lighting to soften things up a bit.
Then, we took magic marker and filled in the bigger nicks in the piano. We cleared a space in the equipment room to change our clothes, and Frank mopped the floor. Then I sat on that cement floor to apply my makeup, trying to catch the best possible lighting from the bare bulb in the ceiling, using a portable mirror.

All dressed in my long gown now and high heels, makeup on and ready to go, I needed to use the bathroom before going on stage. (My actor friend Benedict told me that was his biggest piece of advice for a performer.) I peaked out in the hallway, and there was a long line for the Ladies room! That was not an option. So, I hiked up my floor-length gown and wandered down some cement stairs into a dark, cold abyss looking for relief. I had five minutes now. It was spooky down there, like some kind of prison camp. There were lockers and big empty cement rooms. One was a large communal shower, I saw something that looked like what I wanted, but it was dark and the door was locked. Yikes! I started thinking about the floor drain in the communal shower. I’m going to stop right there.

Last night’s full house of 800 or so enthusiastic people quickly made us forget any challenges we had earlier. The final concern was the old Baldwin I was playing, as I tried my best to make it sing. Then I had a flashback. I was suddenly back in my teacher’s studio at The University of Maryland. Stewart Gordon, who I had studied classical piano with since childhood and on into my Masters program, had two pianos, side-to-side, that were just like this one! If anyone could teach me to make music out of an old Baldwin, it was Stewart Gordon. Now I remembered how to approach this instrument!

It’s almost time to go to venue #35. Windom is a small town. That doesn’t mean a thing when we try to guess what it will be like. It’s snowing outside.

DAY FORTY-EIGHT: March 7, 2008 New Ulm, MN

We were floating rather than sleeping last night. If there’s anything I’ve learned from this tour, it is to expect the unexpected. When presented with the cute five-foot baby grand Kawai piano to fill this big hall full of people, I gasped. I’m strong, but not that strong! Well, it was the little piano that could. What big sound came out of those short strings! It sounded better than one of the nine-footers I played last month! We had the luxury of rehearsing in the hall the day before, so Frank and I were familiar with everything, and our musical skills were freshly sharpened.

At about 6:25PM, people started entering the hall. Frank said, “What, is this an open rehearsal? Should we ask those people to leave!” I looked out there, in tee-shirt, jeans, and no makeup, and politely explained that they could hold seats, but to please come back 20 minutes later. They politely started to turn back when I asked; “The concert isn’t until 7:30, right?” As it was, the show was scheduled for 7:00! Yikes! I laughed and apologized, told everyone to forget they saw me like this!

We were scrambling at that point. Frank still had to set up CD’s get the video camera happening, and get dressed. I had to “hop to” in the dressing room. We pulled it together in time to be wonderfully introduced by the vice president of the association. He talked about Frank having played with some major names in the jazz world, as well as Mark Russell, the political satirist. He spoke of me playing for the King and Queen of Sweden, having started piano at age three. It was easy to come out on stage after that.

The first half went like a dream. No hitches. No problems. We kept looking at each other, smiling. Frank was standing close to me in the curve of this smaller piano, and I loved watching his fingers delicately moving up and down the fret board as he played. The rehearsal had helped, and that little piano was really puttin’ out. The audience was like a racecar; powerful and responsive. We looked forward to the second half.

After playing “Blue Mountain,” the first number in the second half, Frank was signaling to me from the wings to play another number before he came on. He needed to get the video camera going again. I was up there dumbfounded! I couldn’t change the “flow” of the second half at this point, so I looked out to the audience and said, “This next piece requires Frank. Where’s Frank? Well, knowing him, if I do a really long intro, he’ll come running up to play his first note just in time!”
I was way out on a limb here. I didn’t know how much time he needed and what was involved with this new piece of equipment. I played the intro. No Frank. So, I noodled around and played the intro again, slightly differently, looking around and getting the audience to look around too. Then I played some long trills, and in comes Frank, dashing down the aisle, leaping onto the stage and whisking up his bass in time for his first note. The audience roared with applause and laughter. Phew!

I wasn’t sure he’d had success back there, and this was such an exceptional evening, I sure hoped we were getting this on tape. Frank gave me a reassuring nod that we were good to go. At the end people stood, cheering. We did our usual encore and then headed for the lobby to meet and greet. That’s when Frank broke the news to me that John Folin, a senior executive from Allied Concert Services was there with his wife. Amazing. Frank had known all day, but I didn’t have a clue, thank goodness.

As I was shaking hands and signing CDs I glanced over to see this very elegant couple talking to Frank. The gentleman was giving a fine, detailed critique of our show, and his beautiful, well-dressed wife was smiling. “That couldn’t be him,” I thought, “he bought a CD.” It was indeed, and he insisted on buying it, even though they probably had an office full of our stuff. They both congratulated us on our long and successful tour, saying they were amazed at our stamina. They both told us that they enjoyed every second of our show, and then John handed Frank a thick folder of all the critiques and Newspaper reviews they had received on us. There was a glow about that folder, as he said, “Enjoy!”
We felt fulfilled more than ever about all that we had strived to do and become. We celebrated with beer and pretzels in the hot tub at the Super 8!

Frank and I woke up this morning after being a little too excited to sleep. We didn’t have very far to drive today, thank goodness, but we were to meet some people for lunch in New Ulm, with a concert later this evening. These are the ones that found my tape at a garage sale years ago, then booked us for a concert, and after that went well, then referred us to Allied for this tour. These are not just any people for lunch! They drove here from Minneapolis just to see us and hear us perform once again.

New Ulm is a gorgeous little historic town with upscale stores and restaurants, and plenty to do. Why couldn’t we have been here for two nights? Unfortunately with our schedule today, there was not much time to explore. This seems to be somewhat of a tourist destination. It will be interesting to see if the venue matches the town.

It was great to see Paul and Karen again, as we were practically exploding with stories about our tour. We had a nice lunch at a German restaurant, and familiar faces at this point were a welcome sight.

The concert tonight was one of the best attended on our tour. We must have had 800 or so in the audience. The venue and the piano were a bit old and tattered, but we made the best of it. People were unbelievably receptive and excited, which made for a thrilling evening. We only have two more concert stops to go, with an extra school program on our last day. It’s hard to believe we may actually be going home soon!

DAY FORTY-SEVEN: March 6, 2008 Glencoe, MN

What do you do when you have the whole day free, it’s 5 degrees outside, the streets are icy, the town has no theatres, libraries or museums, and you’re in a small room at the Super 8? Frank and I take turns on the computer. We savor every email from our friends, fans and family like fine literature. We answer everything almost immediately, unlike when we are at home.

This morning I also went swimming in the spa. Really! You have to do the legs and arms separately, but it wasn’t very hot and holding onto the sides, you can actually get some exercise. (It’s easy to work up a sweat in there.) I read in today’s paper that the daily recommended walking for the average person is 10,000 steps, or about five miles. Also in the paper were the Surgeon General’s recommended 8 to 10 servings of fruits and vegetables per day. How different the streets and sidewalks would look if that were the case! Everyone would be bundled up and out, crazy like us! The food offered up at restaurants would be different, too. It’s tough to eat healthy on the road. We end up going to grocery stores and buying fruit, whole grains and local cheeses.

Speaking of the newspaper and our daily “discovery walks,” we did find something interesting today after all. After visiting Gert and Erma’s coffee shop (we’re regulars now), we wandered into an old newspaper office, The Glencoe Enterprise. What a blast from the past! The office has been producing papers there since 1873. They still had most of the original equipment, creaky floors, and beautiful old windows. A woman came out and greeted us with a huge white bandage on her chin, saying she had slipped on the ice. We know how easy that is to do! For some reason, the conversation quickly changed to bird and animal rescue. She ended up helping me learn male and female Eagle birdcalls, as well as differing Owl tunes for specific occasions. What a HOOT! We ended up being entertained by this woman, Marie Thurn, for close to an hour, getting interesting facts about wildlife in the area, AM radio stations where we can get the inside scoop on a town, where to eat in all the places we’re going, and even pranks she and her friends have pulled on her husband, who owns the gas station across the street. After being surprised at her instant friendliness in an area where the people seem somewhat reserved, we were charmed, and told her of our concert tonight and put her on the guest list. She would make a great opening act!

Wow, what a night! It’s nights like these that make everything so worth it! Too beat to write now, but plenty to write about tomorrow. Man, oh man!
ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzWHEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!

DAY FORTY-SIX: March 5, 2008 Glencoe, Minnesota DAY OFF!

Travel today should have been easy, with a day off and only 150 miles to go, but it wasn’t. The winds were ferocious, and these little secondary roads were filled with ice patches and blowing snow. While driving cautiously, you can only hope that others will, too. The biggest fear for me is of facing an oncoming car “daredevil” passing in the ice and snow. If our car had to swerve a dive to avoid such a thing, it would be in a deep ditch full of snow in the middle of nowhere. Today was a high of 18 degrees. Frank pointed out that sometimes road conditions change from county to county, and definitely state to state. As we crossed over into Minnesota from South Dakota this morning about 9:30 AM, there was a definite change on the road. We went from a sanded and salted road in South Dakota to an untreated snowy and icy road in Minnesota. Driving from that point on was very stressful and the strong winds didn’t help.

We rolled into our Super 8 (the only hotel in Glencoe), and collapsed once again. Frank went out to check out the town and came back with a dozen red roses for me! (Sniff!)

We decided to arrange some practice time today and it felt good to sharpen up on a few things for our last four concerts. After that, Frank talked me into driving to Hutchinson (20 miles away), for a movie, since there’s no theater in this town. I reluctantly said yes, as I knew he meant well. We ended up driving on very dark back roads with random ice patches everywhere. We took a couple of wrong turns, but finally found the theater, but by that time, we missed the show. Disappointed, we braved the trip back to Glencoe and hunkered down back at our hotel room. There just doesn’t seem to be much to do in Glencoe in the winter if you don’t live here.

If we do this tour again, we’ll suggest that maybe on our days off we can play for the schools more in these areas. We would meet more people and have fun entertaining all these great kids. Today at the school when we were practicing, there were auditions for the class play. I wanted to jump right in!

The next three nights are busy with concerts. We’re looking forward to that. We’ve practiced, we have up-dated haircuts, and our outfits are freshly cleaned. That’s how we’re dealing with the home stretch. Tomorrow I think we’ll take a long walk no matter what. Maybe we’ll stumble across something interesting!

DAY FORTY-FIVE: March 4, 2008 Milbank, SD

There’s a sign suspended above Main Street that says, “Enjoy Milbank.” Well, yes we are, thank you. This little town (too small for a Wal Mart) has so much more to it than meets the eye. Frank went into town and scheduled us for a grain elevator tour! We have been rolling past these enormous structures for weeks now, and I was curious to see one up close. So, we headed out of town a few miles to see the newest and biggest. I was scared, I don’t know why. I was picturing this locked in, claustrophobic experience, and going up some tiny elevator inside a big cement tower or something.
What we saw were rivers of corn being let out from underneath big trucks, running through these enormous grates to be then scooped up from underground by a conveyor of many cups to carry it to the top of this 20-story structure. We were taken into an office where everything is tracked by computer. They store corn, wheat, and soybeans. They put probes into each truck before weighing the load to check for bugs, and if all checks out ok, this big company buys from the farmers who usually haul it in themselves with their own trucks. These people with the grain elevators are the “Middle Man.” They warehouse these grains and then sell most of everything to China. So that little kernel of corn or wheat or soy from the farm gets trucked to these elevators, then falls through a shoot into a railroad car to the west coast, then onto a ship to China. The man told us that it’s all about speed. They only get so much time to load railroad cars, or trucks, or there are big penalties. It’s a ‘round the clock operation. Wow. I gave him a CD as a thank you, and he hardly recognized me from the picture. That figures.

We were on a roll. We parked on Main Street to take a stroll through town, and we saw some trucks painted like cows. We wandered over there to find a cheese making plant. There was a Swiss flag hanging outside. That’s a good sign. It was Valley Queen Cheese. As it goes, two men traveled from Switzerland, met in Wisconsin, and started a business in Milbank, SD seventy-five years ago. Now they’re making 75 million pounds of cheese yearly! We got another tour! It was amazing to see these vats the size of Olympic pools with cheese, curds, and whey being stirred by what looked like gigantic whisks. We bought some yummy pepper jack and aged cheddar and invited everyone to our concert tonight. So hopefully, we’ll have some of the “big cheeses “ in town tonight!

Then we wandered over to the courthouse, which is usually the most historic and grand building in these towns. This was no exception. Inside was a marble staircase with scrolled brass banisters leading up several floors to a spectacular hand-painted rotunda. On the top floor was a classic courtroom, the kind you would see in “Perry Mason,” but maybe a little older and fancier. There were more than one defibrillator machines available, as well as a fainting couch in the Ladies room. I guess some pretty upsetting things can go on in that courtroom! There were other official offices as well on various floors, including a County Nurse facility that was open. In the entryway were many food boxes, filled and ready to go for the less fortunate in the area. Beautiful granite war memorials stood proudly outside to commemorate the people of Milbank, fighting for our country in all the various wars of the last century.

We walked on, we passed a boarded up old theatre and other beautiful old closed buildings. Life was rather grand back then for these town folk! Now, new buildings are usually Wal Marts or Pizza Huts. Sorry, I’m just a hopeless romantic. If I lived here, I’d try to keep the restoration funds going. Maybe I’m just out of touch with current priorities.

Almost to the car now, we passed by a little place that caught my eye. They had Wild Chokecherry jam in the window, and it was as local as you can get. We wandered in smelling some kind of meat being smoked, as I browsed through the homemade jams. A pretty young woman in a bonnet came up to the counter after she and her husband were conversing in a language I couldn’t quite make out. It sounded like some kind of German/English mix. Frank was fascinated at all the various sausages and smoked meats they were making. Hunters apparently bring them their freshly killed game to be processed into almost anything they like. They then sell the skins to fur dealers. We were given samples of Buffalo, Venison, and Summer Sausage. After buying some, they generously gave us other meats for our travels. Their adorable little daughter was running around, obviously enjoying these curious new people in their shop. I couldn’t hold off any longer, and had to ask where they were from. They said, “South Dakota.” Oh. Then they told us they were ex- Hutterites. That explained it. Hutterites are a strict community of German dissent, almost like the Amish. This family had left the group because they got tired of being told every detail of how to live. They travel in to town every day from far out in the country, and love it that way. The father said he once went to Chicago (the south side), and was scared to death. Never again for him! He laughed when I told him I was scared of the grain elevator this morning!

We went back to our room after a great outing, to a gourmet picnic of fresh cheese with Venison sausage, and apples with wild chokecherry jam for dessert. Now that’s livin’!

We arrived at the High School to be greeted by the Darrel, the association president. He was very helpful but rather reserved, so our first impression was of not being sure how well we would do with this audience. Boy, were we wrong! They cheered, they hooted and hollered, and laughed out loud! It was a healthy turnout, too, considering we had a basketball tournament to compete with. We were on cloud nine. It also helped to play with freshly styled hair and newly dry cleaned clothes. We decided that we would work to have our last five concerts are to be our finest yet. Tomorrow, even though we only have driving to do, we plan to schedule time to practice a few hours in the hall. This is last lap sprint time.

Frank told me that Darrel came up to him after our show and was very complementary. He said at first he wasn’t sure he wanted to listen to piano music for two hours, but was surprised to be that entertained and loved the show. He also ended up agreeing with my staging ideas. (I made some special requests about how I wanted things to look.) Remember many weeks ago when I talked about the reluctant man whose wife drags him to see some lady play the piano? The result is he is the first to stand, applauding, and he becomes the most wonderful fan and friend. Cool.

We loaded the car after the concert in the most beautiful, peaceful snow. You might think we’d sick of this stuff by now, but it was silently coming down and magical. Tonight was not brutally cold or windy. Let’s hope we still feel that way about this snow on our drive tomorrow to Glencoe, Minnesota. Better turn in. Wow, what a great day! When can we do this again?
ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

DAY FORTY-FOUR: March 3, 2008 Travel to Milbank, SD

Our glorious spring day on March 1st was a tease. We woke up yesterday morning with the same sun beaming in the window. We had plenty of time before our Matinee, so we put on our duds to go for a repeat walk around the lake. We left the hotel, spun around, went back in and put on more duds. The walk was so windy and cold we had to hang on to each other for dear life! We found out that in just 15 hours, the temperature had dropped from 64 to 20 degrees, and the winds were 50 to 60 MPH! What a refreshing way to start the day! (We noticed we were the only ones anywhere in sight.)

We arrived at the movie theatre at 12:00 and all was well. The piano was on stage in front of a curtain that covered the movie screen. It was a Yamaha, and the community raised the money to buy it. The six-footer was enough to fill this 145-seat hall. We knew we would have a cozy, packed, enthusiastic house. There was also a lovely dried flower arrangement on stage to grace the piano, complements of the theatre manager’s wife, who was the town’s piano teacher.

Frank broke the news to me about our “dressing room” one and a half hours before our show. Apparently the theatre office, which is what we were given, was now locked with the only key inside the locked room. Yikes! All my make-up, my gowns, everything for the show was in there! Terry, the manager, called the town locksmith to help us out. I thought it would only be moments now before we had access. The guy showed up, but had real trouble breaking in. He tried credit cards. He tried crowbars. Nothing worked. Now people were starting to show up for the concert, and I was in the lobby in my old jeans, tea shirt, with no makeup. The guy kept trying. I was then suggested to wait in the somewhat chilly alleyway until the door was forced open. My fingers were getting numb, and we had 15 minutes now until Showtime. (It takes me 30 minutes to get ready.) I told Frank that I had a “plan B,” and that I had an extra gown in the car, as well as extra makeup. Frank told me the car keys were in the locked room, too! Shoot!
Would these people get their money’s worth with me going on as is? I could improvise plenty of jokes about it. Pressure and mishaps are great inspirers.

Finally, at 1: 52 PM, the door opened to the “dressing room” and I had eight minutes before walking on stage. Someone got me a little hand mirror so I could do my makeup, and we just about made it. I ran down the cold side hallway, my high heals clicking and my gown’s train dragging, and hopped up there on the piano bench under the spotlights.

This little Hettinger audience rocked! We made jokes about everything, about being late, and why, about Frank “rock picking” (rooting around for the world-famous North Dakota petrified wood), about doing a concert in a movie theatre and more. We never felt more welcomed and wonderful. Luckily, we got some of this on tape with our new video camera.

Later we went to a local hangout for dinner with our contact person, Pam Harper, and her husband, Bob. The Sunday night special at this local hangout was waffles with all the trimmings. One person had a stack of pancakes that were the size of four or five pizzas piled up. People do like their food here! We enjoyed our conversation and Bob got all excited at the very idea that it was possible that through distant relatives, he and Frank could be related! Were there possibly some undiscovered inheritance claims?

There seems to be almost an instant familiarity when we meet Midwesterners. They may break the ice by taking a chance, asking, “Illinois license plates… do you know my cousin Suzy in Ottawa?” People not only know almost everyone in their own towns, but in the neighboring towns as well, as if everyone is a part of a patchwork in some gigantic quilt.

We made it to Milbank today after a sunny, easy 320 miles. We both had a hair cut in Aberdeen. On tour, hair is an issue, since you want to look your best every night on stage. At home of course, we have our regular people we go to and trust. On the road we have to just hold our breath, and walk in wherever, hoping whoever it is can take us right away and we end up looking like ourselves. Today’s experience was full of punchy humor, and left us with upgraded hair. We feel less like the ragged Salmon I described earlier, at the end of their long journey, ready to spawn.

We are down to five concerts left, but 1700 miles of driving. We have five more High School Auditoriums to go.
We’re in another Super 8 tonight, and have three more of them left after this. I wish they had a souvenir tea shirt! We have kept all the room keys, though. We’re going to figure out some silly game to play with them.

After six and a half weeks now, we’re a little bit in the Twilight Zone. We alternate from being really excited to being like Zombies. Our humor is getting sillier and wackier, and we laugh at the stupidest things, now. Towards the end, I promise you that I will write a list of the craziest stupidest things that have happened with no names or places to protect the innocent. Not tonight, though. It’s low lighting and cream-colored walls here at the Super 8, with the décor being a mirror and a coat rack. I think I’ll turn off the light and dream of our own bed just nine days away…

DAY FORTY-THREE: March 2, 2008 Hettinger, North Dakota

DAY FORTY-THREE: March 2, 2008 Hettinger, North Dakota

In today’s Bismarck Tribune front page, top-of-the-fold, the headline reads, “Gold nuggets from the soil,” Wheat farmers are enjoying $20 a bushel! Yesterday I mused about Channel and Gucci boutiques going in next to Wal Marts around here, but I quickly nixed that. The paper says, “The farmer doesn’t have his money very long. He takes it to town… he goes to the bank to pay down loans, and gives money to the equipment dealer and upgrades an old tractor, or buys another piece of machinery.”
Well that’s just like us. Frank’s bidding on a six-string version of his bass on EBay, and I’m working towards that dreamy nine-foot Steinway.

Tomorrow’s a travel day 320 miles across South Dakota and will be a good time to write about all our adventures today; and there were some, definitely! Stay tuned…
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DAY FORTY-TWO: March 1, 2008 Travel to Hettinger, N.D. DAY OFf

We’re going south! (South North Dakota, that is.) The journey is similar to yesterday: constant streams of snow blowing westward across the road, like we’re driving through hovering, fast-moving clouds. The mild 16 degrees this morning seemed brutal because of strong winds. Frank read that Hettinger is expecting a high of 60 today! (That’s ABOVE zero!) Say what? He wanted to high tail out of our room, so I had to gulp down my coffee.

As we roll through these vast plains, we have a newer understanding of what goes on around here. After last night’s concert we had the pleasure of enjoying pizza and beer with Paul and Nancy Olson, our contact people. Nancy has taught music for many years, and Paul is an aerospace engineer. Although that alone would have been plenty to talk about, we ended up discussing the open plains of this vast state, which only has 600,000 or so inhabitants. Paul shared how he gave one of his out-of-state coworkers directions, with them ending up calling him on their cell phones way lost. That was because in his directions he said, “Turn left at the first stop sign, then, right at the light.” What he took for granted was that these moves were 40 to 60 miles apart!

We’re bumping along on this I-83 south with a giant horizon all around us. This whole trip we’ve seen lots of silos and grain elevators. I said to the audience last night that before we leave, I want a tour of one of those things. As it goes, they aren’t really elevators, but complicated series of storage areas for many types of grains. Many people approached me in the lobby trying to help me in my quest. Maybe today we can stop and see one. (Please, Frank? I’ll trade you that for a pawn shop!)
After reading about grain prices, those things are like giant gold mines! The farmers are sitting pretty this year. Also, we learned of the tremendous oil reserves in this state. When people buy land around here, the mineral rights are a separate transaction. There has been new oil recently discovered in these parts. So maybe next trip we’ll start to see Gucci and Channel stores, and car dealerships with BMWs and Mercedes along beside the Wal Marts! Somehow, I doubt it. There will be a quiet wealth, like the rural version of the book, “The Millionaire Next Door.”

Nancy and Paul also told us of all the tribal culture that exists here. I think it is the Chippewa tribe. We heard their music in the car being played on their own radio station. It sounded quite Native American, with all the drums, rhythms and chanting, but with Pop-style lyrics added like, “ I don’t wanna be your #2!”

Today, being Saturday is a big hockey day. Families travel for miles to neighboring towns for their kid’s tournaments. Just about every place we’ve visited has a hockey rink, and kids start young. There’s also something called, “curling.” That has to do with sliding big granite discs on the ice, kind of like a giant game of Shuffleboard. On ladies night, first there’s a visit to the “Snake Pit,” a furnace room where there’s some gossip and guzzling going on, then they start at those big pieces of granite.
We’re also in the heart of basketball season, with High School boys and girls rival teams beating it out for the championships, commanding the full attention of everyone for hundreds of miles.

There’s a lot more going on in these small towns than meets the eye. People’s nights are fully booked with church events, sports events and various forms of culture. Our concerts sometimes compete with other activities, and people have to make a choice. So much for us rolling into town and saving the day with something to do!

For example, when we checked into our Super 8 yesterday, we were told there were two events going on in Bottineau that night; our concert and a wedding. A big dance was following the wedding and the whole town was invited. Everyone? Including us hotel guests at the Super 8? I guess so! Even Paul and Nancy were interested in checking it out with us after our pizza and beer. We respectfully declined, because at 11:30PM I was starting to melt from fatigue.

Last night’s concert went well, although both of us were running on reserve power. Still, this audience was just as important as all the rest! So we gave it our all, none-the-less.
Frank suggested that maybe people shouldn’t know so much about what we’ve gone through; as if they’re getting us like warn out Salmon at the end of the run, ragged, ready to spawn. My brother Randy even took a picture of us before we left for this tour, so he could compare it to us on our return; to see how much we’ve aged!

All these thoughts and fears were dispelled last night, after I got the greatest complement of the tour: A handsome older man came up to me and said, ”You are about the sexiest thing we’ve had here in years!” Wow! It must have been the shoes. Maybe he had trouble seeing. I didn’t care. I was basking in the moment, and I told Frank about it in the dressing room later. He responded with, “Well Sally, you’re not the only one. I’ve had a few mature ladies hinting at more than casseroles!” We were so amused we could hardly concentrate to pack up.

Oh, my God! The ground is brown! We’re almost as far south as Bismarck, and the temperature has climbed to 46 degrees! I just wound down the window and it was balmy!
March is definitely coming in like a lamb.

We stopped in Bismarck at The Texas Roadhouse and had two of the best steaks we’ve ever had. It was crowded and bustling in there, and the mood was so upbeat it made me want to be a Texan! Maybe all the good moods were due to the now 53-degree miracle outside.

It seems that one creature had Spring fever, though, in the parking lot of T.J. Max. As we parked, we saw a beautiful Yellow Lab mix crossing a busy street near us. I gasped, knowing there was not much we could do. A nice man was then holding the dog by the collar, trying to read the phone #. I helped him decipher the numbers on the warn-out tag and luckily, the owner was home. By this time, there were four of us petting this obviously already well-loved dog. He sat, lifted his paw to shake, but was a little nervous and distracted. Then an embarrassed and thankful woman pulled up in her car, and said he had escaped his invisible fence. With this warmer weather, it may have been too tempting, being the first day for really good smells in a long time!
We were all so relieved and happy that I went in and scored a new pair of designer spring shoes!

Wowie Zowie! It’s now 64 degrees! We’re driving with our windows down now on North Dakota’s famous Enchanted Highway. It’s enchanted because some artist did major iron sculptures every few miles along side this small, barren, desolate road. To us what was really enchanted was the way the road would seem to climb up to the sky like a landing strip. The brown hills are oddly shaped and somehow different. We feel so carefree!

Uh oh. Our gas tank is running dangerously low. We’ve gone about 10 miles now, and its 30 or 40 miles until the next tiny little dot on the map. Those tiny little dots don’t necessarily mean gas stations, either. We can’t chance it, we have to turn around and try to make it to Dickenson. Darn! Well, now that we’re going the other way the sun is behind us, and it’s even more beautiful.

We made it to Dickenson after holding our breath. I asked Frank why a warning signal didn’t come on. He said maybe the needle wasn’t down far enough. Far enough? In North Dakota, gas warnings should go off at a half tank!
I really wanted to go in the dinosaur museum there, but it was closed. Apparently, this is major country for big fossils. Imagine those creatures roaming around where we were driving!
All the highways we took at that point were enchanted, because we had gas, it was warm, and there were no dinosaurs to contend with. We did see hundreds of beautiful wild pheasants and even some bald eagles all the way to Hettinger, though.

Hettinger is a small town with a beautiful lake and wildlife preserve. We arrived in time to take a sunset walk all the way around the frozen waters. The adjacent hills and grasslands were teaming with all kinds of birds, and the peaceful silence of this setting made it possible to hear their many calls. We kept walking, and ended up on Main Street. There was a man outside a small, old-fashioned movie theatre and he told us there was a piano concert there tomorrow. How about that? He showed us in and sure enough, the movie theatre doubles as a live venue! There is a nice new Yamaha waiting for me tomorrow tucked behind the double doors. His wife is the piano teacher in town, and we walked by her studio and peaked in the window. Nice. There was actually a movie playing tonight, so after killing some time at a nice restaurant nearby, we went to see “27 Dresses.” Our first movie in two months! What fun. Lots of people there recognized me from the posters, even with no makeup on, and in black fleece instead of a red gown.
With seating being only146, I think we may have a full house.
I’ve always wanted to play in a movie theatre. Now we need to come up with some silent films!

Today turned out being a fabulous day. It was the kind of day we really needed. Tomorrow should be interesting.