Looking forward to hitting the road....

The fall tour is starting soom and I am thrilled to be able to have a piece of my former life back and to get away from all of the depressing fire-related issues that we have had to deal with. The inventory is finished and all of the receipts are accounted for and all we have to do is have fun touring and planning our new house. And it will be nice to have a steady income for a while because our credit cards are almost completely maxed out. The insurance company has not reimbursed us for much yet, and we really need the money.

This will be our 4th year doing this show. It's a musical revue with singers, dancers, and an on-stage big band. We travel all over the country in a big tour bus, playing mostly one-nighters. It has been great to have a gig like this that we can both do together. The show is excellent and we both love to travel so it is a really nice situation over all.

Last year Doug became the tour manager which is very much a mixed blessing. It pays a little bit extra, but it requires him to spend months ahead of time arranging the hotel and travel details. I've helped him quite a bit with that but he does most of it It's a huge job and it has been a good opportunity for him to learn how to become more organized. It's been nice to be able to plan some sightseeing along the way too.

Unfortunately we don't get to hang out as much as we used to while on tour because of all of his assorted duties. The overall experience of Doug being tour manager is really less than ideal, but I guess we need the money and supposedly that is why he's doing it again. He had been considering not doing it but I think he talked himself back into it while I was out on my cruise gig. I guess it didn't occur to him that if he'd spent the time that he spent working on all of the tour details making mouthpieces instead, we would be significantly better off in the money department. And we had so much more fun during the first two years of the tour than we did last year when he became the tour manager. Maybe this year will be better now that he's gotten accustomed to his various extra duties.

This fall the tour starts in Idaho and we'll be doing shows in Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, South Carolin, North Carolina, Virginia, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Massachusetts. All between September 12th and November 19th. Should be fun!!!