Cleveland, Ohio Show
Texas
Davenport Iowa
Iowa is not flat! It has beautiful rolling hills of what looks like manicured gardens.
The starship enterprise enjoying a gorgeous Iowa sunset.
The starship enterprise enjoying a gorgeous Iowa sunset.
Farms as far as the eye can see. They look mostly like family farms and not huge corporate farms.
The drive down from Wisconsin was beautiful with great rolling hills that the roads carved straight through the hills walled around us. There were green clumps of old trees, old farmhouses and lots of corn agianst the backdrop of blue clue skies and puffy white clouds. It was really pretty
This coffee shop used to be the local blacksmith shop.
The venue where we performed, with the Circumstantial Comedy Show was an awesome, a historic blacksmith shop that was converted into a cafe. I love how they didn't destroy the history but instead kept it as a centerpiece to the cafe.
The show itself was super fun, and relaxed. We met some great local talent, the youngest of which was only 16 years old!! Super funny guys and it was a pleasure to comedy with them.
So cool we got to perform here.
Hanging out with some great local comedians, and owner Wes
OIdest structure in Davenport, the firehouse.
They gave Doug a few fun cool historic keepsakes to send to his dad, who does blacksmithing.
With the owner Wes, who we hope to catch up with, when we do our show in New Orleans.
Clarion Hotel in Davenport
We stayed at the Clarion Hotel in Davenport. It's a great hotel - there was a great place for a rest. Our only complaint, was that we were only here for a quick overnight. They had a fun center that looked super fun, but we only had time for eating and sleeping.
Super cozy bed - which is my main requirement for a hotel
We've stayed in some INTERESTING places on our tour. However, to stay in a cozy clean place with a fridge/microwave and a good bed was great. I was pretty proud of myself, for dinner I made us steamed fresh asparagus, cut up potatoes with garlic, seasoning and cheese and fresh chicken. USING JUST WHAT YOU SEE HERE. It felt good to have a home cooked meal, that didn't come out of a can or a box without having to go to a restaurant.
Requirements to make a hotel seem like home: fridge, microwave and coffee pot!
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Stevens Point part 2
It's important, when our home is our car and whatever hotel or campsite that we're staying in, for it to be a cozy home with wifi, and a microwave and fridge is important too. So we were really happy with the hotel we had. Since I've vented about icky hotel experiences along the trip (Colorado Springs!!) we were happy to stay in a comfortable place (EconoLodge in Stevens Point) with an amazing and hardworking front desk person (amy) who kept going the extra mile for us, like finding us a room with a microwave and fridge - even though we didn't initially reserve one.
cool lobby
View from our room - peaceful!
Pool
We also went for a walk, in the park across the street - it's something we're trying to do more: move. We spend SO MUCH TIME stuck in the car. So we're trying to spend an hour or so a day walking around (or biking) and seeing the sites.
We then went to Rookies Sports Pub, where they set up a show for us in ONLY 5 DAYS. Wisconsin was a hard state for us, as two venues ended up canceling or not following through with booking and we thought we wouldn't find a venue for this state. So we were stoked when a sponsor of ours, Ignite Hospitality Services hooked us up with Randy, from the venue. It was amazing what he and his amazing crew of bartenders accomplished in just 5 days. Not to be forgotten the guys from Hitman Entertainment set up an awesome stage, room, sound and everything. It was amazing! Most venues in the midwest don't do comedy in the summer, because everyone is out enjoying the weather. Rookies is one of those venues, so we appreciated them doing a one-off special event night for us, at the last minute!
Hitman Entertainment at Rookies Sports Pub - preshow
Doug on stage
Teresa on stage at Rookies
Stevens Point, we had a great time. Thanks for being a great audience for our 15th state!! Now onto Iowa.
Stevens Point
Wisconsin is a beautiful state.
They have great parks in the middle of the city.
We try and get out and walk and enjoy nature whenever we can.
Several bridges,
Facilities and
lots of walking trails.
Minneapolis
Lots of great parks with lakes and pathways.
Looks like a big city.
With block parties and lots of urban sprawl it feels like the suburbs.
Minneopa State Park Waterfall.
The largest waterfall in all of Minnesota (that we have seen).
Mileage so far.
So far this is how much mileage we have put across the western United States. From Florence Oregon to Sheridan Wyoming.
A few miles more than we had expected but the Starship Enterprise is doing great. The starship is a Toyota matrix that is taking us to stardom hence the title of starship enterprise.
Here is the route so far up to date.
1 Month Update - Slowing down
So we've been on the road for a little over a month now and have come to a realization that we've tried to move a little to fast. We've had just a couple days off here and there, and pushed so hard that we haven't been able to see very much of each town we are in. This is a bummer, because it's part of the whole reason of the tour.
Thankfully, the midwest is hard to book in August, because most comedy is shut down for the month, so we're going to take that as a sign, to slow our pace a little bit. This means we won't get finished as early as we hoped and may have to reorganize our trip a little bit, but I think it's worth it. I have never been as tired doing comedy as I have the last couple days, and although we still made people laugh - and were professional - I don't think we gave the last show the energy we would have liked.
We also found, that we've taken some pretty bad deals just to perform in a specific state. Although we've had a lot of fun shows - and by comedy standards they were still successful and fun - by survival standards, we need to take a step back and be more realistic about future gigs. Actually, in August, the shows we do have booked are more practical and realistic for our needs, so that is good. We've also learned a lot this first month, some of those things were hard lessons to learn with huge financial repercussions. Such as, always use a contract. Yeah, that's an important one. Also, never use a third party hotel booking site such as ORBITZ, but if you do disregard our advice, use a credit card and not paypal to book it. That was a huge lesson we learned.
The best part of our trip, and I can speak for Doug on this: is meeting and hanging out with the local comedians in each city. Sacramento, Portland, Seattle, San Diego, Spokane, Salt Lake CIty, Albuquerque, Reno, Vegas, Denver....are just some of the towns that we've met some super talented, fun and awesome people. If you need a comedian in any of these cities, let us know and we'll give you some recommendations. One of our many goals, is to hook up local comedians with new venues, that we've booked, which have not had comedy before. This has actually worked well, and we've had a few venues meet with local comics after our shows to set up regular comedy nights. Comedy is a low maintenance entertainment option for most venues, because all you need is a mic that's hot. That is it. With the comedy scene exploding EVERYWHERE in the country there is a lot of talent out there that has been doing open mics for a couple years, and are now ready to expand to showcases and produced shows.
We have also have a newfound appreciation of booking agents. Finding venues, booking rooms and making sure they pay a consistent and promised amount is a lot of work. Being able to have a booking agent negotiate all of that, and make sure you have a room and that you know exactly how much your getting paid AND THEN MAKING SURE YOU GET THAT PAY is an invaluable service. To be able to just drive, show up and be funny is rad and we really appreciate the times we've gotten to do that, especially now.
We also have partnered with a hospitality trade service for the 2nd part of our tour which has been awesome, and we can't wait to stay at our first venue. If your a touring artist, you can find out more about the service here: http://www.ignitehospitalityservices.com/. It is not only a great way to lower the overhead of touring expenses, but is a way to network with people that live and work in the area that we're coming to do shows. This helps us find the perfect venue, and know a little more about the area. We've also used Couchsurfing.org and have had only fantastic results and met some amazing people in the process.
Can't wait to do more shows, we have some awesome ones coming up after our break in Sheridan, WY; Billings, MT and Minneapolis, MN. Oh and some surprise shows in North Dakota. We're going gorilla in our performing tactics for this un-bookable state (for us). Stay tuned to see where/how we accomplish performing comedy in this state.