Portland 2019: Oregon to Idaho

The tour line-up! Jessie, Nolan, Tyler, Adrienne, and me

As previously mentioned, at the end of June, I toured for seven dates with the regressive-pop post-punk dark-Americana band Insomniac Folklore. A lot has passed since my last blog entry: a whirlwind cross-country trip, very intense time with family and friends, unforgettable memories, becoming completely undone but in a good way, and embracing the first day of my third decade on the planet.

It was kind of a crazy two weeks.

Now I'm in post-trip crash, and my mind and body are completely confused about where I am and what's going on. But amid these fragments, I'm trying to scrape together some sort of sequence of events to share what the tour was like, and why it was the perfect way to end my 20's.

Let's start on June 28th, which was the third tour date, but the first day that we actually left Oregon and I had to say goodbye to Zach. 

It was early morning— we had to drive to Boise, which is seven hours if you don't stop, so everyone was bustling around the van, figuring out last-minute where to pack everything. Five people and all their instruments, gear, and personal items crammed into one van was going to get interesting. I puts dibs on the captain chair in the middle, with Tyler and Adrienne up front and Nolan and Jessie crammed into the back.

Zach and I kissed in the hot sunshine, and I think both of us looked like lost puppies as Tyler pulled out and we waved goodbye. It would be about two weeks before we'd see each other again, but I reminded myself that we had both agreed to this— and also felt a bit curious about what it would be like to be apart for a while.

We weathered a traffic jam getting out of Portland, then sailed down the Columbia Gorge. I watched out the windows as the landscape changed, hour by hour, from mossy forest to open rangeland to barren hills.

The group was fairly quiet, occasionally making commentary about the scenery or dropping a dry joke (usually from Nolan or Jessie in the back). We stopped at a gas station and bought blueberry donuts and I ate three of them. 

This is actually what about half of Oregon looks like.

Oregon crawled by. I read an entire memoir (Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot). I wrote (without regard to grammar) in my journal:

Although I'm hot right now in the non-air-conditioned van, mountains streaked with snow pass by off to the right. Eastern Oregon is green in the foreground where sprinklers have tread, dusty sage where they have not, navy blue at the roots of the mountains, clumps of sagebrush, tips of snow, purple vetch and tiny yellow wildflowers. Ahead and to the left, sage-colored hills smeared with the shadows of clouds. Cumulus clouds stretching and dissolving, frozen in motion. Hot sun on my arm… A new world. A new chance to live.

When I think of Zach, I picture him back home in St. Louis. This tour, this sense of travel, alienates me from the life we've been living, makes me forget Vancouver as surely as I'd forgotten St. Charles before. It's an eerie but a comfortable feeling.

At last we were climbing a stretch of highway leading up to a plateau, a long and difficult climb. Adrienne and I were chatting about personal boundaries and how hard it is to have them when the van began to lose power, buck, and misfire. Our conversation fell silent as Tyler shifted and reshifted the gears. This could get interesting…

We pulled over at a scenic overlook, and Tyler looked under the hood while the rest of us waited quietly for the verdict. Adrienne pulled out her phone and began Googling the problem, and we started driving again, praying and coaxing the van up the rest of the mountain.

Fortunately, Tyler and Adrienne are used to such car troubles, and we stopped at a tiny town for a trip to Auto Zone so Tyler could replace the fuel filter. I wandered around the town in search of a grocery store (unsuccessfully; I ended up at Wendy's instead), and Jessie handed Tyler tools under the van. The sun was scorching hot, but I couldn't keep a grin off my face; something has to go wrong on every trip, so it's good we were getting it out of the way early!

After an hour, we were on the road again, running a bit late for our gig, but at least the van was still functioning.

Our show that night was in an art gallery with a bar called The Lounge at the End of the Universe. The organizers ushered us into a green room full of huge oil landscapes, and we were astonished to see a buffet of homemade food: chips and hummus, pasta and greens salad, tofu pilaf, quinoa tabbouleh, and even wine! We had just enough time to gobble down a couple plates each before the show started.

Jessie began by playing his solo set (check out Jessie Bear!), followed by a delightfully nihilistic accordion band called A Mighty Band of Microbes.

Then we were up, taking the stage in our bold white-and-sand-colored costumes, our faces painted, our bodies sweating in the lights. Our audience included several long-time fans, and as we played I could feel the energy crackling in the crowd. That was the only night I had a vocal microphone as well, and I sang. I sang very loudly. 

We sang about all the usual stuff: how everything will burn, the uselessness of life, walking in a city after dark, the apocalypse, Moses, finding God in the desert, how you should listen to your parents but not trust the government, kids these days, the courage and defiance of continuing to live, and everything in between.

On the last song, Tyler and Adrienne sang the chorus, "You are whole, You are holy, You are whole, You are holy," and I belted out in counterpoint, "There is so much blood, there is so much blood, there is so much blood." I sang until my throat was sore and tears were leaking from my eyes.

I slept well that night.

~~~