Day sixteen (from Kristi)

We're at day sixteen of twenty-five now in the tour and it feels like we've turned the corner toward the end run. Leaving Kansas City was a major turning point.  The Folk Alliance Conference left us with cumulative effects of five days of sleep deficit combined with intense concentration of all the pressures of the international music business.  Reaching the finish line of that week felt like something of a relief to me.  I expect to spend some of some of the long hours in the Ford Escape processing my notes from the conference with my band-mates.

We've had phenomenal weather until yesterday.  Having crossed two thousand mostly mountainous miles, we barely saw what could pass for winter anywhere until it snowed a few inches here in St. Louis.  But we made our way to our two gigs yesterday with no delay nor danger except for power outages from a windstorm, which blackened traffic lights.

Looking back on our performances, I'm amazed that things have gone so well and without a single hitch.  I know the racial statistics in this city are around 60% black but our audiences thus-far have been almost entirely white. I'm guessing it's because of the neighborhoods we've been booked into.  I just take what I can get when I book and frankly don't have a clue as to the makeup of a neighborhood when I research booking leads.  But it's a little surprising to me.

 Greetings from Kansas City.  Oh yeah; it didn't exist eight hundred years ago in my time.

Our hosts in Kansas City made time for us to see the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art on the day before we left.  As much as Steve has his reservations about the elite nature of museum art, we both were captivated for hours.  I still have my own reservations about the appropriative nature of art in museums, but as our host Don said, “it was all stolen fair and square”.  We had performed in South Dakota at a venue next-door to a world-class gallery selling recently-made art from local Native Americans.  It was heartening to have a perspective from that experience of seeing that many of the kinds of art on display at the Nelson Atkins Museum are still being made by Native Americans today.

Looking back on our tour, Spokane was a bright seesaw of emotions for me.  Our venues are so pleased with our performances that they're begging us to return, which is mighty appealing.  Our accommodations were reasonable enough and very comfortable.  The city itself offered sufficient entertainment just walking around public spaces to occupy a full day of enjoyment.  Rosemary Ponnekonti, arts editor of the News Tribune, had done a feature article in the Go section so I had some idea of all the art installations downtown which have been added in recent years.  I was duly impressed.  But I can't stand on the magnificent pedestrian suspension bridge over the Spokane River downtown without choking back tears.  My father, John P. Esvelt, who designed it and was senior engineer for the Spokane Expo ‘74, accomplished so much in his short life and never lived to see the completion of his designs in the Riverfront Park.  Spokane is still filled with the weight of heartbreak for me, even after seven years since my brother and mother died there.  But we will go back to Spokane.