it's just plain HOT out here in the west. i guess that should go without saying when one realizes that it's all DESERT out here., but i mean HOT. in two weeks out here - mostly, Phoenix and Las Vegas - the lowest high was 106 or 105 i think. and the highest was 112!! that's hot!! i don't care if it's "dry" or not.
stupid
we just finished a string of really great cities - Colorado Springs and Las Vegas and are now in Phoenix.
Colorado Springs was great! the highlight of which was THE best train yard on the tour (from what i'm told) There was a park there, with GRASS and a playground, and a pool, tennis courts, and a basketball court. Right on the other side of the park was a beautiful college campus. In fact, one of the days there a bunch of our south americans played a game of futbol with some kids from the college on their soccer field. These type of opportunities don't come around often at ALL out here in train life. our world is navigated mostly by foot or by cab. A few folks have bikes and a few folks have their cars out here and they drive instead of taking the train runs, which, if i haven't made it clear enough, are THE best part of being out here .
So, anyway. the yard was amazing. We ad some great cook outs at the park. i got to play basketball, which i hadn't done in almost a YEAR, and during one of our cookouts Fulkerson brought out his new set of 4 congas, a djembe, some agogo bells, and claves and a few of us just had some fun as "Normal" folk were passing by.
That was the other unusual thing : there were just a bunch of locals, just normal locals walking around our train yard/their park. A train yard is traditionally a pretty isolated place - and in most cases it's a downright undesirable place to be. If we get some greenery, some flat space for a grill, and a little mart or convenience store that's within walking distance then it's gonna be a good week. but sometimes, it's really rocky and uneven right off the track, and in bad cases it's an isolated, not-so-great neighborhood where ya gotta watch here you walk.
then, there was Vegas. Vegas was cool. i'm glad of all my vices, (which aren't many, but ARE beloved) gambling isn't one of them. i lost $15 bucks at the slots and that was about all the gambling i had an appetite for apparently. i Did stay up all night and see the sun rise over Treasure Island though, and there's plenty of places to go exploring so it was never boring and i got to see my second ever Cirque de Soleil show, O, and that was pretty ok.
the strip was so much to take in. just lights, and lights and lights. and the place never slowed down. now, i've been to new york, and i gotta say las vegas really DOESN"T ever sleep! and when you're in these casinos it's difficult to tell what time of day it is, what with the tinted windows, and no clocks, and dizzying floor plans and WAY too many mirrors EVERYWHERE!!! I'd never SEEN so many mirrors!! and, of course since there were so many ... it looked like there were THAT MANY MORE !
we played at the Orleans Arena located conveniently at The Orleans Hotel & Casino. Michael Bolton was also playing there in the hotel's other theatre at the same time as we were. I didn't see Mr. B, but i didn't meet the girl who played trombone in his band, and his drummer as well - i guess that was cool. albeit, they were the GREATEST trombone player and drummer, respectively, on Earth. THOSE people's services have already been retained by the good people here at Ringling, of course.
Crowds were great the whole week - being in the same place to a hotel brought a lot of tourist of course, and being in a city with a lot of entertainers living IN it was a factor too. I heard the phrase "Vegas is Ringling's graveyard" apparently, a lot of ex-ringling people end up with stationary jobs here in vegas on some show. Eli (our greatest sound guy on Earth) is friends with the sound guy on Cirque's Ka show, and i believe that guy used to be circus on the Red show ...
so, i it was nice to play for other entertainers - the show can get so monotonous that it's cool to know there's an audience who's more aware of what's going into what we do than the average bear. not that we don't perform well for the general public, but performers know that performers tend to put a little bit more "paprika on the shish kabob" for other performers, if ya know what i mean!
