Tour day 2.

We awaken in Chico, CA, greeted by heavy freezing rain. I am quickly becoming acquainted with how lovely winter touring conditions are in the northwest. We say our goodbyes to our gracious host Sara Rose and prepare to head on our way.

We take a quick tour through downtown Chico, in which Mark had previously lived for a bit, stop at a grocery store to restock our fruit supply, and pay a visit to Naked Lounge, the local coffee/tea spot. It is here that I discover “The Vietnamese Hammerhead” – a double espresso topped with coffee + condensed milk. My dreams are finally realized. Alex gets a quad-mocha, only to top it off later with two tall energy drinks from the gas station. Truly impressive.

A day of driving later, we arrive in Eugene, OR. Alex spent a few years here getting one of his degrees (he has his pHD, so it could be one of many), so we were expecting a warm welcome from Alex fans.

Mark & Alex were playing an in-store performance that night. Things began to develop in a most interesting fashion… setup became an epic battle of performance vs. feng shui.

By the time we had finished setting up, all I had to say was this. And I’ll leave it at that.

[6:42 PST]

Rargh. These are the times when I sort of wish I still had a relatively small, little-known email list where I could post detail after ridiculous detail of my tour stories. I suppose I still could, but I have unfortunately started to develop some sort of tact-filter in my effort to avoid posting any sort of blatant negative material. Alas.

Next task: find sustenance. We decide to go to the nearby mall and find some food.

We find ourselves in the middle of a department store, completely overrun by crowded store displays and agitated families, the children completely jacked from of the abundance of edible samples every few feet or so. People are looking strangely at Alex, who happens to be carrying a human-sized cello case on his back. Mark and Alex and I weave through the chaos, grabbing cheese samples as we went. Alex almost accidentally takes out a child with his cello. I am the only one who notices.

We find ourselves in the middle of the food court. It is still oddly crowded. There are children in costumes everywhere. I feel like I’m in the twilight zone.

Mark wanders off to explore, and Alex and cello and I sit down to eat our delicious food court meal. Next thing we know, we are in the middle of a holiday dance recital. Yeah. In the food court. Dozens of children dancing to The Nutcracker within the confines of a 10′ x 12′ space cleared out among the food court tables.

Here’s to another normal night of tour.

Back at the venue, the show begins, and the listening room is so packed that people are overflowing into the side retail area. People were astounded, whether they be old friends of Alex, or old fans of Mark, or curious newcomers who happened to read about the show as “pick of the week” in the local paper.

After some post-show grub with old friends at a local brewery, we head to our night’s final destination – the Cortesia Sanctuary.

Hm. Where do I begin. Cortesia Sanctuary is a beautiful, secluded 22-acre property located in the woods of Oregon. It’s owned by Dr. Forrest McDowell and his wife, Tricia Clark-McDowell. Both are renowned best-selling authors of countless books, launching international movements in gardening, and becoming popular speakers at conferences around the country. They are also internationally-noted authors and contributors in the field of herbal remedies and philosophy.

I of course had no idea about any of this upon my arrival.

I knocked on their front door to be greeted by Forrest and Tricia, who I had not met until this moment. I found myself in the middle of an incredible, rustic but architecturally complex cabin, adorned with high ceilings and lofts, both of which I have a weakness for (I am an architecture nerd and originally planned to be one for a living – I’ve changed my mind approx. 80 times since then).

Forrest and Tricia were prepared for our arrival. They pulled homemade cookies out of the oven immediately and told us to feast. And that we did.

We all ended up sitting comatose around the living room, discussing life and our careers and aspirations until the wee hours of the morning. I finally decided to retire, and was led by Tricia to my own personal yurt, a domestic pod of sorts, located behind the house, for me to sleep in my own privacy. This place gets more amazing by the minute. I left the guys to play music together for the rest of the night (apparently they didn’t go to bed until 4 or so in the morning).

Morning arrives. Forrest cooks us a wonderful breakfast. We take a minute to explore the incredible property and gardens, located 1000 feet over a valley bank, then pack up our bags and say our goodbyes.

So ends another normal town adventure. Next stop: Seattle.

To see a bit more about Forrest & Tricia’s property, visit their website – onesanctuary.com.

10:00 AM. I awake to find Tim and Shaun missing, but there is a note waiting for me. They have gone to get brunch supplies. We are to do a series of tasks before they return, including “be awesome.” On it.

We have planned a Well Done Brunch. Invited: Bowerbirds, Megafaun, Hometapes crew.

We took this project pretty seriously. It’s the first-ever Well Done Brunch. We can’t let the people down. We have menus and everything.

Let me just give you the rundown of what we created.

Iced Coffees.

Mimosas.

Bloody Mary Bar.

Egg frittatas with bacon, white cheddar, garlic, herbs and veggies from the garden.

Blueberry corn pancakes, topped with maple butter.

Curry breakfast potatoes.

Roasted potatoes with garlic and rosemary. (compliments of Megafaun Brad)

Fruit salad.

Shaun was busy preparing a brisket to cook for the next seven hours, I played waitress and took everyone’s order, while Tim shelled out frittatas at a blinding rate. I’m not entirely sure how he did it. He has breakfast superpowers.

We ate like champions, then watched the boys play in the water hose. Just a typical day in tour land.

As if this wasn’t enough to call it a day at 4 PM, we all decide to drive to Washington state for the afternoon to play in the river and jump off cliffs. And that we did.

Finally, nighttime arrives, and it’s time to celebrate Adam’s birthday at the Hometapes abode. We run back to Shaun’s house and prepare yet another epic meal: beef brisket with raspberry BBQ sauce, sweet potato salad, brown sugar baked beans, cabbage slaw, gluten-free peanut butter cookies with fresh strawberry compote, and ice cream. This is getting ridiculous.

We head to the celebration. Brad has french braids in his hair. Mark is wearing Beth’s jorts. More eating like champions. Everyone is comatose by the end of it. We decide that the best day ever has to end at some point, and head back to Shaun’s to retire from yet another glorious night in Portland.

So that ends one of the best weekend of my entire life. Can’t we all just stay here forever?

More stories + photos at our official tour blog: www.welldonetour.com.

Shaun took me brisket shopping.

Such a large mass of meat is worthy of its own blog post.

More stories + photos at our official tour blog: www.welldonetour.com.

Day 2 began with Tim cooking the most epic breakfast from whatever he could find in Shaun’s kitchen and/or potted herb garden. Tim is known for his epic breakfast making, but this one really took the cake. I think we’ve earned our keep at Shaun’s house.

We spent the afternoon exploring the downtown Portland area with Shaun & Margaret, eating ice cream, touring giant bookstores, and enjoying gourmet happy hour treats (fried kalamata olives for one dollar? yes please).

We eventually head over to Porque No taco shack to meet Megafaun and the Hometapes crew. We are in the land of Hometapes, and we finally meet the staff of the label, including Sarah’s husband and label co-owner, Adam. I had a shrimp-chile-pineapple taco. I’m fairly sure it was the best taco I’ve ever had. Quite sure actually.

We swung on a tire for a bit, then headed to the venue.

Run-On Sentence:

Megafaun:

Bowerbirds:

The show was at Mississippi Studios. This was a big show, as it’s Hometapes territory, and the turnout was huge. Both bands played one of their best sets I had ever heard them play. The crowd was incredible. I tried to hover near the front and shoot as much as I could.

After the show, we did a quick visit to a neighborhood bar, then headed back to Shaun’s to make obscene amounts of iced coffee and make ridiculously detailed brunch plans until 4 in the morning. Totally normal.

Bed. Epic day of cooking begins in five hours.

More stories + photos at our official tour blog: www.welldonetour.com.

Driving out of Utah, we were faced with the decision to drive to Seattle, Anacortes, or Portland. All routes led us through Boise, so we just went to Boise.

I would have liked to see this city, as I’ve only been there for a day before this visit, but we arrived at 3 in the morning and just wanted to get a hotel and pass out. And that we did. We spent a couple of hours in the morning doing some work at an Idaho bookstore-coffeeshop, then headed onward to our destination of choice: Portland.

We chose Portland for a number of reasons.
- The drive was several hours shorter.
- There was no chance of being late to the show, because we’d be an entire day early.
- I had noticed a Portland-based design blog had mentioned our coverage of Megafaun. I sent him a message thanking him and informed him that we happened to be on our way to his city. He asked us if we had plans upon our arrival (we did not) and invited us to a BBQ he was hosting. Of course we said yes. Who doesn’t love BBQ-ing with strangers in Oregon? It sounded like an adventure in the making to me.

Nine hours later, we’re driving along the Gorge, surrounded by water and mountains and Christmas trees and windmills that resemble giant bladed alien probes. We arrived at Shaun’s house soon after.

Facts about Shaun:
- He is a Portland-based designer who spent years working with Wieden+Kennedy.
- He is moving to Raleigh-Durham (our hometown) in 10 days to work as art director for Travelocity.
- He was recently in Raleigh staying with my friend Grayson. Hanging out with my friends.
- He is best friends with the owners of Hometapes, Megafaun’s record label, who we’ve been touring with already.
- Basically, we were destined to meet him anyway.

I don’t think I can say enough how freaking small this world is.

So we dove right in. Lots of tasty drinks and grub waiting for us. It was a proper west-coast BBQ, a foodie’s haven. We quickly got acclimated to our new environment and finished up the night crashing our new temporary Portland abode with our new best friends, Shaun and Margaret.

We would end up living here for the next three days.

More stories + photos at our official tour blog: www.welldonetour.com.