Rollin', rollin', rollin'

keep them dogies rollin', rawhide....

We're definitely rolling right along. Today was a travel day, so we took advantage of a late-morning flight and the beautiful weather in Seattle to do a little walking. Pike's Market has little shops, coffee joints [including the original Starbucks], florists, those fish-tossing guys that are always on the Travel Channel at 2 a.m., performance spaces, and bakeries, all lined up along the waterfront. It was a beautiful way to start the morning, especially after all of the travel and jet lag starts to catch up.


After a stroll, and possibly the best pumpkin spice chai tea soy latte [high maintenance? true. perfection in a cup? also true.] in the history of time itself, we loaded up our suitcases and headed to the airport. The flight to O'Hare was uneventful: sacrifices were made to the sudoku gods and the checked baggage gods, I listened to a fab new song written by a colleague's daughter {Watch out, Kelly Clarkson!} and lots of my favorite folkies. ACB does FriPod lists, and she inspired me to put together a playlist of songs that would get me in the traveling mood and psyched for our destination. Today's selections?

• Seattle to Chicago - Woody Guthrie
• Via Chicago - Wilco
• Chicago - Frank Sinatra
• Chicago - Graham Nash
• Chicago - Matt Kearney
• Is Chicago, Is Not Chicago - Soul Coughing
• Chicago - Sufjan Stevens

We got into the hotel around the evening rush and went to dinner with the glamorous new-girl-in-town KH and two adorable musical newlyweds [not new to music, but newly wed to each other.] who are good friends of EM. Capped the night off with some honest-to-goodness Chicago-style stuffed pizza. I am now officially in a lovely carb coma. I have never seen a slice of pizza that big. In. My. Life. It was awesome.

Tomorrow is a very long day of auditions, followed hopefully by some low-key sightseeing. I have to say again how lucky I am to be traveling with such great folks. I'm grateful for the opportunity to hear so much singing and to continue to develop and refine my ear. And I am grateful for the laughter, the great conversation, the general ease of the trip thus far - it's good stuff.

Here's a fuzzy picture of the Millennium Park amphitheater designed by Frank Gehry. It's so sexy! It's a beautiful complement to the urban architecture, and while it doesn't have the rustic beauty of our amphitheater it's an incredible work of art.