Ahhh, Des Moines, you old dog. Feels like we’ve been here before.

It’s a really nice feeling to play out-of-state rooms several times. It gets to feeling like home when you pull up in the alley to load in, you open the door to the back hallway by the storage rooms, and it smells the same as every other time you’ve been there… you know the room, the kind of sound to expect, the way the floors creak, some of the staff, etc. Nectar’s in Burlington, Vermont feels that way for us. So does The Frequency in Madison, Wisconsin and Peach’s in Yellow Springs, Ohio and Doane College in Nebraska, where we’ll be tomorrow night, and Boston College, and pretty much any place in Charlottesville, Virginia. Touring East from Denver, Des Moines is the first major city stop – or in this case, on the way back, the last – 10 hours from home. Thus, we’ve played here on pretty much every tour, and it feels like an extension of our living room. We pulled into the back alley by Vaudeville Mews and Java Joe’s and were greeted by the familiar and awesome graffiti birds on the back wall. Grabbed some pizza across the street as usual and played a 90-minute, laid back set. We had familiar faces in front of us, as well as new ones – and all seemed to take note of Anton’s ode to Super Mario Brothers during Turn My Egg. Win.

We’re at the hotel now and will be up early to say ‘Bon Voyage’ to Freddie Boy at the airport. We splurged and stayed at a Hampton Inn to get a nice big hot breakfast in the morning. The waffle maker is the cat’s meow. The fact that they have a rollaway cot for Fred makes this the first tour in SoundRabbit’s history where Fred and Russ didn’t have to share a queen bed. We’re movin’ on up. More from the road tomorrow, a short 3-hour drive to Doane College for our 4th show there in 2 years. Last time they had s’mores for us…