Well, like clockwork (or magic) we arrived last night to shirtsleeve weather, balmy Midwestern Indian summer. Not without its trial and tribulations, a remarkable convergence: Pammy by van—4 days worth—David by plane from LA, bumped from one airline to another, and me and Mike, comfortably seated on the last leg when we were informed that a bird had damaged the jet engine and they were moving the flight to another plane, alas, one with 100 less seats, Mike and I decided to bail for option #2, a pane to Midway, no luggage made it possible, it was in the van with Pammy…wahoo! Of course, our day was decidedly better than the bird! A fine dinner at a joint that Al Capone would have been proud of made it all distant history. We nested in waiting for our gig at the Chicago Cultural Center.

When we woke up this morning, wow, the windy had city had changed seasons. A cold bluster off the lake blew me back in the door…yow! It seems that everyone’s tie–we’re downtown—is in the permanent state where it has a left turn and looks more like a scarf, without the warmth factor.

We played to an enthusiastic crowd and the CCC and hung out with Greg Hartle from SCO, who generously have sponsored the travel of this tour (enabling the money we make to go to the program and they have given us ‘shout’ technology, audio blogs that we have on the site from two perspectives: she said and we said, check ‘em out). Greg videotaped the gig, he’s also gonna catch our departure in the am tomorrow, I hope the weather is better.

Chicago is a great town, except when the weather decides otherwise. Great architecture, food, the streets on the lake shore are beautifully landscaped, nice parks and killer museums...we went to a Toulouse Latrec exhibit that had me doing the can-can (ok, the can’t can’t)

We’re all excited and ready to begin the challenge again! Here we go…Act II Scene I…Action!

A gentle reminder: We are doing this to support JazzMasters Workshop, a no charge music-mentoring programs for kids. Please consider a per mile pledge, we’d appreciate it. You can do it right from this site! Thanks!