Happy Birthday Lukas! TIKI!

This is a picture of the new Tiki backdrop banner for our Bamboo (Bananas to the Beat) production number. It will debut in Arizona.
Lukas, our sound engineer, roadie, friend celebrated his 21st birthday today. No booz but some really good cupcakes from the local Toledo Bakery that won "Cupcake Wars" on TV.


H e had a laid back day toady. We will continue to celebrate his birthday down the road. I have an idea for a present but can't get it here.

Enjoying Time Off Before Hitting the Coconino Fair

It's hard to believe we took off on this wild tour technically at the end of April (but since there was a quick trip back home we left in early May) and are still on the road. We just came off of a nonstop month of shows and traveling to shows. With how busy we've been this time off between gigs is appreciated by everyone.

We are going to make the best of it too. Leaving Ohio we will hit Berea, KY and visit Cynthia at school for a day. Then we plan on hitting St Louis, Branson and haven't figured out the next stop....just as long as we make Flagstaff, AZ by the first.

The fair has contacted me and are excited about having us, as we are excited about going. But the change from the south, midwest and northeast is going to be something to get used to. It is already getting cooler in the north with very chili evenings.

Today however, it was warm enough for the kids to hit the local pool and make a splash down there.

The rest of the day has been everyone chilling...strange not to have someone climbing rigging, or practicing a routine.

Oh today is our sound-guy, Lukas', birthday...21!!!

Flying Pig.....A Day at the Cousins

Swirling clouds and a burst of sun. That was the scene out my RV window as we drove from PA to OH yesterday. To our parents' delight back in Cali we met up with my cousins, the Parkers, in Toledo and, if you read yesterday's blog, supped.

Today We all slept in to a degree. I beat everyone with a 10 am wake-up. Of course I sleep in the RV everywhere we go so I get the advantage of not having 17 people buzzing around whilst I slumber. I think I needed it.

One cloud formation I saw was a flying pig....see below.

Flying pig.....

Our day today was nice. The girls played with Jessica. The Boys played with Brandon and Wesley. Belle played with Barkly and Kodi(ac). I had a little business running around to do and then made it a laid back day. Mami kept trying to find things to do so she cooked bfast for everyone and kept trying to clean up everything in the Parkers' house. She doesn't know how to rest. The older boys and Midori all did their laundry. My boys had the full wrath of our large family laundry load to deal with. Except the white...they never do a good job on those so I did the whites.

Pizza was in order for dinner. We had Gino's pizza, a thin crust pizza. It was alright but the gas bubbles in me tell me something in one of those pizzas didn't settle right in my tummy.

When we went to pick up the pizza I must confess I was a bit rude or maybe blunt would be a better word. I noticed as the 18 or so year old young lady who worked at the register had a recovering hickey. I could not resist. When told hello and how am I doing I said, "fine, and you? Looks like your hickey is healing nicely. She played it cool and said, "yeah". But when I gave her my ATM card to swipe it wouldn't swipe for her (it's old) and so she started swiping it harder and harder and faster and faster getting frustrated." Poor thing. Maybe I was a bit rough. I was pleasant in every other respect but I was bothered by the hickey and I shamed her...shame on me? I had a hickey once and I have to admit I was embarrassed of it. You know, you really don't realize you are getting one when wrapped up in all those hormones....hmmm. She might next time, I suppose. I'm a baaaaad Boy?

In the early eve Jim, Nick, Midori, Bill and Lukas went to the mall for some shopping but also met up with our local "stalkers". They had a good time. Tomorrow is Lukas' Bday...what to do?

We will hit the road soon to visit sites along our path to Arizona.

Brazilian BBQ in Toledo and A Fire Cage in PA

We slept late this morning. The RV park was spacious, quiet and green. Dew on the ground up until we left at noon. The sun was out and cotton ball clouds filled the sky, nothing ominous about them. They were the pretty type you can find taking on the shapes of pigs flying and dragons blowing white billowy fire from their nose. There was a cold breeze that felt great in the warm sun of the morning. Fall is coming on fast out here.

Packed up we hit the Walmart on the way out of town for food supplies and such. While everyone else hit Wally's world. Belle and I hit the Petco to get Mice for Buttercup. What luck that they shared the same shopping area. Still we were parked pretty far from the Petco and I got a nice brisk walk.

Back in the vehicles we started our long drive out of PA. However we made one stop. If you read the blog regularly you know we have a new illusion called bananas to the beat of the Bamboo illusion. We have been developing it over the season. It needed a better way for "the girl" or "banana queen" to come out. Up til now she just walked out on stage. This new illusion, the Fire Cage, will allow Jim to ignite the floor of the empty cage with his Samoan Fire Knife after doing his dance. Then the cage is briefly covered and uncovered to reveal from the fire is the girl. We are also adding Miles dresses as a Samoan as well eating fire in the opening sequence. Since the dress was made for a taller larger girl we are also taking the dress in a bit.

The illusion was being kept in State College, that's the silliest name for a town, home of Penn State. In fact most the town is Penn State. So I guess we drove through Penn state. Lots of students beginning to show up for school. Which made moving through town a bit slow. That added to us getting to Toledo late. In fact, add the lost time for that, plus the long time Mami and the kids were in Walmart (one HOUR), and several 45 MPH, and 50 MPH construction zones and our planned arrival time turned into nearly 10:30PM!

My cousins Jay and Kris planned a wonderful Brazilian BBQ. Jay spent much time down in Brazil and learned how to do it. The boys got to try it last summer during their ill fated drive home with the lousy Chevy Van that broke down in MA then IA. So it was nice to try it after hearing so much about it. AWESOME.

We are unsure of our exact schedule right now but have to be in AZ by Sept 1. So we will plan out our route and visit a few cool places on our way. But for now, it is tomorrow already and I just drove for ever through PA. One note on that. PA driving is like those dreams where you run and run and run but never get to where you are going. We were all soooo happy to see that Ohio sign...except for the outrageous toll road....$40 total toll for the two vehicles.....and the roads are pot holed, cracked, bumpy, and SUCK! We have noticed that most blue state's roads are pretty bad. What do they use all that road tax, gas tax, and toll money for? Ain't the roads.

Lost Trailer Ball-hitch......350feet below ground

I set my mental alarm clock and woke up from a very light sleep in time to see Cynthia off this morning at 5:15 AM. She and her friend Jules from Vermont were off on a very long drive back to college in Kentucky. I am happy to report that she arrived safely but sounded very tired on the phone. I look forward to hearing about her drive when she has checked in and rested up a bit. We are already missing her on the tour.

The rest of us, after finishing up packing and readying the vehicles, took off for Scranton, PA to take a tour of a real coal mine. It was very cool. Really, fifty degrees constantly, all year long when you are deep under ground. We went 350 feet down and got an extensive lesson of how coal mining worked and works. A lot of changes in the last 100 years.

On our way to Scranton, only an hour or so from the fair, I heard over the two-way from Nick that my trailer was on the slide. The ball and ball arm of the hitch had come off. I pulled off quickly and sure enough I was dragging the trailer by it's safety chains. Second time I have experienced the drag. The first time was about 10 years ago and it was a ball size mistake by the guy who sold me the trailer and hitch. This time it was a big mistake by one of us. I won't name the person, but one person in the group who had never put the ball arm on the vehicles put the arm in and then put the pin that hold it to the hitch connection...but did not set the stop on it so that it wouldn't slide out. The person had never done it before and guessed how to do it. Since any number of us can put the hitch on we regulars never guessed that the novice had installed the ball and arm. So we did not double check the pin. The terrible blue-state roads ( a term I came up with because every blue state we have been in has really bad roads....California leads them all. I noticed red states seem to take care of their infrastructural a little better..just an observation). Jim ran about a mile back to find the ball and hitch, while the rest of us looked at the trailer side of the hitch, which looked a bit grim, it had been molested fairly badly by the ball being ripped out of it's socket. Amazingly the jack still worked in spite of being dragged a half mile. Though it's bolts are a bit loose now and the jack base is ground up a little. We also discovered the RV's back bumper was scratch up a bit and slightly bent in one area. The big surprise was the trailer frame itself bent a bit at the point it meets the trailer box. Now it bend or bows about 1 or 2 inches...looks a little funny. There goes it's resale value.

After messing with the innards of the trailer side of the hitch I was able to free up the little part inside that hold the ball in place and get it to accept the ball. But we were missing a pin to hold all that weight...we found a bolt among all of our tools and stuff that was nearly a perfect fit. Still I would not trust it for cross country. We found a Walmart after going to the mine and got a new ball and a new pin. Since the ball was ripped from the socket some of it's metal was shaved off and I felt it would be safer with a new ball and a snugger fit. After a couple of weight and stress tests we determined it would probably be OK to continue on with it.
We road a special car down the shaft...the miners would actually ride in the coal cars, which could hold 5 tons of coal when full. Each miner had a quota of 15 tons (3 car loads) a day...in actuality they had to make the loads heaping so it turned out to be 16 tons a day...(this one is is for you JC...16 tons and what do you get, another day older and deeper in debt...)

The shafts are actually the area where coal once was. They would remove the coal between the sand stone and use it as the passages. The timbers aren't there to hold up the roof it turns out. They are early detection devices. When the start to talk you start to walk...or run. If the roof becomes unstable and starts to fall it puts weight on the timbers the begin to creek...that was a sign to run for cover.
Everyone had fun but the little ones did get bored a time or two since it was a long 1 hour tour with lots of coal talk.
Victor thought it would be fun to work in the mines.....yeah, right!

I found these mushrooms growing on a timber in the mine. The mines are constantly dripping water. The miners would have to deal with the water, the dust from the coal, the chance of flash fires, of cave ins, lack of oxygen, poisonous gasses.


Coming up was interesting. The light from outside was hard to take at first and the air slowly warmed as we came up. We also noticed....
the girls had coal feet.
Turned out Titus' chair couldn't fit in the car down so Miles volunteered to walk him about while we toured. He kept Belle too. After seeing the girls feet I am glad Belle stayed on top.

Even though we are only around 3 and half hours from the fairgrounds we were all worn out from the day so we hit a Cracker Barrel for dinner. The serving sizes were sadly small and the service was slow and error filled. It was our second time at a CB and I think our last since in Texas and here in PA it was the same. Where is a Bob Evans when you need one. Still I am thankful for the meal and the waitress did give me a lead on camps nearby. That is where I am now as I write this. We will respite here until late morning then run an hour or sow down the road to check out an illusion this guy has for sale. After that we will end up back in Toledo for a night or two with our cousins then onward to discover more of the country as we work our way over to AZ for the Coconino County fair..

Last Day in NY...Farewell CC...

Find Alf?

Today was our last day at the Delaware County fair and it was a lot of fun. Three full audiences and a playful time on stage all day.

Sadly today was also the last day for Cynthia on the tour. Tomorrow morning, very early, she and her friend from Vermont start their trek to Kentucky...13 hours or so. They plan on a straight drive....I know CC can do it she has done so with the show many many times.

This is Chet and his wife...our stage managers. Really nice folk!
I took this during the show...My view form on the stage to the back stage.
This young man was a hoot so I put some bling on him and snapped a shot. The glasses just would not stay straight.

Tomorrow we plan on visiting a coal mine after we pack up and leave here. Then we will go down to Hershey and see what that town is made of. Educational and tasty day planned for tomorrow.

Since it was the last day today I treated the kids to taffy, candy apples, ice cream floats, etc. The little ones took a couple of dollars from their earnings and bought little trinkets to remember the fair by. Everyone said their various goodbyes to their friends. They made so many here. It's kind of cool having friends in so many places.

Blessings to you all.

Freaky Friday

Belle resting up backstage before her part in the show. Such a prima-dona.

The morning was eerily quite for a Friday. As a result our 1pm show started off with only a few people but it picked up and was pretty full by then end of the show. Our second show was packed to start off with but a sudden thunderstorm drove in throngs and the place was packed out. It was one of those one in a hundred shows where everything clicks and goes really really well.

The rain went on for around 4o minutes and dropped a lot of water. As a result the much was back on the roads and it made for sloppy walking all day long.

Hmmm?
Hmmm??
Victor performs his strait jacket escape for a good sized crowd.


Success!
OK, Nick has gone off the deep end. His transformation is complete....welcome to the dark side. This was taken just before I introduced him and he came diving out on stage straight onto the trapeze! It was one of those surprises that I wasn't in on and I was as surprised as the audience was.


Cynthia and Jim Sing an Acapulco bluegrass diddy!
OK, Uncle bill has gone crazy too and now lives as a hermit clown under the stage.

Walton is tiny. Now Wal-mart or major chain store outside one very tiny CVS Pharmacy. The internet signal at the fairgrounds is weak and shared by hundreds if not thousands and as a result to get reliable service (if you don't have a Verizon card or similar like I've got) you have to go the Mc Donalds. Bill and Midori have made frequent pilgrimages there. I'm surprised the others haven't. Or maybe they have and I didn't know.

There are many many many Rvs here. And there is no full hookup sites here. No sewer! So one has to drive across the fairgrounds to a dump station or put an order in for the septic truck. He came today. It was worth the $20. Still for showers, since we can't just drop gray water, we have to go to one of three shower bathroom facilities. The silly plumber who designed it did two things wrong. First the multiple toilets and sinks and the showers share the same cold water pipes. So if you are in the shower you get a variety of temperatures to make showering and adventure. Second at one point the plumber put in 3" pipe for the cold water then had the toilets, sinks and showers branch off of that pipe with smaller pipes. The problem is the large pipe acts like a tank of sorts and when several people use the water sources it drops the pressure in the whole system real fast as the larger pipe has to refill to maintain pressure....the end result....scalding surprises while in the shower as cold water pressure drops. On this note, I mentioned two other shower rooms. One is located in the 4H area and is pretty much a mud and animal poo depository. The second is in between the ag area and the rest of the fair. So by 10pm it is muddied up pretty good. The third, the one I use, is near the main gate firmly in the non ag section of the fair. Another bathroom point of interest is they have bathroom attendants who sit by the front door with a tip jar. I think they are the ones who keep the places clean. But who knows. I do know this tip thing we have seen at other NY fairs and at the Maine fair but no others.

Photos of DelCo fair Day 4

Here is our stage set at the Del Co Fair.
My picture tops the ad for the fair in the newspaper.

Miles Pushing Anti Monkey Butt Powder. what a sales man!
Che Che the clown.
Jim playing for a fullhouse
Lukas asleep under the stage.
Miles' Apartment under the stage.
Midori is impaled in the show.
OK, I know it is stupid but the trapeze was there, I was there...but I am a man and men do dumb things...it played well for the crowd too.
OK, going upsdie down was pushing it.
But jim rescued me.
Jim and Vic doing a double diabolo routine.
Our bow!
Cleaning up the show.
Jim in our Bamboo illusions opener.
Midori about to loose her head.
Fire whip Miles.
Whipping on the wire.
Balancing a bench.

The 50% chance of rain never materialized. It was down right an oven in the tent. However the shows went really well and the tent was packed at every show. Uncle Bill brought Titus over for two shows and he had a blast watching the show. When I asked Titus from the stage if he wanted to perform he signed that he did not but wanted to watch.

Bill has been so helpful around here since he arrived. In fact, as I type this he is helping shower Titus.

Tomorrow we are supposed to have another chance of rain.

It is very expensive out here. Mile is over $4.09 Per gallon....