Heartland Tour

some photos from our screenings in Texas. thanks everyone, you’ve been great!

-Kelley

thanks for the music austin!  daniel ha, a great LiNK chapter member, playing with a bluegrass group at momo’s.  also caught a great jazz sextet at the elephant room.  and these were just happenstance, didnt even have time to catch the more slightly known acts in town like asobi sekusu.  definitely going back to austin, great music, food, bookstores, and amazingly friendly people.

a few photo highlights from tour so far.

it’s been fun and beautiful. =)

-Kelley

The Heartland Nomads run into some epic weather.

finishing colorado

well, we’ve been here for a week and i think we are all ready to move on.  denver and colorado springs have been up and down by the day, from sleeping in a park to in a mansion, from 500 person screenings to 3.  so far its tough to keep the eyes on the prize, but it think once we fall into the groove, we’ll be just fine. we have already met some amazing people, thanks to jeff for putting us up so well, we had a blast.  now we are off the texas, we are spending 3 weeks there, so here’s looking forward to pickups, bbq, and some southern hospitality.  see y’all soon!

denvers take on boba tea.  yeehaaww!!!

A taste of life on the road with the Heartland Nomads

best first day ever!

okay, a quick rundown of the first driving day of our trip.  buzzing from bullhead city, az to colorado springs should have taken about 13 hours (according to mapquest).  15 hours in, we realized there was a slight disparity between mapquest, our gps, and the reality of pee breaks, tourist traps, and faulty credit cards.  an added bonus was the hour we forgot to include for the time change.  so when we found a kind soul willing to put us up for the night, we were pretty overjoyed.

deciding that i didnt want to be any later absolutely necessary, i was pretty much taking the beautiful colorado mountains at a hellish pace, which the white knuckles of my teammates can attest to.  okay, maybe not SO bad, but leeann leadfoot IS my new moniker.  as i came into a small town, i thought, “oh, probably some black & whites around, should slow it down”.  the flashing lights in my mirror said the same.  fortunately the cop was a gem, and although he still ticketed me with a minor infraction, he could have done much worse.  he was actually apologizing for having to give me a ticket, but had already called it in as per procedure when the driver is going *cough 25mph cough* over the speed limit.  and to make it that much sweeter, when we got out of the mountains the text came in that our contact bailed, and no need to rush, because we had no place to sleep anyway.

this leads us to the 7-11 like a block away from the screening the next day.  being a former EMT, i started chatting up the paramedics that were hanging out at 2 am.  they told us they knew a great place to park and get some sleep, so we followed the ambulance to a nice secluded spot.  yeah, a nice secluded spot to hide a body, which im sure is how they found it in the first place.  after a kind wave goodbye, we decided on a nearby park instead.  there was NOT enough room for three to sleep in the van, and since i am partial to the outdoors, i decided to throw down my sleeping bag and get some much needed rest.  after 5 minutes, i was sleeping soundly.  maybe 2 hours later, i woke up to the most physically impossible hard rain i have ever experienced.  it was like i was getting shot in the face with a high pressure hose.  which is pretty much what it was, a giant sprinkler in the face.  and another hitting me from the side.  and from above.  i scrambled up and tried to grab everything, ipod, phone, stuffed animal (thanks alice!).  yeah, theres me running across the park lawn, giggling like crazy, with no pants on and my sleeping bag streaming behind me like a sail.  im lucky there were no cops around then, i would have been locked up on a 5150.  (but dont you worry, they came to hassle us the next morning as i was trying to dry my stuff out).  so i crawled into the van, pressed up against the steering wheel, and shivered myself into an uneven sleep.  my teammates were quietly smirking, im sure…

GALA!!!

We are only a few days away from the 2009 Benefit Gala!

Join us online as we stream LIVE from The Times Center in New York City. Online viewers will have access to the entire program featuring keynote speaker and field correspondent to The Oprah Winfrey Show Lisa Ling; 5 new videos; exclusive interviews with North Korean refugees from LiNK’s shelters, Congressman Ed Royce, director and producer of “Seoul Train” Jim Butterworth, and much more!
Be sure to tune in at 6pm EST this Saturday, September 12th, for special interviews during the VIP reception, and to learn about how YOU can participate online throughout the evening. For more information or to tune in, click here: www.linkglobal.org/nightof

t minus 20 minutes

so, we are all set to hit the road as soon as the last of the diligent nomads are finishing their hard work inputting the info into our many redundant software programs.  i of course am not the diligent type, so i will be keeping you all abreast of our many amazing adventures.  you can thank rob croft as our current videographer, although we will all be showing of our mad (sad?) skillz soon enough.  tonight we will be staying at my grandmothers lovely home out in the arizona desert, hoping to get there in time for a beautiful evening.  we are lucky enough to be travelling with the westnomads for the first day, and we will go our separate ways tomorrow (but not before a jump in the colorado river).  hope all is well for those out on the interwebs, be talking to you again soon…

leeann