This post begins the 2008 West Coast Xtravaganza Tour, otherwise known as WCX – over three weeks of traveling down the west coast of the US from Vancouver to Los Angeles, mostly by train. It’s the end of my year of freelance assistant directing, and the end of the completely itinerant, apartment-free lifestyle. We’re going by train, and stopping in Seattle, Vancouver, Ashland, San Francisco and LA. I’m traveling with a composer from Indianapolis who created the music for 13 WAYS OF LOOKING AT THE CHORUS in February’s Indy Convergence. We’re using the traveling portion of the trip as a way to revise the script, and we’ll workshop it in LA. I’ll also be teaching a new workshop on the choral voice in Los Angeles, and directing another reading.

Day 1:
Fly to Seattle. Rent a car (they stick us with a white PT Cruiser with a plastic-lollipop gearshift) Pick up CF at airport. Make a pilgrimage to the Pacific Ocean and get to the 75th Avenue overlook in Ballard as the sun is going down. Dine with the Miners, my aunt and uncle. At night, we hike through a road down to the beach where there’s been a collapse, and almost fall into a huge hole. We make it to the ocean. I never should have left the West Coast. Well, maybe you have to leave to know how strongly you want to come back.

Day 2, Sat 5/31
Walking and trail-running with my family. Afternoon with relatives: houseboat tour, lunch at Horizon House, Goodwill shopping with my cousin who helps me find my rock-concert jacket. Armed with an atlas, a map, and Google directions, and with the two best lattes in the galaxy (from the Java Bean in Ballard) we drive three hours in the Lollipop Mobile to the Gorge Ampitheatre in George, WA – where we watch Rush perform with the backdrop of a river. I am completely won over by both the music and the location. Lighting instruments sway in the wind above the stage. The drive back to Seattle after the concert is brutal, but we make it alive.

Day 3, Sun 6/1
Sleep for an hour and a half. Cornmeal variation pancakes with the Miners in the morning, and a four-hour bus ride from Seattle’s Union Station to Vancouver. We bought Swiss chocolate and spoke French at customs. Arrive in Vancouver, and walk down Commercial Drive with Mike and Kristel (Vera’s meat can’t be beat…) We meet up with Dasz. We watch a documentary on the history of metal.

Day 4, Mon 6/2
Much needed sleeping in – we meet Kristel for lunch at Canada Place and sit looking over the waters. The ocean in Canada is slate-colored. We take the ferry to Granville Island and wander in and out of the theater companies, the silk stores, the open-air markets. We careen in a bus down Broadway, and buy a twelve-pack to make up for last night. (Friendliest beer store in the world.) We watch overtime hockey, eat Panago pizza, drink Alexander Keith ale and talk about making animated movies out of the dreams in EINSTEIN’S DREAMS. CF and Mike experiment with the oscillator. (Really.) Kristel and I gmail-chat and talk at the same time and it’s still as if we will never be able to say all the things we are thinking to each other.

Caitlin calls to tell us that we/the Indy Convergence have made it to round 2 of Creative Capital. This is extraordinary news – I remember writing that grant as I was sitting in between rehearsals at PCS. I’m very happy.

Day 5, Tues 6/3
We wake up early and take the bus from Seattle to Vancouver.
Blogging from Seattle, at the Tully’s round the corner from Union Station.
We go from here on train to Eugene, then via bus to Ashland. Ashland is where this entire odyssey started for me, and it’ll be interesting – it’ll be difficult, but important – to see what I feel like going back there.

See you in Oregon.