FIRE FIRE FIRE

Wow...hard to know just where to begin. So much has happened.

The last I left things, we were working on our travel trailer.

That task mostly finished, we rolled out of Prescott carrying everything we own with us.

Not the grand pull out that I imagined...more like a light tiptoe at 10:00pm.

4 weekends of yard sales behind us, with everything we owned now hanging on a neighbors wall, digging in their garden, or making their living room comfortable.

A huge thanks to our dear friends Brad, Mark, Gayle, and Tom for all of your support, help and fun during those last weeks. You will be dear to us forever.

A 14 year career paired down to a few great clients, that don't complain or think they own you.

100+ hours of hard work restoring our 1965 travel trailer.

3 months of preparing for this journey later...we finally made it out the door!

---------------Journey Log------------
Left Prescott 10pm on Friday Oct 23rd 2009

Stopped in South Phoenix at 12:30pm in a hotel parking lot to rest.

Left Phoenix at 6:30 AM, headed south on US 60, 77 and79 to Tucson. Arrived about 11:00am.

Breakfast with Michelle and Matthew of Elemental Artistry and Flame Mecca

Left Tucson at 1:15 headed for Houston...

1 hour 30 minutes, 19 miles....gotta hate midday roadwork.

@ dark- Didn't get to see NM in any day light.
Arrived in El Paso at 10:30pm (first time zone change) Parked in Walmart

6am leave El paso with a beautiful sunrise.

8am we get stopped by boarder patrol. Dont worry, the mexicans are safe with us!
...and shortly after the time zone changes again!

3:15, just outside Ozona,TX a cop almost runs us off the road, trying to flip a U-y chasing speeders. He knocked his own hat off bumping up over the road edge! Hilarious.

10:30pm pulled into the nicest rest stop in the world! looked better then any park Ive ever seen. 5 star hotel gardens, museum with caretakers that you had to walk through to hit the john. Woke up many of times to pouring rain.

6am pitch black and leave the nicest rest stop in the world to drive in a HUGE downpour.

Visibility is such that nearly all traffic is moving slowly with flashers on.

10:30pm (yes PM)...still driving in the pouring rain...how can it rain this hard ALL FUCKING DAY

Arrived in soggy New Orleans

Drove around the downtown area. Wow...what a change. The place is fucked. It's a dead city now. I lived in Nawlins for one year before the hurricane, and the feel/vibe is totally different. Makes your stomach sink a bit.


Left New Orleans about 11:30PM. Stopped in Slidell to sleep at a truck stop.

Nearly to Slidell I went to change lanes to the right, and had to do the old "oh shit" steering wheel jerk when I realized there was a car in my blind spot.

She also jerked her wheel and went sliding off onto the exit ramp, overcompensated and fishtailed over the deep grass wedge, pulled her SUV back onto the highway and sped off down the road! During this we were pulling over as it seemed I'd killed the poor girl. She never even looked at us!! whoa...

After a nice night's sleep, left Slidell at about 8:30am

Went through Mobile, AL at about 11am. I-10 goes through a tunnel that runs under the bay...cool. The downtown architecture wase really neat too. Might have to visit there again.

Stopped at a beautiful state park in Northern Florida to walk and play with Hussie. She's been a killer travel dog.

Got to Miami late in the night, both of us in foul moods from the loooooooooong trip. We decided to get some rest.

Two toll roads that you have to pay to get in and OUT of later...(what happens if you don't have enough to leave??) we hit Key Largo, first island off the tip of Florida. It's nearly 1.5 hours of island hopping to Key West! Nice drive though. We were pretty excited to be nearing the end of the trip.

So, we've arrived in Key West, Florida. Southern most town in the USA.

Our new and really awesome friend Will Soto (http://www.willsoto.net) has been the most gracious host imaginable. He's let us park in his driveway for nearly two weeks now, using his shower and bathroom. Will is constantly helping someone else out.

Will is one of the founding members of the Sunset Celebration. (http://www.sunsetcelebration.org)

Each night we are putting on a show on the pier just after the sun goes down.

There are a number of larger acts including:
Will's high wire and slack rope act
A 10' Tall unicyclist comedian
A 56 year old tumbler who puts many 20 year olds to shame, named Dr. Juice
The Great Rondini, escape artist and magician, tells black jokes and says he's Jimmy Buffet to tourists..
an AMAZING master juggler who goes simply by TJ
guitarists, mimes, jugglers, ballance-ers galore, and a new tourist crowd every single night. We only get two hours before until two hours after sunset to perform, so the competition is stiff to get that crowd!

We work for nothing but tips, so every night is a challenge to really put on a great show and maximize what we can make.

Our show is now about 15 minutes long. We can't have any amplified music, so we're working with a really great drummer by the name of Maasai. He mixes the vibe from slinky belly dance rythms to asian sounding percussive sympols when I'm doing something crazy.

We currently burn almost every toy we play with during that 15 minutes. We go through one gallon of fuel every show.

It seems people are really liking what we're doing. We've already got one birthday party gig, one bar sponsorship gig (open spin night), and even got on a local tv station, Radio Free Key West for a talk show interview. We did a guerrilla show live in the street in front of their studios. They shot it in HD, but I haven't seen the footage yet. Fun stuff.

Housing here is GNARLY. It costs more to park this 16' trailer and plug into an outlet, than it did to rent our two bedroom house!

The cheapest campground here is $350/week to park.

The cheapest front lawn to park on is $25/day!!! Seriously...it costs a ton to get settled here.

We're heading out to mile marker ten today to explore an elusive camping spot. If it's available, we might be able to save some money.

The other place we found for $25/day is at the house of a PIRATE!! No kidding, you might have seen him on the Today Show. Goes by the name of DeadEye, and with his coke bottle glasses, he fits the name. Deadeye and his pirate crew travel around entertaining people everywhere with their scurvy ways.

Quite a knowledgeable character,DeadEye, and a battle master!! What is that you ask?? He stages full contact metal sword fights! Seriously...just watched a vid of these guys totally going at it convincingly...very very cool. I forsee some gnarly fire sword play in our future. MUAHAHAHAHAH

We met who might just be in contention for the worlds best juggler this last weekend. Maybe I'm easily impressed, but probably not. TJ boggles my imagination with what he can do to live music!!

Locals here have been especially kind and helpful. It's a nice pace of life.

We're getting ready to head up to Ft. Myers Florida, on the gulf coast to check out a venue for an upcoming festival in December. I'll be posting a link to that soon.

I know this one was long, but we had some catching up to do!!

Cheers for now,
tom

Preparations For The Journey

Greetings! My name is Tommy Brown. My beautiful partner, Cammie Lane and I are preparing for a fiery adventure!

We're fire performers. We light things on fire for the enjoyment of crowds everywhere. Mostly those "things" are tools of our making. Occasionally, that thing is ourselves! We really try to avoid that part, unless of course you opt for the sexier side of our show.

At any rate, we're passionate about our art and love to really ramp up the energy at an event, or put on a crowd wowing show. In fact, we love it so much that we've decided to go on a Fire Pilgrimage.

We're selling all that we own, saying good-by to wonderful friends, and are heading off down the road in a truck and newly restored 1965 Oasis travel trailer.

The plan? We are going to visit as many awesome fire performing artists as possible, learning what we can, teaching what we know, and connecting with a blossoming fire arts community.

Along the way, we'll be putting on shows, teaching workshops, making and selling fire tools, and anything else we can do to keep the tires sound and gas in the tank.

We'll post where we're heading next as soon as we know. Would you like a fire show for your event, festival, or party? Let us know! http://www.fireartshow.com/hireus

So...our journey begins with the restoration of our rolling house. We've stripped everything from the coach and are in the process of buffing the outside to a shiny aluminum sheen. The nice wood inside will be completely sanded and refinished and the bed and couches re-upholstered. But that's a story for next time.