notes from the road...day seven

Hello friends, Sean here.
It's a driving day! We left Seattle at 8 am yesterday on our way to Minneapolis to record our album and we're still on the road. We've been driving for about 26 hours straight and we've got 4 or 5 hours to go. Old man Lee drives slow (cautiously he says) so it's taking a bit longer than planned. None of us have really slept and we're being introduced to temperatures we've never experienced before. It's so cold. Delerium is starting to set in and Lee is laughing hysterically. He keeps rolling down the window and saying "I need some air!" Alex, Dan and I are fearing for our lives in the backseat. As usual, Brian is sleeping like a baby.
After Washington we started our drive through Montana and it took forever. That's a pretty big state. I drove first, from 8 am to 6 pm, and then Lee took over until midnight. We stopped for dinner in Montana at this hip little cafe thing. The food was OK, much better than any fast food. So that settled Lee for awhile. I had cheesecake with homemade berry sauce and it was mmmmmm.
I had the night shift and it was pretty uneventful. I saw a bunch of jack rabbits and nearly hit one, but the little bugger made it out alive. I drank a Red Bull and got bipped. I don't usually drink caffine so my eyes were wide for the next 5 hours. Then I started to crash (mentally, not literally), so I put in my Weird Al CDs and sang along to those for the next few hours to get me through the night. Around dawn the roads started to get icy and I was getting sleepy so I pulled off and gave Lee the wheel around 7 am. I moved to the backseat and fell asleep for a few hours until we stopped at Al's Oasis in South Dakota and ate breakfast. Alex told us of his harrowing experience sleeping on the floor of the van. His head was right next to the heater so he got a face full of warmth every time I turned the heater on. He didn’t appreciate it. We were all deliriously laughing as we ordered our food. Then the conversation switched to Lee's grandpa-driving and it got a little hairy. It sounded a little like, "You're an asshole!" "No, YOU'RE an asshole!" I was ready for Lee to jump over the table and start strangling Dan or I. But we're good now.
We just stopped for gas in Salem, South Dakota and it was 22 degrees outside. Too cold for our thin California skin. We're surrounded by snow, it's beautiful, but Lee is a bit swervy and he's making us nervous. Travis (who is producing our album and is in one of our favorite bands The Fevers) is putting us up in an apartment while we record and Georgia (his girlfriend) is making us a turkey dinner! Turkey time!
YIKES!
We’re driving through southern Minnesota listening to The Lovin’ Spoonful and we just drove passed five cars in various forms of disarray on the side of the road. Three were upside down and the other two were just stuck in a few feet of snow. All of them had the word “OK” spray painted on the window. Worried glances were exchanged all around.
Everything is white here. It all blends together. The ground and the sky are the same color. To our friends and family, we are starting to appreciate Lee’s cautious driving in the hopes that it will get us through this strip of highway in one piece.