I woke up in Dubuque with a scratchy throat and fuzzy head. Oh, shit, I thought, I’m getting sick. Last year, I had gotten sick near the beginning of the tour and discovered that there is no pain more incapacitating than sinus congestion in an airplane. I had made it through this tour unscathed only to feel the beginnings of a cold on the very last day. The others also complained of similar throat and sinus irritation, so we blamed it on the hotel renovations that were going on in our part of the building.

The sun hadn’t finished rising when we hit the road for Monmouth, Illinois, to perform a 10:00 AM Hybrid show at Monmouth College (my roommate’s alma mater!). We had just enough time to perform the show, hit a Chinese buffet on Main Street, and head to the Quad Cities airport in Moline, Illinois, to drop off our moderator Bethany. She would rent a car and drive the rest of the way to her home in Chicago while we headed back to Minneapolis.

Since we were finished and in no hurry, Amber, Sam, and I made an extended pit stop in Iowa near Cornell College, Amber’s alma mater. We wanted coffee, so we went to a mall that Amber frequented as a student and got Starbucks. Sam officially found his drink: an iced caramel & vanilla (or was it chai?) latté. I was also finally coming to terms with the fact that I was indeed sick, so I went to Target for Dayquil and Kleenex.

We limped in to the Twin Cities at dusk. I dropped Sam and Amber off at their respective apartments, returned the rental car, then rode the lightrail from the airport to the Franklin Ave stop, where I got off and walked the rest of the way to Michael’s house, where my car was waiting for me. I got home around 11:30 PM and felt like shit. I went into work late the next day so I could get some sleep (and do laundry).

The 2007 GTC orientation whirlwind tour is now done. Well, the big chunk is. I still have two more GTC dates in the immediate future – California and South Dakota. Huzzah!