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We hit the big shoulders of Chicago at dusk, and el trains, each emblazoned with an iPod ad, greet and escort us to within gawking distance of the skyline. Which we never get any closer to. Our bare bones EconoLodge is on Mannheim Boulevard in a hard times neighborhood to the west. Dump the stuff, head for Fitzgerald’s in Berwyn, also west of downtown.

Fitzgerald’s is housed in a big old house, and booker Andy greets us, and Bill Fitzgerald himself is there, a big time music supporter who puts on a great festival, in addition to booking the best in roots music at the club. Tony Gilkyson and Rob Douglas, fresh off an almost missed plane flight from L.A., greet us. Sound check, pizza, play music. Paddi and Jeff Thomas, who host a Mt. Washington house concert that we play, show up, some Coles fans, and the father of landscape architect Catherine, another Coles family member. Some hometown love far from home. The crowd is modest in size but very enthused, and we do an encore. Bill hangs to the end, a true music lover, and we’ve made a good connection in the heartland. We pack up, venture outside, and are greeted by a thrillingly hellish wallop of oven heat, tropical humidity, thunder and lightning, and 60 mile per hour winds that knock over outdoor tables and awnings. Then the rain dumps, hard, and we wait it out, hanging out with Bill Fitzgerald and his (very good) sound man. The rain slows, we pack, drive soaked streets back to the EconoLodge. The Yukon is damp, and so are we.

Corn country. Much higher than the stalks of Vermont, which has a tiny growing season in its forbidding climes. Corn abounds here in the plains, and so do we.

Paul Marshall has a deep and abiding homing instinct for what’s good in America. And that instinct was on the money this noon day in the Heartland. Paul got the inner voice: exit I-90 at Sandusky, Ohio. A toll booth attendant, who Rob surmised is an artist, perhaps a painter, forced into a day job, recommended we drive south one mile for a good meal. “But it won’t be a chain,” he warned. That was okay with us.A mile south through corn fields and big old Ohio houses brought us to Milan (pronounced “My-lan”), home of Thomas Alva Edison. The record heat wave sun beat down upon us as we walked across a gravel lot to Main Street, Milan, a perfect town square with gazebo and war monument on a rectangular lawn, with old brick and stone mercantile establishments, a barber shop, the Wonder Bar, and our goal: The Invention Café, with a light bulb on the sign in honor of Milan’s most famous citizen.

Inside, Invention Café is 1930’s décor that L.A. eateries strive to recreate from estate sales and eBay auctions. Chrome stools, booths, an American flag cut and painted from corrugated Quonset hut aluminum. Not for sale.Simple, fresh, delicious, American. This was our meal, served up by a bronzed blonde waitress, with great speed and kindness. Trash Hash is hash browns mixed with eggs, peppers, and anything else your heart desires. Omelet, raisin toast, elderberry pie. Couldn’t be done better. Reality based food thrives in the heartland. Only a mile off the interstate.

An hour down the road, we pulled into a large truck stop rest stop off the I-90 in Indiana, our 17th state of the tour. We all got out, lured by shiny objects and air conditioning inside the glass palaces surrounding the gas station. We all came back to the Yukon, and discovered that no one had actually pumped the gas we’d paid for. Such is the lure of the McDonald’s travel center, where Paul L purchased a 25 cent Indiana Lotto ticket from a vending machine. This is a brilliant marketing scheme. Who’s not going to fish a quarter out of his pocket for a chance to win $50? Which Paul didn’t.

Shawn Nourse is a Norseman. He comes from a people who run naked in the summer, the endless days when the sun circles the horizon, winking for a moment before rising again, when a Norseman or Norse lassie loses track of time and self in an orgiastic and pagan burst of activity.

Shawn’s forebears wrapped themselves in animal skins in the equally endless winters, huddled around a peat fire playing mind games with each other in semi-darkness, until one, perhaps addled by ergot or spoiled mead, launches himself upon a brother or cousin and strangles the life out of his tormentor, before collapsing outside the tent in a frenzy of Nordic guilt, wandering into the woods, shunned by the huddled community in the black shadows of tree and cliff, and haunted echo of fjord. This is our drummer. An animal bound by modern morality, Christianity, Americanism, Masonry, stick-to-itiveness, capitalism, decency, weekends, Daylight Savings, algebra, traffic school, the Constitution, no smoking laws, drinking age, diplomas, credit card regulations, internet protocol, tax codes, passport applications, union dues, matrimony, Social Security, unemployment, FICA, NAFTA, ASCAP, Yahoo, cell phone manuals, photoshop, passing lanes, scorecards, report cards, and the white zone.

Beware his moment of berserkery, when the ancient genes override the rules, when highly trained wrists and forearms turn malevolent. Beware the Norseman.

We’re on Interstate 90 west heading west just west of Troy, NY. We’ll be on this road all the way to Chicago. It’s 5 p.m., and we’re trying to make Cleveland tonight. We got a late start this morning, split into two breakfast factions: Rob with familia Waller y Stowell and Mark Follman to an early morning Riverrun restaurant rendezvous, and Shawn and the Pauls to Coffee Corner in downtown Montpelier.

Shawn and Paul have been living a Spartan, boot camp life on the hard floors of the lovely architect Eileen’s empty add-on to her 1850’s wood frame house way out in the woods. Every evening after a show they’ve bid farewell to chez Stowell and driven out to their barracks, driving back in the morning. This morning Paul L took a canoe onto the nearby lake and paddled around a beaver house out in the middle. This is the only beaver loyal PL would ever chase on the road. Idyllic, with surprisingly few bugs, except for a curious dragonfly who landed on the canoe for a staring contest. Eileen made Shawn and Paul coffee with thick, frothy raw milk from a mason jar, purchased for a dollar down the road–perhaps the most Vermontlike moment of our stay; and then they grabbed Paul M for the drive into Montpelier. As a result, SN and PL can claim to have out-Vermonted the rest of the Hawks.

Coffee Corner gets a rapidly upwardly moving thumbs up for a delicious omelette with garlic scapes (that’s the curling tips of the garlic plant, mostly unknown to Californians) and raisin toast. We raced back north up green Vermontery to Carter’s, loaded up with Rob, and hit the road for sweet home Chicago. It’s not easy getting out of Vermont. Very beautiful, very green, but a labyrinth of winding roads and tempting roadside treats. We make four to six stops in search of the elusive Maple Softee, but somehow we never make the right choice. Sadly, we leave the state without satisfying this last jones. Only more reason to return soon.

The sun is going down and we’ve just passed the Ithaca, NY exit. This is psychologically bad, because we were just here two days ago. A whole day shot to hell and we’re not even out of New York.Paul L is filled with self loathing. He’s consumed, so far today: 1 coffee, with raw milk and sugar; an omelette, raisin toast, and home fries; a small chocolate gelato; a veggie wrap and a Red Bull; part of Rob’s inferior coffee; a large raspberry and French coffee ice cream with waffle cone. He wishes he had the courage and freedom from self censorship to make himself throw up in the Sbarro restroom.

Community lives on in the green forested hills of Vermont, even if it is an uneasy mix of multi-generational rural families in shorts and t-shirts, and newcomers from Boston and Austin in their vintage dresses. Where trustafarians meet ATV riding hunters who ride with their infants on their laps. Everyone waves on the back roads, glad to be among the thick trees and clear waters, a destination determined by the reliable movement of some clear internal compass.

God bless Carter and Chani and little Elvin. They’ve put up with the Hawks and living room jamming (actually, Carter instigated most of these) for five days in their 1840’s wood frame house overlooking a green valley and the hamlet of Worcester and its white steeple, and looking up to Hunger Mountain and clouds above.Carter is a percussionist and the Hawks webmaster and caretaker of Hawks Headquarters North. He and Chani are world class outdoors people, and could survive on this land of short summers and long winters if global commerce ended. Carter has introduced the Hawks to the natives, and so here we are, playing a Saturday night barn dance in the Vermont hills. As the sun heads into the trees, families drive up the long dirt road and pull off to the side, hike up the hill to the big barn, built in the 1880s as a cow barn but converted 100 years ago into the regional dance hall, where it was host to dances, gunfights, and trysts in the surrounding woods until 1972, when it shut down for the first time. The wood floor boards were pulled from surround land, and the floor hums like a vibrating string as the dancers move and bounce upon it.

It’s 2006 and the barn is back in action. We’re part of a community revivalism, strangers brought together to replicate traditional bonds: dancing on a wood floor to country music. We’ve got all the ingredients: little ones, oldsters, moms and dads, wheelbarrows full of beer, tables of potluck food, Christmas lights strung from the very high and darkened rafters, a spotlight on the wood stage at the far end where the Hawks play Haggard and Lefty along with their own numbers. Carter has called in favors from his vast Vermont network of musical friends and clients alike to cobble together a solid sound system. Add in the natural reverb of the big old barn and the San Francisco night club sound training of Uncle Folz and it all sounds great. The whole night felt very good. Good to be a dance band in a barn in the fields among the dense woods. Good to watch the children led their parents and grand parents out onto the dance floor. Good to drink the beer, smell the air, and watch the fireflies in the humid summer country night. Perhaps this is our Hawks mission: music for a return to communalism, localism. If the experiment fails, at least we can sing a sweet sad requiem, a waltz at evening’s end.

OK, so when you’re back in California it doesn’t seem like Vermont is that far away from Ithaca, New York. But guess what, it’s way damn far. But what do we care? We’ve already driven to Vermont from Los Angeles for the second time in two years. So we make up the morning after our first leg two day off and start driving. 7 hours later we’re in Ithaca. Damn. We pull up to the club. Castaways is a old seaman’s bar along canal that extends from the southern end of one of the finger lakes, we’re not sure which one. The bar population is split into two. There’s a crew of regular drinkers who sit at the bar and on one side of the room, and a hip, musical set on the other side of the room by the stage. Mostly, though, this is a neighborhood bar for drinking, birthday parties, and smoking cigarettes on the dockside patio out back. In short, we’re worried. Was this worth the drive? We bravely and stoically unload our gear and split for the hotel.

The hotel doesn’t lift our spirits. RW and SN’s room smells more like cigarettes and spilt beer than the car. There’s folks hanging around in plastic chairs on the balcony looking like they live there. The heavy air of destitution hangs overhead. Ithaca is not looking good. We try to salvage the trip by arranging a good dinner. The famous Moosewood Restaurant is here. Many a vegetarian restaurant has borrowed recipes from their well-traveled cook books. We call, get directions, and head their way. The Hawks can justify almost any drive with a fantastic meal.

And so our wishes are fulfilled. We order organic cocktails made with fresh herbs and berries: a basil mint martini, a blackberry margarita. Then come soups, salads, tofu dishes and African groundnut stews. It’s all we hoped for. The Moosewood wraps us in a translucent protective bubble that only we can see. Perhaps the trip to Ithaca was worth it after all. We get back to the club and our recognize that our luck is clearly changing (or else the bubble is working). There are people there, plenty of them, and besides the folks there for the Buzzie’s 40th birthday party, they seem to be there to see us. We get up and power through a suddenly inspired set fueled by pure vegetarian organic energy.

Afterwards we meet the enlightened DJ Tracey Craig, the host of the Grapevine Music Hour. She’s been featuring our record on her show and it’s brought out some folks. God bless her. There’s also Jim Catalano, the Ithaca Journal writer who had a article about us in the daily paper. There’s even a couple dudes from the Red Stick Ramblers who we played with in Houston. They’re out in Ithaca to play the Grey Fox festival. We love it when folks come out to support the scene. It all makes sense. If only we didn’t have to drive 7 hours back to Vermont tomorrow.

The capitol building in Montpelier is small, with a modest gold painted dome. You could throw a rock over it. This is the size of democracy. Your legislator can’t hide from you here. The Pentagon is the size of something else. Not democracy. God Bless America, and the passing of vastness.

It’s balmy, dictionary quality balmy on this lovely Vermont afternoon. We’ve just finished playing for the permanent residents of the Rutland State Penitentiary, and are on our way north to Carter and Chani’s house. A green highway, blue hazy mountains behind. We pass an old wood frame highway hamburger house, and Shawn pulls off the road decisively.

We order Maple Creamees from the young girl at the window. They’re as good as we’d hoped for, and we’d had high hopes. Smooth indeed, a sweet mixed race swirling softee tower of cold delight on a cake cone. Vermont is on our tongues, in our lungs, and a green feast for California summer eyes. We are satisfied. We sit at the edge of a slope overlooking maple trees and a wide grassy meadow. We, creamees, trees.

The Hawks have performed a civic duty and one of the Corporal Acts of Mercy. We have visited the imprisoned, and we have played Humboldt, Branded Man (by Haggard), Long Black Veil, and Drinker’s Hall of Fame, Beautiful Narcotc Place I Reside, Hard Times, and many more, with our acoustic instruments in a small prison rec room. The inmates enjoyed it, and so did we. Our first time at Rutland 2 years ago was a less relaxed time for us. Being ushered through many heavy duty steel doors and bars into a concertina wired prison yard, even one as small and bucolic as Rutland, is intimidating. The prisoners, of all ages, weight classes, tattoo choices, and ethnicities, prowl or hang in the yard, watching us pass. “Hey, Willie Nelson! What’s up?” calls one to cowboy hated grey hippie Paul L, and we all laugh. We’re back, and feeling at home our second time through.We’re back on the green road, passing covered bridges and tiny hamlets perched on the river valley bank back from the highway.

An American flag flies in a vast corn field down below us. The best looking flag we’ve ever seen. This is the American we know and love so well. It’s the 9th of July. Jimi Hendrix stretches out on the iPod. We are a rich nation.

We don’t remember how we got this gig. Sometimes things show up for the Hawks, with no memory of their source. This is one. But we’re here, in a turn of the last century sprawling wood frame road house, a bordello that flourished as a speakeasy in the 1920’s and declined gently into the 1960’s. More recently our host Daniel, a rover from Hollywood by way of San Francisco and New York City, bought the place and restored it to its present funky glory.

Towering trees surround meadows, which ring zen shaped flourishing gardens, which surround the house, which contains dining rooms, kitchen, and elegantly stocked small bar, all on undulating old wood floors. A music room filled with cushions, percussion instruments, and guitars, looks out onto a lawn sloping up to our wood guest house, the Hawks bunk for the night.A gourmet dinner in one of several dining rooms, with wine and port, with Serena, an old friend whose family runs the Maine International Film Festival, a gathering whose sardonic title reveals its very modest beginnings in a small Maine village. Now it’s a big deal, with a 30 page glossy booklet and rumors of Scorcese.

The sun goes down, and we gather in the music room, no mics, and play an acoustic set for Dreamaway lodgers, a most appreciative crowd. We swap t-shirts for bar tab with the wily Daniel, and a good time is had by all. PL tries to sleep outdoors in the hammock, but is eaten alive by mosquitos, and retreats to the main house. The band cabin has a wood-fired sauna and naked lodgers wander in and out though the night. But we don’t mind, hang with out friends around lantern light, drink whiskey in crystal glasses from the bar.

The woods are magical, coated in ferns, covered by lush deciduous canopies of maple, birch, and elm. We’ve left the city behind.