You pretty much know it’s an interesting venue when this sign is posted:

This past weekend Susan played the Tumbleweed Festival in Garden City, Kansas. The festival happened to take place on the grounds of the local zoo, which made things even cooler.

The sun bears (which I had never heard of and they walked weirdly on the sides of their feet, so I’m not so sure about the “bearness” of them) were right next to one of the stages and while they remained mostly docile, they had some outbursts. Not during Susan’s set, which must mean she appeals to a large swath of bears and non-bears. I also gave my treatise about how Mother Nature has been trying to kill the Panda off for decades and Susan was a little bit appalled, but really. Their own genetics don’t want to them to exist. And they’re hardly in the bear family. She called me a Panda-ist.

It was good to see the flatness of Kansas again, it had been a while. Same oil field grasshoppers and grain elevators I remembered. Oh, and bright green alien grass and cows.