Here’s some expert advice from touring musicians on what to do if you’re…

Wondering what to bring:

Sierra Kusterbeck (singer for VersaEmerge): “Get a disposable camera. I get three before every tour, and I usually lose one of them, which will be interesting for the person who finds it. It’s a nice surprise to look forward to when you don’t remember what you took pictures of. I have a giant scrapbook – can’t wait to show the grandkids!”

Guy Sigsworth has worked with everyone from Björk to Madonna. (Photograph courtesy Guy Sigsworth)

Guy Sigsworth (songwriter, composer and producer; member of Frou Frou): “Sometimes you have to try and grab some sleep in a taxi, a tour bus, or a plane experiencing mid-flight turbulence over the Atlantic. I wear noise-canceling headphones and listen to audiobooks of people with droning, monotonous voices. That usually works.”

(He also recommends a HyperJuice external battery for keeping Apple devices charged on long bus rides and flights.)

Blake Harnage (guitarist for VersaEmerge): “If you’re going out of the country, definitely stock up on all of your essentials before leaving. It’s not fun getting somewhere to realize that you can’t buy what you need.”

Traveling with several people:

Guy Sigsworth: “It’s actually better to be selfish. It’s your day off; you want to go to Père Lachaise, but everyone else wants to go to Disneyland. In that case, split up. Don’t try and persuade the others to come with you to the cemetery. They won’t thank you for the cultural enrichment.”

John Gomez (guitarist for The Summer Set): “Most importantly, understand that everyone has little things that will annoy you. It’s better to laugh at those things and love people for their weird habits.”

Guy Sigsworth: Don’t go hangry. “Rule number one: never skip breakfast. If there’s breakfast at the hotel, and it’s included in the room rate, set your alarm for half an hour before they stop serving. Even if you got home at four the night before, force yourself to get up.”

Trying to stay in touch with loved ones:

Blake Harnage: “I think if it’s part of your job to travel often, it’s your friends’ and family’s responsibility to make an equal effort to keep in contact and also to understand how difficult contact can be. I find myself emailing and texting quite a bit since it’s sometimes hard to find free time to make a call when you’re not completely immersed in noise.”

Jim Adkins (singer and guitarist for Jimmy Eat World and father of three young boys): “The kids are getting increasingly adept at using Wi-Fi to email, talk, video chat, and play games. But just because I am away for a few weeks doesn’t mean my 10-year-old is getting any Words With Friends mercy.”

Sierra Kusterbeck: “As far as friends, just hope they love and understand you enough to not be hurt if they don’t hear from you for a while. I have some really great friends and we catch up on everything when I come home.”

Getting stressed out:

John Gomez of The Summer Set. (Photograph by Tom Stone)

Sherri DuPree Bemis (singer and guitarist for Eisley): “Bottom line, you have just got to learn to roll with it. Literally, no matter what happens, because it will happen.”

John Gomez: “A lot of times people let the ‘stresses’ of travel (like packing, airport, hotel) get in their head and ruin their attitude. Remember why you planned this trip! It’s supposed to be a time to reflect, to laugh, to taste and enjoy a different way of life. Be patient and gracious to every person who tries to give you some help, and say yes to everything.”

Jim Adkins: “You just have to keep grounded in the bigger picture. So what if the power [at a the venue] keeps shutting off. I am in Manchester! Yes, that happened while we were recording the show. There is a 10-minute section where you hear us start the same song over and over. It was kind of stressful at the time. But then, you realize how funny it sounds listening to whole crowd ‘Ahhhhhhh’ in collective bummer over and over again.”

Hoping to make the most of your trip:

Sierra Kusterbeck: “Meet people! Not everyone is a criminal trying to harm you. Use your good judgment and give people the benefit of the doubt. I’ve made great friends who I get to see every time I come through town.”

Sherri DuPree Bemis: “An extra set of clothes or an extra outfit can do wonders. Sounds so simple right? But you’d be surprised! It can be so tempting to trudge around in the same outfit for a few days in a row because you’re on tour – who cares right? But the joke’s on you. It really affects you when you’ve been wearing that same hoodie for the past 10 days.”

Guy Sigsworth: “It’s fun to add a mission to the mission you’re already on as a musician. On one U.S.-Canadian tour I decided to visit the Chinatown in every city that had one, whenever time permitted. I know it sounds like stamp collecting, but I enjoyed it, really!”

Follow Kayla’s story on Twitter @KaylaFrost.

From the swirly-whirly Wave to the sandstone splendor of Antelope Canyon in the Navajo Nation, the timeless natural beauty of Northern Arizona’s Painted Desert is enough to make even the oldest of folks feel really, really young.

And while the chance to experience the elegance of sacred Navajo land is worth a detour from the nearby Grand Canyon, there’s another incentive to visit: street art.

The Painted Desert project is Chip Thomas's “love letter to the Navajo Nation.” (Photograph by Aaron Lavinsky)

Much of the art — murals and giant photographs on buildings, roadside stands, and water tanks – originates from a middle-aged doctor named Chip Thomas.

Thomas moved to the Navajo Nation 25 years ago to repay a National Health Service Corps scholarship by volunteering his skills in a community with limited healthcare. After making good on his four-year obligation (and spending the better part of a year biking 12,000 miles across Africa), Chip returned to the reservation, and has worked as a family-care physician there ever since.

But when the working day is done, Dr. Thomas shrugs off the lab coat to become Jetsonorama – a street artist who pastes his blown-up black-and-white photos depicting Navajo people and their traditions on any structure visible from the road, a public art project he describes as a “love letter to the Navajo Nation.”

“I’m just trying to reflect the positivity I have been allowed to experience from the people for the past 25 years,” Chip says. “It’s like I’m holding a mirror up and saying, ‘Thank you for letting me experience all this.’ And to the youth I’m saying, ‘Learn from this!’”

Chip invites street artists from around the world to put up their art on the reservation and plots each installation on a Google map. He calls this collaboration, which he started this spring, the Painted Desert Project.

One of Overunder's contributions to the Painted Desert project. (Photograph by Aaron Lavinsky)

“I like the idea of [the project] being kind of a mash up where you get these artists out of context and have them create this work in their style, in this space, and really respond to the challenge of the vastness of the land here,” Chip says.

So far, artists Tom Greyeyes, Xiana Clitso, Thomas “Breeze” Marcus, Overunder, Doodles, Labrona, Gaia, Roa, and JB Snyder have traveled to the reservation from near and far (the farthest being Roa from Ghent, Belgium). This month, Italians Pixel Pancho and 2501 will spend a week painting there.

While the art photographs well, it’s better in person. If you can take a trip through the region, don’t just drive by. Stop and take a closer look. Talk to people if they are around. There is a lot to learn from Navajo culture, and, judging from my experience, the Diné (Navajo people) are happy to talk about it.

“I’ve heard people say…that seeing my pictures just made the reservation seem like a more approachable, more personable place,” Chip says. “That’s a cool thing that the art can be used to foster communication and get people exchanging in a way that stereotypes are challenged and broken down.”

Blanche Haskey. (Photograph by Aaron Lavinsky)

In late September, I was lucky enough to watch Chip paste a triptych on the side of a vacant stand in Bitter Springs while three Navajo women looked on from their neighboring jewelry stand. At one point, the women turned their chairs toward the Echo Cliffs behind their shop and stared intently. I thought I was missing something, but they said they were “just looking at the rocks.”

“Do you ever get tired of the view?” I asked.

“No, never,” said Blanche Haskey, who earned her wrinkles herding sheep, raising children, and selling jewelry. “And when we leave, we miss it.”

After 79 years of almost uninterrupted living on the reservation, this woman still finds wonder in watching the summer light tell the story of the ancient rocks she’s known since birth.

And at that moment, I understand why Chip expresses his love for the Navajo Nation so that everyone can see.

He’s creating beauty about beauty.

Follow Kayla’s story on Twitter @KaylaFrost.

Neither could I. A cat – as mayor!

I was determined to get the scoop on Stubbs. And so, fueled by ambition – and, as the night wore on, beer – I walked the tiny downtown strip (a National Historic Site) chatting up the locals in my quest for answers.

As rumor has it, Stubbs was elected 15 years ago, after residents who had grown frustrated with the available candidates wrote his name in on the ballot as a joke.

But that’s not true.

Talkeetna — a village with a year-round population of well under 1,000 known the world over as a jumping off point for mountain climbers, backpackers, and skiers alike on their way from Anchorage to Denali National Park – has no mayor. There are no elections. Stubbs’s title is honorary.

Lauri Stec, Nagley’s spunky general manager and a 17-year Talkeetna resident, said Stubbs (whose short tail inspired his name) was picked out of a box of kittens left on the store’s front porch 15 years ago and, in time, took up residence there. Shortly thereafter – somehow – locals started calling Stubbs the mayor.

Everyone I talked to had only a nebulous idea of how and why Stubbs had gotten the title, but the story was generally the same. As Sarah Stevens, a chatty clerk at Village Arts & Crafts, said: “We just kind of went with it.”

The mayor performing some of his unofficial duties. (Photograph by T-dawg, Flickr)

Locals seemed reluctant to talk about Stubbs at first. He’s been the talk of the town since KTUU, a news channel based out of Anchorage, aired a story about the “mayor” in mid July. Since then it seems everyone has caught on to the story, and all manner of people are showing up at the general store asking for an audience with the famous feline.

“What gets me is that everyone thinks it’s so funny,” huffed Vonda Baker as she dispensed draft beers into glasses at the Wildflower Café. “People are like, how stupid can Talkeetna be?”

Once they got going, though, residents couldn’t stop talking about their cat mayor – Baker included. “He goes straight to the kitchen, straight to the owner, and will only eat king crab,” she laughed.

Stec, too, spoke of the mayor’s affinity for the clawed creatures. She said he has been known to jump on tables and eat crab straight from people’s plates – and they love it.

Stubbs constantly wanders, popping into businesses and plopping down on countertops. He frequents West Rib Pub & Grille, where I headed to sample yet another Alaskan brew and dig deeper into the story.

The tired bartender didn’t say much about Stubbs when I walked in, but the pub’s patrons, loosened with alcohol, were more than happy to fill me in.

“He faced off a fox the other day!” piped a young local.

After a rush of comments, the bartender, Sarah Pace, joined in: “He’s a good cat. He comes in, hangs out when I ring people up, and drinks his glass of daily catnip.”

(She wasn’t kidding. Stubbs laps up a mixture of water and catnip out of a wine glass from his perch on the bar.)

Then, as if on cue, the cat himself strolled in. Everyone picked him up and pet him.

Then the spry old cat ran outside and caught a mouse.

Stubbs is much more than a cat or a mayor to the people of Talkeetna. Louanne Tysdal, who works at the historic Talkeetna Roadhouse and has lived in the village for 14 years, said Stubbs is Talkeetna.

“He’s just kind of a free spirit. He wanders in, gets fed, and makes himself comfortable in several places around town,” she said softly. “He is kind of us in a way.”

All in all, residents agreed that Stubbs is irreplaceable — so he’ll probably be Talkeetna’s only feline mayor.

But they didn’t rule out a dog.

Become one of Mayor Stubbs’ many fans on Facebook and follow his meanderings on Twitter. 

Then imagine enduring that with a stubborn goat.

Five guys from across the U.S., who met while working in Alaska, did just that. Their mission was twofold: to raise money for the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and to break the “curse of the Billy Goat“ that sportslore alleges was cast upon the Chicago Cubs all the way back in 1945.

Can you imagine walking 2,000 miles with those heavy packs on your back? Me, neither.

As the story goes, the owner of Billy Goat Tavern in Chicago, William Sianis, was not allowed to bring his goat into a Cubs World Series game because, well, it stunk. “The Cubs ain’t gonna win no more!” Sianis yelled on his way out.

The team hasn’t played in a World Series since.

The friends were convinced they could break the curse if they walked, with a goat, from the Cubs’ spring training field in Mesa, Arizona to the scene of the crime — Wrigley Field. And if they could break the curse while raising money for a good cause, all the better.

“It was amazing to see that five guys could finish this together – five personalities and a goat,” said Phillip Aldrich, who made the trek along with Matt Gregory, Kyle Townsend, Blake Ferrell, and Patrick Fisher. “I think it’s a testament to us and our friendship that we actually finished it.”

Team “Crack the Curse” stuck to Route 66 and camped out for most of their epic walk – though they sprung for a hotel room every once in awhile to shower and do laundry.

Well past hitting halfway mark in their trip, the guys had only raised $7,000. They were discouraged, but pressed on.

But gradually news of their quest started catching on and they began to be welcomed as minor celebrities when they passed through small towns.

“We’d go around the corner and there’d be a picnic set up for us, and all these people just handing us money,” Aldrich said.

Meeting great people helped ease the pain of walking. Every step hurt some days, with blistered feet slamming the pavement for miles that never seemed to end. The desert was the worst for the crew because they had to cart around gallons of water in addition to their heavy packs. They once walked for three days – 67 miles – before seeing a gas station where they could fill up on water.

Team "Crack the Curse" pushing Wrigley the goat along in his cart.

Townsend had a toenail removed after a particularly grueling 27-mile day. That afternoon they walked 25 more miles.

And then there was the goat, Wrigley. Falling somewhere between a wild animal and a pet, their aptly named companion was feisty – unhappy on the leash, unhappy in the cart (which he often got pushed in) — and was constantly trying to be at the front of the pack.

“Wrigley was the face of the walk,” Aldrich said. “Without him we’d just be five guys walking down the road.”

By the time the crew reached Chicago, they had already raised more than $20,000 and were welcomed onto the field to cheers and were given front row seats. The team’s owners presented them with a $5,000 check on the spot, and just they’ve just recently passed the $30,000 mark.

That five people could raise that kind of money for charity by walking halfway across the country with a farm animal is an inspirational reminder of how much people are capable of achieving with the proper motivation.

But will the curse be broken after 57 years?

Odds say no, but we’ll just have to wait and find out — because it looks like anything is possible.

Follow Kayla’s story on Twitter @kaylafrost.