At the very end of August, Vladimir, the Apt Ensemble (Peter Broderick, Nathan Crockett, and Branic Howard), emcee Tim Nickodemus, and an extraordinary amount of musical instruments all squeezed into Vladimir's parents' Plymouth Voyager mini-van to tour the fine state of California.

While there, they met many wonderful people, learned not to play travel Scrabble on the very curvy roads of Highway 101, and destroyed the transmission in the aforementioned minivan, earning Vladimir an extra week in San Francisco and everyone else a ride back in the air-conditioned comfort of a rented Ford Explorer.

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