Across America
Produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Nikki Silva & Davia Nelson)

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Sunrise on I-80, Utah Photo: Alan Noble

The phone calls began the next day - family, friends, ex-boyfriends - checking in. Several were stranded on the wrong coast - desperately wanting to be home. In the dark days following September 11, we heard dozens of stories about people casting out on unplanned road trips across the country - tethered to the car radio, avoiding big cities, stopping only for fast food and gas, watching America slip by through the windshield of a rental car. We heard that when they ran out of rental cars in Washington D.C. people were buying cars to get home. In the Midwest one agency was charging a $3000 drop off fee as cars became more and more scarce. The stories mounted. Some drove alone, others car-pooled with strangers. One friend described the phenomena as hundreds of small town meetings traveling across America. Under such unusual circumstances all kinds of encounters and conversations were possible.

The Kitchen Sisters (Nikki Silva & Davia Nelson)

Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva have been producing radio programs under the name The Kitchen Sisters since 1979. They are the executive producers of Lost & Found Sound, an end of century national collaboration heard Fridays on National Public Radio's All Things Considered throughout 1999, monthly throughout 2000 and periodically throughout 2001. The series was honored with a 1999 George Peabody Award, a 2000 Webby in the Radio category, Clarion - Women in Communications and a Silver Reel from the NFCB.

Davia Nelson is also a screenwriter, producer, director and casting director. She co-wrote and produced the feature film "Imaginary Crimes", released fall 1994. She produced and directed Emmy-nominated "Making Tutti", a PBS documentary on the making of an Italian/doowop/gospel children's musical, airing in 1997; she did the location casting in San Francisco and Memphis on Francis Ford Coppola's "The Rainmaker".

Along with her radio work, Nikki Silva has also been the History Curator for the Museum of Art and History in Santa Cruz, California. She also works as a museum consultant and freelance exhibits curator. Recent exhibitions include: "The Golden Rush in Monterey Bay Region"; "The World Famous Tree Circus", the saga of a California roadside attraction; "California Indian Basketweavers", historical and contemporary Native weavers and their works; "Teatro y vida: Mexican Masks, Dance and Village Theater"; ); "Never a Dull Moment! The Santa Cruz Boardwalk, the last of the West Coast beach amusement parks" (travelling exhibit).

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