Truckstop Honeymoon’s Mike West and Katie Euliss have always kept their music as a scrapbook portal to their lives with their honest, no-holds-barred songcraft. So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the former Ninth Ward denizens allowed budding young filmmaker Nathan King Miller access to one of their most emotionally wrought chapters, their first trip back to Katrina-ravaged New Orleans shortly after their relocation to Kansas in 2005. As the Wests went southeast, so did Miller, capturing what life is like on the road with two touring musicians determined to maintain a quality family life. When they finally arrive, witnessing the destruction, the grimy, moldy walls, damaged mementos and unusable cases of CDs is understandably gut-wrenching, but all that sadness turns to temporary joy when Euliss notices gourds, melons and squashes growing where a sea of murky water used to be.

There are visits with musician pals Kathleen Kraus, Andy and wife Gwen Forrest, Esther Sparks and Gina Forsyth; there’s an insightful radio interview with WWOZ where West confesses that he’s not ready to do hurricane songs anytime soon. Towards the end, one can’t help wonder if the trip was slightly cathartic. At one gig, West amuses a crowd with some quick, dark humor by announcing that he always wanted a house without walls and now he has one. In portraying the lives of a family of four, Miller never stages a scene or provides any narration, he just lets the lens capture everyday life as it happens and therein lies the subtle beauty of this documentary.