One long Week

Sorry it has been a whole week since I have last written.

We experienced our first taste of bus and truck tour life, with our first slew 8 or 9 one nighters in a row. That's getting up, sometimes at 5am(like tomorrow) for a 530am bus call, travelling for up to 10 hrs, to get to a new city, check in the hotel have an hour or two, before we get back on the bus, and go to the theater to perform., Then we do it all again. It has been strenuous, tiring, agitating, and exhausting! We're so happy that tomorrow we get a day off, we've just done 9 shows in 8 days without one. Now a day off is only us not having to perform, we still have to travel, that would be a golden day,..ah yeah we don't have any of those. And it just so happens that again we are doing another 10 hr travel day, and we're still not getting to the city we need to be. It is kind of nice for us though, cause we'll get to spend tomorrow evening in Memphis, that will be a fun night that we need together. This kind of schedule tends to make people on edge, and short in grace, we hung out one night this past week in someones room who ended up getting a suite, and is was so cast bonding. We need more time to just enjoy each other, with nothing hindering our thoughts, or stressin us out.

Half of this time was spent in the state of Iowa, out of the 9 shows 5 of them we're in a city in Iowa. We have driven all over this state, in fact we have past the Best Western that we stayed in for opening night on the highway at least 3 times. I am so sick of that state, and was so happy to leave it today. I ended up with some weird pain from a theatre their. I thought I was bit by some spider on stage, that lodged under my skin, for i felt it a couple of times. The crazy thing is there was no mark or anything on my skin that looked like there was a bite, not a bump. But the pain came again the next day, so I went to the doctor to see what was up. He didn't really know he thinks it's some nerve thing, so He wrapped it, and said I shouldn't dance for a week. HA!

Anyway, traveling all over this state has brought by and eventually in the World's Largest Truck Stop! Besides it having 4 fast food joints inside, it had it's own restaurant, a library, arcade,dentist, theater, and make your own truck section in it. It was crazy. But you see alot of weird things at truck stops, and some weird themes, like dinosaurs.

Being on tour, you forget the world, for it's just off to one place to the next. We have no tv to watch, well when we get to the hotel, we either have to eat or work out, before we get ready for the show, the only news we get is if the hotel has a continental breakfast and the news is on. Half the time or mostly all the time, we don't even know what day it is. The only times I know are my bus calls, get on it to leave the hotel, get on it to go to the theater. Real simple. So when we drove to upper Michigan We were astounded by the beauty of fall.( half because boring old Iowa had nothing but corn fields) Pretty much the back of the bus got their cameras out and snapped like crazy. It was just so beautiful to see, and Lake Michigan was awesome, and I had never seen it before. It was a fantastic reminder that the world is still going on, which also helped to remind me that my close friend Jon Channells birthday is coming up, so the other reason why I haven;t written all week is because I was using my free time to work that out.

The shows have been going well. Of course every theatre brings about it's limitations and we have to change things, but we still put on the show we do, and continue to get standing o's. technical difficulties have been the bain of our existence, but we have just performed right thru them. Last night the curtain didn't go up, and the whole movie finished behind it, then the announcement cut in the middle, you didn't even know Eva died, it was hysterical, but nothing beats tonight so far. Out of all the small podunk towns we've played, this was the smallest. How small you asked, well we cut every stage piece, the night club stairs, all the flying banners, the video screen,the revolving door, and yes you got it, the famous Casa rosada Steps That Evita sings the famous song on, that all the pictures are taken from, hahahahah it was side splitting. We even had to skim down on costumes. It was extremely fun though, and we all felt like it was one of our best shows, and we had the audience right from the get go, bigger applause thruout the whole show( especially after dance numbers i might add), then any other place, and of course they were on their feet right in the beginning.

But it's nice to be able to re coop somewhat in the voice. I will sleep all day in the bus, I'm even thinking about staying up late tonight, and working out just so I'm really tired.

Now it's off to Memphis and then Jackson MS where hopefully I can see my brother jason whom I haven't seen in 3 years.