The Endless Night in SIn City

Well, let's be honest
it wasn't an endless night at all, but hey talk about a title!
I'm sorry it has been a week, I would have posted on wed. but we were at a hotel that didn't provide free wifi. In fact the hotel we stayed at was none other than the Famous HOOTERS hotel. Yes yes I know. Wasn't my choice, or anybodies really. And let's just say it was everything I would expect a hooters hotel to be. But whatever, I'm not going to lie, the rooms were kind of nice, and we up in the high rise able to look down onto the pool. I tell ya it was real cool coming into the city and being able to the strip from miles away.

Oh and a quick word on the drive down, Oh My Gosh! Driving around the west has been absolutely breath taking at moments, at many moments. Traveling all thru colorado, and montana, some of wyoming, seeing the Rockies, has been some of the most beautiful scenery I've ever seen. It was such a shock to me that, it felt unreal, I kept saying how everything in the movies is true! I felt so naive, Cause it felt weird that this was all here, and I've never seen it before. The saddest thing about it all, is that I couldn't capture it. NO picture I took gave it justice. Especially when we drove from Utah to LAS V, we ended up driving thru this canyon like valley, surrounded by these beautiful rocky cliffs, and boulder mountains. It was amazing, and all of this makes me miss my best friends more and more, cause they are all outdoor guys.

I must say coming into Las V, was a pretty exciting feeling, looking at all the sites, buildings, and attractions. Again feeling like I was entering a set on a movie. The best thing about it all was the fact that it was warm and beautiful, and the sun was shining for Jesus! After unloading the bus, and getting up to my over looking room, I saw Mikey( our fly guy) at the pool, so Of course I called him to bug um, and found out that HE has a friend who works on the biggest Cirque Du Soleil show, KA, and that he was getting an escorted backstage pass, and got special vip box tickets. You'd better believe I tried to get in on that, but to no avail.

Anyway we walked around the strip a little bit, went into the famous MGM Hotel, saw the Lions, which by the way was very sad, there glass cage looked worse than anything I've ever seen at a zoo. One thing I was surprised about was how diverse the employees are here, again another form of my naivety. Of course we had to go into new york, and to the new york hotel. We do anything that reminds of us home. Since we were there we had to ride the famous Manhattan roller coaster. Now I wouldn't normally spend 14 dollars on a ride, and almost didn't, but hey I did. Now the only thing I absolutely wanted to do was go to the M&MS World store. You see ever since my freshman year in college I have been a collector of things that are assoicated with them. I love the Characters, and over the years have found some awesome figurines, and candy dispencers. My mother even stayed up all night one christmas to sow m&ms material to a bathroom set for me. I love her, I call her milk chocolate.

Being in the M store was great! I loved being overwhelmed by the things I like. 4 stories of this crazy madness, and a 3d theatre!!! Of course I made them and stay and watch the movie, It was called I lost my m in vegas. It was how Red gambled away his letter, and how they searched to get it back, it was cute. Las V is a pretty crazy place, I have to say I felt way out of place there, for one I do not gamble, so the biggest thing to do there I didn't want to do. But the whole place is surrounded by a sort of bad vibe for me. The only reason why I would even consider living there would be to be in a Cirque Du Soleil show.

Well, the only other thing for me to do would be to see a show. Now George, our substitute Company manager got a whole bunch of free front row tickets for The Blue Man group. So that was the plan, he couldn't get any Cirque shows cause they are so in demand. So we decided to head back to the hotel when it started getting dusk, wash up and get some dinner before the show. In Vegas most shows are late, Blueman was a 10pm curtain. Well As I am about to leave my little owls nest room to meet them in the lobby, I get a text from Mikey asking me telling me he still had 1 ticket to KA. WHAT!!!!! Yeah let's just say I totally dumped my friends to go there. SOrry! I know I know. They understood fine. I ended up joining Mikey, Trish(spot girl) his friend Bridget who works for the show, she actually deals just with all the shoes of the 80 cast members, for dinner, Wolf Gang Puck, and Mikey was the big brother who payed for it all, Absolutely fabulous!

The SHOW was absolutely splendiffricallamazatasicallyawesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and I ended up buying the stuffed turtle.

re-ignited my passion and dream to be in a cirque show, so you'll probably be hearing more about that in the future,since I ended up meeting 2 Penn staters who work on 2 different cirque shows, and told me alot about whats going on in the future for cirque, I have started applying and getting in the frame of mind to audition for them.

The next morning It was still beautiful so I layed out by pool, got to give the reason to call me dark chocolate!We are now in Santa Barbara California. For the first time what is going on in the world hit us, as we drove in the city and saw the haze and layer of fog above the immediate sky that is from the smoke from the fires. There is this eery feeling over the whole place because of it. We had a show tonight, it went well, it was in a beautiful theater that is made to llok like the outside of a an old spanish town, It was really cool, Everybody voice felt so much better too after having those 3 days off. The nice thing about today was getting up at noon, getting a breakfast burrito from some small shop, heading to the beach, and having breakfast with peace. It was the total contrast to Las Vegas, and very much appreciated.

A salt lake reunion

While we in Billings Montana, as usual we found the dining hotspot. The brew pub. We didn't know how ever that we were going to be put right smack in the expereince, where Life and Art meet face to face.

We ended up befriending the bar tender, a semi usual occurance, but this time one that would change a couple of our lives, and bring a sense of commorodory to our community here. His name's Jerimiah. When he found out why there were these hords of people, young different and out of towners at his restaraunt, (for the show Evita), a new found connection and purpose to his life was formed. He had to join our community, this Evita family, why you ask, because he is full blooded Argentinian. Not only that, but his uncle had direct life experience with Eva Peron. His Grandmother worked for Eva, and Eva gave her a metal for having 15 kids, and also regularly donated money to their church. So it was pretty cool for us to meet him the real life example of what Our story is about. He really wanted to take his uncle to the show, but the tickets being as they are, he couldn't. So he felt the least he could do was Show us a night on the town. We had a great night, go to a dance club and work it out, Boy I just needed to dance.

(but here's a little interesting situation, one of Jerimiah's friends showed up and J tried to introduce all of us so we can hangout. Well his friend never really joined in with us, but that didn't stop us from having a bomb time. I mean we were all dancers, so we were making up routines and dancing for each other and having a great time enjoying our selves, well as we're dancing his friend proceeds to come over and tell us kind of one at a time that we should not be closed off, and only dancing for ourselves and basically cock fighting! That we should share our talents with everyone. now I didn't know that he was scolding us, I thought he was just drunk and rambling, until all the other guys got mad, and some had to chew him up a little bit. We were all real shocked how he made us feel real welcomed in montana, but anyway)

We were able to actually get them tickets, and they were able to see the show.

We are now traveling down to California, with some fun stops to keep us happy. Tonight we rested in Salt Lake City, Utah. Now I was hoping to get here midday so we could really spend some time in the city, but alas, we arrived after 6pm. It kind of sucks when you get on the bus and it's dark, and you get off the bus 12 hrs later and it's dark, it really puts you in a mood. I was really anxious to get here cause I was able to connect with 2 old friends from Penn State! Haley and Charis. SO I wanted as much time as I could get with them. We ended up just having an extended dinner, it was just great to just catch up, and hang out. Tomorrow we head to LAs Vegas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Montana Halloween

I'm just going to put pictures up, um.... think what you will...

And on we travel.

We hit South Dakota, my first time ever in the upper mid west, very exciting and very cool. Let me just say that the mountains up here are beautiful, it has been really great to see all these natural beautys. It is really strange though, cause you drive and drive, and see nothing but what seems like waste lands, dry deserts, seens from movies that you never thought really existed, you wonder if there really is a town, let alone a city that even knows what theater is. We get the 10 mins from the hotel speech, and still come upon nothing that seems to be people established, and then you go over a hill, and swoosh there is a thriving little city town, (seemingly out of no where.)

The crew told us about this good restaurant in town called the firehouse grille, so as what happens in every place, the whole cast usually ends up eating there at one time or another, or all at once thru spurts of groups. We bring the business! It was actually a nice spot to eat at. The wonderful yet weird thing about performing in Rapid Falls, SD, was that both are shows were at 7pm. So we got out at like 945pm which is just bizarre for us to have so much evening time left. We went to hangout at the pub on the corner, and everyone was pretty blasted and was ready to go home, and it wasn't even midnight! Ha! Of course not me,but Mikey did by a shot for everyone, well we basically brought the business to this bar, we had 22 people there from Cast,crew, and pit. and then there was this little table of 4. I did have a sip of the shot, and gave the rest back to Mikey, (he likes getting drunk).

The absolute cool thing was the next morning,oh wait, so I went jogging around this park that was next to the theater, and was aways from the hotel, and was coming up upon this little bridge, and saw there was people hanging out under it. "Uh Oh, why are they under a bridge, here we go, delinquents." So I run in and it's a bunch of spanish guys, and as I run some start getting up as if they were running with me, in front and behind. I had my ipod on,Though it wasn't working cause the batteries were dead, but I just acted like I couldn't hear them. I have to admit I was pretty alert, and tense, and ready to sprint. But I'm alright.

SO anyway, Rob, our bus driver being so cool, decided to take anybody who wanted to go, to Mt RUSHMORE! It was Fantastik!!!! I am the first person in my family to have ever been this far west, and to see the glory that is RUSHMORE! It was truly amazing, breath taking, and patriotic. A couple of us took the presidential path to the highest view point. When we got there we took our pictures, and they left....I couldn't. I just sat down on the one side of the fence and just gazed up at these monumental men. I don't know what it was, but it just hit me, freedom, sacrifice, honor, and an over whelming sense of humility. For some reason I have always been a very home team oriented, patriotic person. After I left that spot and walked further down the trail, down the hill, I found this big rock that was off the trail, that jetted out over the mountain. well of course I had to ran out and sit on it. Well As soon as I got out there and peered out The wind started blowing and God told me HE loves me, and let's just say the whole was way emotional, and I was crying. Blah blah blah, say what you want, I needed to cry.and it felt good! Want to know something really funny, well in the gift shop they sell chocolate bars somehow represented of each president. George Washington, milk chocolate, Thomas Jefferson, milk chocolate with rice crispies, Roosevelt, milk chocolate with almonds, and you guessed it, Good ole Abe Lincoln, DARK CHOCOLATE BABY!! Better believe it! I'd be no where without that man!

The shows felt good, I haven't felt that good with my voice since rehearsals back in NYC, so if you're prayin for my voice out there, keep it up!!!