I realize that, in my last post, I forgot to include my (almost, not really) near-death experience in Watertown! After our attempted kitten rescue, I started to get back into the van which, by the way, seems abnormally high off the ground to my short legs. I have to grab onto something and hoist myself in. Just as I had begun the hoisting process, with one leg in and one leg out, the van began to drive away. I guess Katie was a little distracted by the fact that we needed to hurry to our next show, and thought she had heard all of the doors slam shut. The rest of us frantically screamed "Katie! KATIE! KATIEEEE!" for what seemed like a very long time but was actually only about three seconds until she turned around and realized that I was halfway out of a moving vehicle.
Anyways, besides that and the greenhouse incident and nearly running out of gas, our driving has been relatively uneventful, even though we've been doing a lot of it. Surprisingly enough for a tour, we've only performed on one day out of the last week. The others have been spent driving from New York to Illinois to Michigan, and hanging out in various hotel rooms. I am now quite familiar with continental breakfasts (these places really love their make-your-own waffle machines) and hotel pools.
On October 7th, we had our first day off! In Watertown! To celebrate, we all stayed in bed until noon. Eventually, I felt like I should leave the Econo Lodge, so I took a run to explore. It was actually really beautiful, finally sunny after we'd had nothing but rain for the entirety of the tour up to that point. We decided to take advantage of the weather and went apple picking! We didn't really have the room to carry around a whole bunch of apples and didn't exactly have the proper facilities to bake them into a pie or anything. So we only picked a dozen, and spent the remainder of our time at the orchard taking Snow White-inspired pictures, playing with the goats, and looking at delicious baked goodies. We also bought six miniature pumpkins to represent each of us (the sixth pumpkin is Gunther, our stuffed animal pig that plays a starring role in the show) and decorated them with sharpies. They now live on our dashboard and occasionally roll around while we're driving.
And then we proceeded to drive for two days, without much of note happening. I watched a lot of "The Office" on my computer. The second day, we did see signs for "Lincoln's Cabin" as we drove around Illinois and so, excited to see the famous log cabin where Honest Abe was raised, we followed them off the main highways, down back country roads, to.... a recreation of the cabin where Abe's father, Thomas, lived later in his life. Not quite what we were expecting. But still, it was pretty awesome to look around. We even came across Thomas Lincoln himself, sitting on a log and whittling! I attempted to become best friends with him by asking what he was doing, but he simply grunted, "Making a powder horn" and didn't talk to me anymore.
From October 10-13th, we attempted to find interesting ways to kill time in Mt. Vernon, IL. The hotel's continental breakfast ended at 9 every day, so I got into the habit of waking up at 8:45, trudging downstairs in my pjs, eating a biscuit, and then going back to bed until noon or one. Other highlights included going to a $5 movie theater to see "Easy A" and "The Social Network," eating lots of pasta, wading in a pretty lake (because for some reason, it was freakin' 85 degrees out there), and marveling at Mt. Vernon's recreation of the Washington Monument. Seriously, they have a model of the Washington Monument next to the movie theater, for no apparent reason. It's probably about 20 feet tall. I don't understand.
And then, hallelujah! We got to perform again! After three days of total leisure (I wonder if these sorts of tours always have so much free time, or if the economy is bringing down the amount of actual performance time), we had three shows in one day, at this lovely performing arts center. I think these performances were some of the best we've had so far. The kids were attentive and laughed a lot, and the show felt fresh again since we'd had such a long break. At one of the Q&As, the children gasped when we revealed our true ages. One of them told me she thought I was 10 years old. Another one asked if Liz, who plays my mother in the show, is actually my mom in real life. Liz is 24, and looks like it. I love hearing little children talk about their totally skewed perceptions of age.
And now we're in Ann Arbor, about to head off to dinner!
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