(33) Springfield, IL

Monday, January 19th: Martin Luther King Day. We left Galesburg, IL around 12:00noon and drove 123 miles(6710 total miles) to Springfield, IL. I was really excited to be in Springfield the day before and the day of the inauguration and was a little mad to find out that our hotel was nowhere near downtown and the performance venue was even farther away! How impressive would that have been to see the crowds in downtown Springfield, where Barack Obama declared his intention to run for President, on the day he is inaugurated. We got to our hotel before our rooms were ready so we went out to pick up some lunch. That evening we had a load in at the Sangamon Auditorium on the campus of the University of Illinois-Springfield. Everything went well and the local crew was very nice. After load in, we went to the Steak and Shake restaurant, which was across the street from the hotel. It was a delicious meal of cheeseburgers, fries and milk shakes.
Tuesday, January 20th: INAUGURATION DAY! At breakfast, we watched all the coverage of DC. A fair number of people in the company live in the DC area and everyone was giving stories about people they knew who were dealing with the 3 million people packing into the capitol today. We had our 50th performance this morning at 10:00am. As soon as the show came down, around 11:15am, the performers all gathered in one of the dressing rooms to watch the end of Obama’s inauguration speech. We had a tech meeting but had decided to watch video of the event that night when we got to our hotel. We had a 12:30pm(51) show and then load out. The venue had given us coupons for lunch in their cafeteria, so the cast went and got us food as well. We were really happy about that and it was very nice of them. Eric and I drove the 114 miles(6824 total miles) to Fenton, MO which is just south of Saint Louis. On the way down, the snow vanished and the temperature was almost to freezing, which for us is pretty warm! We had a beautiful view of the Arch and downtown Saint Louis on the way in. We were staying in a Towne Place by Marriott and each had a studio apartment with a full kitchen. Carolyn decided to make a dinner of chicken and pasta for who ever wanted it which was very nice of her. We sat around and rewatched Obama’s entire inauguration and speech. It is so impressive to see history like that being made. This is absolutely one of the most historical events of my life and I am so proud to say that I voted for him. Then we proceeded to watch two more episodes of “Lost” before heading back to my room for the night.