(35) Memphis, TN

Saturday, January 24th: We left Meridian and drove 300 miles(7712 total miles) to Memphis, TN. Jill and I were in the truck and we had a nice little ride. The fun started when we got to Memphis. The hotel we were booked at was farther from downtown than we had expected. Caroline made an immediate decision to look into other hotel closer to downtown because we have two days off and would be better in a place where we could walk to food and entertainment. About 30 minutes after Jill and I arrived in the truck, Caroline, Jill, Rudy and I left to go looking at other hotels around town. We were out for about an hour and Caroline had a good lead on two hotels. About an hour after coming back to our current hotel, Caroline, Jill and I left again to take the truck to the Ryder shop to get fixed. I had called earlier in the day to see if I could bring the truck in and the man I spoke too said that they were open until mid-night. I asked if I could take the truck to the other Ryder shop and he said that would be fine too. When we got to the Ryder shop I wanted to go to, we quickly realized that they were closed. So we turned around and drove to the complete other side of town to find the other Ryder shop. That one was open and I successfully dropped the truck off. Jill was happy we had gone to that Ryder shop because it was closer to the Wal-Mart that we wanted to go to. We found a Wal-Mart on the GPS and started towards it only to find out it was a Sam’s Club and not a Wal-Mart. Then we found two more Wal-Mart’s on the GPS that didn’t actually exist in real life so we gave up and went to Waffle House for dinner. At the Waffle House, we asked about a Wal-Mart and the woman said there was only one down on Elvis Presley Blvd so we decided to go down there. All through this time, we were waiting to hear back from the current hotel that we were in to see if we could break our contract and move hotels. Right before we arrived at Wal-Mart, Caroline got the call and found out we were released and could move, but now we had to find rooms at the other hotel with an early check in! Caroline called one place back and they said they had no idea whether or not she could have an early check in and she decided to call back in the morning. Finally, we headed for our current hotel and called it a night. Jill and I had spent almost 12 hours together and were just about ready to pummel each other.

Sunday, January 25th: We woke up to the news that we were moving hotels! This was very exciting for everyone so we packed into the vans and moved to our new hotel in downtown Memphis. In the afternoon, a group of us went to Graceland, the home of Elvis Presley. It was pretty amazing to say the least. Besides the fact that it’s a lot smaller than you would expect, there were so many things were just so exciting to see. All of the rooms of the house had very distinct feels to them and they all looked like no one had touched them since he passed away in 1977. We saw the living room, dining room, kitchen, basement, and “jungle” living room in the main house. Then outside the house, we saw Vernon’s office(Elvis’ Father who was also his agent), his trophy room (with all his gold and platinum records and other awards), his racquetball house, and the meditation yard that has become a small graveyard with Elvis, his Parents, his Grandmother and his twin brother who died at birth. Apparently, Lisa Marie Presley spent this past Christmas at Graceland with her young children. I wonder what it would be like to walk back into a house like that knowing that hundreds of thousands of people had walked through and looked at all your father’s possessions. We also learned that no one was ever allowed upstairs in the Graceland Mansion and to honor that people are still not allowed upstairs. After that, we went to Elvis’ Car Museum, Signature Elvis Museum(which has a number of his jump suits), and finally the Lisa Marie Airplane Tour. Overall it was pretty amazing to see such a hugely historic piece of Americana. At 4:30pm Caroline and I went over to The Peabody Hotel, which is just across the street from the hotel that we’re staying in. In The Peabody, there are ducks that live in the lobby fountain and are brought down from the Duck Palace on the roof at 11:00am and taken back upstairs at 5:00pm. There were a number of people gathering around and the Duck Usher had laid out red steps and a red carpet that went from the fountain to the elevator. As we were waiting for the duck walk, a man stepped out of the elevator, dressed very nicely, with another name after him. He was a black man, with medium length hair that was graying on the sides. I just stared at him as he walked out of the elevators and through the lobby. When he was out of sight, I turned to Caroline and said “Was that… Was that Al Sharpton?” And sure enough, when I went home I looked online and knew that I was right! I couldn’t believe that I would see someone like Al Sharpton randomly in Memphis(I don’t think he lives here.) Eric was at the Duck walk as well, so we all gathered near the ropes and watched the 5 ducks parade by with their usher. Once we got back to the hotel, I walked into the hotel bar and asked the bar tender if she had the NHL All Star game. She flipped through the channels and found it on Versus HD. I was super excited and stayed there all night watching the game. It was a nice cap to an exhausting day.

(34) Meridian, Mississippi

Wedesday, January 21st: Today was the longest drive we have done on either leg of the tour. We drove 588 miles(7412 total miles) from Fenton, MO, through the Eastern edge of Arkansas, around Memphis, TN and into Mississippi. We ended the day in Meridian, MS which is in the South Eastern corner of the state. It took Rudy and I 10 ½ hour to drive the distance, including our lunch and gas stop. Caroline, Jeffrey, Jill and I went to dinner at the Cresent City Grill, which was suggested to us by the front desk people. It was very good food, and the service was humorous. Jeffrey kept saying “Don’t mind us, we’re from the North.” Our server turned to us the first time and said “Oh, I understand, my girlfriends from Tennessee.” Who knew that Tennessee was in the North! At one point I said “YOU’RE from the North, the rest of us are from the West!” (Caroline and Jill are from Colorado.) This was the first time that I’ve really been in the South so it was quite an experience. That southern accent on everything made for a bit of humor with everything.
Thursday, January 22nd: I spent the entire day in my room making phone calls. At 5:00pm we left for the venue and knew that this was going to be a very interesting load in. First of all, we had to fit everything up a 10’x14’ freight elevator (we have a couple of pieces that are longer than that.) We also knew that it was going to be an all volunteer crew which means we have no idea what the skill level is but it’s never that good. Everything took a very long time and lots of effort on our part to explain what we were doing and do it correctly. I also tried to do some touch up painting and found that my paint had dried out, I guess from freezing in the cold and then separating the pigment from the water, but it was unusable. Finally, a load in that should have only taken a 3 ½ to 4 hours took almost the whole 5 hours and was very frustrating.
Friday, January 23rd: We had two shows today at 9:30am(52) and 12:00noon(53). After load in, Jill and I went looking for post cards as a local bookstore but didn’t find any. Then we went to a restaurant called Faraway Place in the next town over called Marion, MS. It was a trailer with a front porch and very exotic décor on the inside. We got there around 5:00pm and were the only ones there. The woman who owned the restaurant sat us and started talking us up. She was very nice and knew that we weren’t from around here. She was also curious who had sent us, because they apparently don’t get new customers that often. The food was REALLY good, some of the best Thai food that I have ever had without a doubt. Afterwards, we went to Wal-Mart for post cards. This Wal-Mart was the epitome of your stereotypical Southern back country Wal-Mart. As we were walking in, there were three people in front of us who walked in the Exit and two other people who were walking out the Entrance. Jill and I, of course, walked in the Entrance, but it was truly baffling to watch. That night, Michelle and I had a compy date and then Carolyn had some people over to watch more “Lost” episodes. On a side note, yesterday and today’s hi temperature was around 65 degrees and absolutely beautiful. It’s amazing to know that in the last 10 days we’ve seen a 110 degree temperature difference!

(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.

(32) Drive to Galesburg, Illinois

Saturday, January 17^th: I walked outside this morning to put my bags in the van and immediately I felt something wrong. I was only wearing a hoodie and a long sleeve shirt and I wasn’t freezing! The temperature must have risen into the single digits because it felt almost like a summer breeze outside. There was a hockey team staying at the hotel we were in so when I went to have breakfast the entire lobby was filled with small kids, large bags and really talkative parents. Today was my first day riding in the Red van as opposed to driving the truck. We started our drive out from St. Cloud and the roads weren’t too bad. Kevin was driving and I was navigating for him. For the whole time, Kevin was teaching me all about his music choices from Beyonce to Michael Jackson to Diana Ross to really random stuff like Aerosmith. It was quite shocking because I assumed that we’d be listening mostly to classical music and operas, but it was a lot of fun regardless. Lindsay took over driving, with Dave as her navigator, and the road conditions slowly deteriorated. We passed into Iowa and were seeing huge wind gusts that were blowing snow all over the road. After she drove, Caroline took over, with Jeffery navigating, and the road conditions got even worse. We saw a number of cars and trucks that had slid off the road days before and hadn’t been pulled out yet. As we kept driving, we starting hitting traffic jams from cars that had just that afternoon or evening slid off the road. There were still police on the scene and even a tow truck or two. Through the rest of the drive we saw about two dozen of these types of car accidents and 3-4 similar truck accidents. It was fairly nerve racking but we all kept our cool and continued to drive on. Around 5:30pm we stopped again and I took over driving. I was making good time as we had about 140 miles to go. It looked like we’d get in around 8:00pm. We made it through the rest of Iowa and into Illinois. Right after crossing the border, we came upon the I-74 interchange that we would take to Galesburg. Unfortunately, I wasn’t paying attention and went the wrong direction on I-74, taking us a good 20 miles or more out of our way. We were about 3 miles down the road when a suggestion was made to turn around in one of the emergency turn arounds. I though about it for a bit and then saw one coming. There were no other cars to be seen, so I decided to go for it! With no problem, we turned around and were headed in the correct direction and made it to the hotel, after driving 499 miles(6587 total miles), by 8:15pm. Boy was it a long day to say the least. Everyone else was already at the hotel and had gone to get food, so a few of us went over to the local grocery store for dinner. We watched a couple more episodes of “Lost” and then some of us played a couple of hours of poker. This time I did much better and had a lot of good hands. I ended up winning the night with $9. Rudy came in second with $7, Dave with $5, Carolyn with $4 and Eric lost everthing. It was 2:00am and I wasn’t tired, but everyone else was so we called it a night.

Sunday, January 18^th: DAY OFF! This was our first official day off in 12 days. I had a relaxing morning watching the morning news shows and having breakfast. I then went down to the hot tub and sat there for a bit. Caroline and I went into “downtown” to get some coffee from a local coffee shop. I slept the afternoon away while pretending to watch the NFL playoffs. Around 4:30pm, a group of us went down to Crappy’s Bar and Restaurant, to meet up with the die-hard football fans, for dinner and some football. The food was ok and it was nice to be out for a bit. When we left the bar it was snowing outside and was very pretty! After everyone was back from the bar, we watch another couple of episodes of “Lost” to top off the evening.

(31) Eau Claire, WI and Collegeville, MN

Wednesday, January 14th: We woke up this morning to -25 wind chill temperature. I spent the morning inside the hotel, where it was warm, trying to make phone calls and do paperwork. I walked over to McDonalds, which was right next door, for lunch and on the way back, I stepped into the hotel parking lot, slipped and fell flat on my butt. It was pretty embarrassing but luckily no one was around to see it! At the venue, we had to park in an alley way between the theater and a Gospel Mission Shelter to unload the truck. It was snow covered and a little icey. When I stepped out of the truck, I immediately fell again on my butt. We left the truck running while we unloaded in very cold weather. As we were going through load in, we were getting word that some of the schools planning to attend the show the next morning were closing because it was suppose to be -45 wind chill temperature. That meant they wouldn’t be coming to the show. Our audience was quickly dwindling but we knew there were a handful of homeschooled kids that were most likely coming. There was talk that we might cancel the show, which would mean we set up the show for naught, because the venue didn’t want to put on a show for less than about 20 people. The TD of the venue had a list of the schools coming and was slowly crossing the names off the lift. Unfortunately, we just had to wait until the morning before we could actually cancel the show. We left the venue at around 10:00pm and it was quite frigid outside.

Thursday, January 15th: We pack into the vans and headed to the venue in the -40 wind chill temperature. When we got the venue, the loading doors were locked. Eric and I walked around the building to find another entrance and just in that time, my nose hairs froze and some of the water in my water bottle froze as well. On the news they were saying it only takes a few minutes to get frost bite in weather that cold. Once inside, we found out that we’d have about 35 people for the show. It wasn’t the smallest house that we’ve ever had, but it was a little sad. We had our 10:00am(47) show and immediately started load out. After load out, Eric and I hopped in the truck and drove 178 miles(6088 total miles) to Collegeville, MN. We had to stop at one weight station on the way. Normally we just roll through and we’re on our way. But this time we pulled onto the scales and just sat there. After a minute, a trooper came out and asked for our log books, where we document all the hours we work and drive. He asked about some of the hours we had worked, told us our DOT placard on the truck were too small and sent us on our way. We take so much time to keep our log books up to date and accurate that it’s nice to have them checked every once in a while. Once we arrived at out hotel in St. Cloud, MN, we had an hour or so before having to leave for a load in at St. John’s College. Luckily, it was only in the -30 wind chill temperature when we started load in. The college didn’t have a loading dock, but they did have a very tall set of stairs that we backed the truck up to. They had a long ramp that went from the top of the stairs to the bed of the truck. It was by far the most interesting loading situation that we’ve seen so far. The students had all done it before so they were very good at being careful with our scenery and good at pushing our heavy boxes up the ramp. Load in went well and we were back at the hotel before 11:00pm which was great.

Friday, January 16th: We had two shows at 9:45am(48) and 11:45am(49). After load out, I had a quick lunch before heading out to the Mall of America with Carolyn, Dave, Eric and Lindsay. It took about 1:45 to drive to Minneapolis, which is where the Mall is. Dave was meeting up with a friend from college and Lindsay and I ended up splitting off from Carolyn and Eric to walk around the mall. The Mall of America is a funny thing. It’s a mall with the same stores as every other mall in the country. But it’s huge with 4 floors and a Nickelodeon themed amusement park in the middle, a miniature golf course and an aquarium in the basement. Lindsay and I walked the entire mall going into random shops here and there. We went to Lego Land and played with the legos, America Girl, where Lindsay gave me the short history of the American Girl book series, The Dollar Store, a bead store, the gift shop, an antique shop and we got smoothies and soft pretzels for dinner. It was a lot of fun and about 3 hours later we packed up and drove back to St. Cloud.

(30) Appleton

Sunday, January 11^th: This morning I watch my Sunday morning news shows(This Week w/George Stephanopolous and Meet The Press with David Gregory) and did a little bit of paperwork. I took 30 minutes out of my morning to turn the truck on and let it run knowing that we hadn’t plugged it in that night and I knew that we’d be driving it to the venue that afternoon. We left just after lunch for load in at the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center. At load in, I had enough extra time to do some touch up painting, which Jill coached me on. I remember a little bit from my rendering class in college and my time in the paint shop, but not that much. Regardless, my painting turned out so good you can’t even tell that the pieces were scratched now! That night, I had a compy date with Michelle and watched most of the Golden Globes before falling asleep.

Monday, January 12^th: Breakfast at the hotel as normal. We had one show at 9:30am(46) which went well. The venue was really big and we had lots of extra space which is always nice. Load out went quickly and we were on our way back to the hotel. I had Jill drive the truck, which she had never done before, all the way back to the hotel. She was very nervous, but she did a great job. We made it back in one piece without any problems. Caroline, Rudy and I then went out to Grainger, so I needed to pick up some casters and spring clips, then over to Woodman’s, which is like a local Wal-mart. We were looking for lunch and decided on Perkins. When we walked in, we saw Eric and Jill sitting at a booth having lunch so we joined them. After lunch, I made a bunch of phone calls which nobody answered. In the late afternoon, I went to the exercise room to work out. I did cardio and some strength training with my stretchy bands for the first time on the road. Late that night Caroline, Eric, Rudy and I played poker for about two hours. There was a $5 buy in, which I ended up losing all of. Caroline ended the night with $10, Eric with $8 and Rudy with $2. I got three good hands all night, 2 of which were beaten and one of which I won! Luckily, we’ll be playing again later in the tour so I can make that money back.

Tuesday, January 13^th: We drove strait West across the middle of the state along a couple of two lane highways for 205 miles(5910 total miles) from Appleton to Eau Claire, Wisconsin. We saw a number of small towns of 3,000 people or less. Jill and I were in the truck and it was the first time that she drove the truck on the highway. She did a very good job and we made it to the WI-21 and I-94 interchange. After arriving in Eau Claire, we had a tech dinner and venue meeting at a restaurant across the street from our hotel. Back at the Hotel, I went down to the hot tub to relax for a bit. I was joined by another hotel guest who was from Minneapolis. We started talking about the -20 degree weather and then got into other stuff. He started telling me about Minneapolis and how it’s quite a booming city. He works for a computer controls electrical engineering company that is based in Santa Barbara. I couldn’t express enough how much I love living in Northern California. We had a great conversation and then I headed back up to my room for the night.

(29) Madison, Wisconsin

Thursday, January 8^th: When I woke up, I went downstairs for breakfast in our very ritzy hotel called the Edgewater. It is almost resort like and sits right on one of the lakes that surround Madison. The restaurant overlooks the lake and it was a gorgeous sunny morning. Out waiter’s name was Shawn and he was a performer at one point in his life. He talked with us a lot and told us about a number of great things to do in Madison. We had a $10 breakfast voucher which went pretty far at the restaurant. I went back upstairs for another work day in the morning. This time I spoke with a number of venues and got a lot accomplished. After the work and lunch, we headed out to our venue for load in. This load in went a little slower than we had expected and our local crew was divided up in a way that we didn’t expect. It took the whole five hours of load in and still needed a little bit of time to put the finishing touches of the show. Back at the hotel, Rudy, Eric and I got some Chinese delivery and played 9 holes of Wii Tiger Woods Golf.

Friday, January 9^th: I had an early breakfast with a few other people on the crew, with Shawn as our waiter again, before setting out to go back to the theater. Eric, Jill, Rudy and I arrived 30 minutes earlier than normal to finish up the details of load in and the cast showed up just as usual for the microphone check. We had two more shows today at 10:00am(43) and 12:30am(44). After the show, Eric, Lindsay, Rudy and I went over the Wisconsin State Capitol building, which was only a couple of blocks from the venue and hotel. We went on a fabulous tour of the building with a fantastic guide who was extremely knowledgeable about Wisconsin history. The Capitol building has to be one of the most beautiful public buildings that I have ever seen. A number of large painting, lots of different marble and granite, and some phenomenal stained glass skylights. Then Lindsay and I went over the Madison Historical Museum and looked around there. They were having an exhibit called “Odd Wisconsin” which focused on a number of strange/funny/eccentric things that happened in the state of Wisconsin. We also looked around at the other historical facts and displays about the last 200 years of Wisconsin history. After that we walked a few blocks down Strait Street, which runs from the Capitol to the University of Wisconsin, then cut back over to our hotel. That night was all about relaxing, talking to Michelle, watching TV and going to bed at a reasonable time.

Saturday, January 10^th: We had the morning off so I took the time to pack up my bags. We left the hotel and headed to the venue for our last performance at 2:00pm(45) at the Overture Center. When I got there, I plugged the truck in to warm up the gas(which had probably frozen overnight.) We’ve been trying to do this as much as possible because it helps the truck start up easier. Our performance went over well and we rolled through strike without any problems. When we started to pack the truck, I realized that our lift gate(which runs off the battery) was running a little slow. Rudy had already turned the truck on once since we started load out and it turned on fine. This time however, He tried to turn it on and it was obvious that the battery was too low to turn the engine. I told Caroline to call Ryder and tell them we killed the battery and we continued the truck pack with a ramp that the venue had. We used the lift gate for one other piece because there would have been no other way to get it up into the truck. About 15 minutes after we finished packing the truck, a road-side service pick-up truck pulled up. The guy jumped out, plugged the jumpers into his truck, clipped them onto our truck battery and had me turn the key. With one turn, the truck went on. We let it run for about 45 minutes while we went and got a slice of pizza. It was a good lesion never to use the lift gate with a cold battery. Then we set off on our 118 mile(5705 total miles) drive to Appleton, Wisconsin. After we got the hotel, Caroline, Jeffrey, Jill and I had dinner at the Texas Roadhouse, which was right next to our hotel.