Not dead...
Hello from Starbucks country! In case you hadn't guessed from my complete lack of entries, I'm back on the road. We left Arizona last saturday and drove through farmington new mexico, denver colorado to sheridan wyoming where we had a very intimate space to kick off in, with a very interesting TD and asst. TD and walked away with a free bottle of wine from the Director of the theatre. While we were between shows I also went into the post office and signed away $675 to a money order for my naturalization application. No backing out now! lol. From there we drive through Montana, and Idaho into Washington state. Although stressful at time due to windy mountain roads and questionable road conditions, it has been the most scenically beautiful week of my life. I love it! We did a show in Yakima, WA which was more than little stressful because the TD was a bit of a pushy ass, but we got through unscathed and had a good laugh about it over some margarita's afterwards. Then we took a couple days to drive to Seattle where we just had a day and a half off to sightsee.
Our hotel was half a mile from the space needle. We drive in Friday night and stayed at a Quality Inn & Suites which is kinda lower end, but since I belong to the rewards program I got a free upgrade to the jacuzzi suite. It was kickass. It was a nice big room with a little balcony ans a great view, and of course the jacuzzi. Since Drea and Izzy's rooms were basically no bigger than a shoebox, we all hung out in my room, in the jacuzzi and drank the bottle of wine we got in Sheridan. lol.
Saturday we had some KICKASS thai food for lunch, then went down to the Pike Place Market, which is totally awesome. For anyone who doesn't know, it's basically an old school street market-independent vendors selling their wares...and it's HUGE. we didn't even get all the way through it 'cuz there was SO much awesome stuff to look at. I ended up buying a new peasant skirt (YAY!!! since i don't have any left) and some homemade jam from a local farm (Tayberry, strawberry jalepeno, and boysenberry). Then of course we had to go to the original starbucks 'cuz it's right there, and it was insane. The place was packed, but what was really cool is that they have the original logo on their sign and a bunch of merchandise. It's totally different then the green and white one I've always known. So of course I had to buy a "Bearista"-it's fucking CUTE, and soft, and since I left penguin in bed in Tempe now i have something to sleep with. :-) lol. i know i'm such a dork-sleeping with a coffee bear. oh well.
So after the amazingly overcrowded Starbucks experience, we headed back to the van and over to Seattle Children's Theatre where we had free tickets (thanks to our artistic director) to a show called The hundred Dresses. It's based on a children's book which i highly recommend, 'cuz it was easily the most beautiful and heartbreaking show I've ever seen. Truly amazing work. After the show we walked over to the Space Needle ('cuz they're basically next door to each other) and went up to the observation deck where we had an over priced beer and checked out the awesome night view of Seattle. Oh, and we found our hotel too. :-) After the space needle we went and hopped on the monorail 'cuz it was there, just for shits and giggles. It took us over to a mall, that unfortunately was closed so we wandered down to street level and wandered around looking for some grub and drinks. While we were wandering I offered to be DD...and then we ended up at the Taproom, 160 beers on tap. DAMMIT!!! But it was fine. I sipped the beers Drea and Izzy got and we ate some food. Then we ran and caught the last monorail at 11, walked down to the van and headed back to the hotel, stopping along the way at a Shell to grab some beer. And then we had to drive 6 miles out of the way to get to our hotel. Seattle is quite possibly the worst driving town for a tourist. There were like 6 roads in a row that i tried turning left on to get back to our hotel and couldn't. So i finally ended up at the road that the hotel was on but on the wrong side, so i thought i'd take it and just pull a U turn at the light past the hotel...only there was a never ending concrete median!!! we drive 3 miles away before i had an opportunity to pull a completely illegal up and over the curb U-turn to drive the 3 miles back to the hotel. It was one of those situations where I was so frustrated and pissed that I was actually laughing hysterically to the point of crying. (This was of course after we'd gotten lost pretty much every time we tried to drive anywhere that day) Finally made it back to the hotel and went to my room. Drea and Izzy went and changed into comfy pj clothes and then came back to my room and we hung out, drank, and watched Robin Williams Live on Broadway which neither of them had seen. (If you haven't either-Go rent it, NOW!!) Then Izzy left and went to bed and Drea and I stayed up talking until almost 4am.
This morning I got up, packed, checked out, and the three of us went down to the water, grabbed some lunch, and....went on the Ferry!! It was really cool. We went over to Bainbridge Island and back and i got some great pictures. Then we drive the 45 minutes to Tacoma, checked into our hotel, putzed around for two hours, then went and had the smoothest, quickest load-in yet.
Tomorrow we have two shows at 10 and 12:15, then have a 5 hour drive to Eugene, Oregon so that Tuesday we can drive to Crescent City so we can spend the afternoon going through the REDWOOD FOREST!!!!!!!!!! I'm so geeked!!! then we drive to San Rafael, CA and Salinas, CA for some shows before driving to Napa Friday night and hopefully going on the Napa Valley Wine Train next Saturday. Woot woot!! This leg of the tour is definitely WAY more fun than the fall leg was and I attribute a good deal of that to my actors being awesome people. I mean Gina and Marcos were cool and we got along, but it was never really like we were friends. we were coworkers. But with these two it's way more like friends going out and working together, and we all get along SOOO well it's awesome. But for now, I've got to get to bed-need to get up early tomorrow. And remember-even if i don't update I usually read my friends page at least every couple of days. :-) Blessed Be.
Our hotel was half a mile from the space needle. We drive in Friday night and stayed at a Quality Inn & Suites which is kinda lower end, but since I belong to the rewards program I got a free upgrade to the jacuzzi suite. It was kickass. It was a nice big room with a little balcony ans a great view, and of course the jacuzzi. Since Drea and Izzy's rooms were basically no bigger than a shoebox, we all hung out in my room, in the jacuzzi and drank the bottle of wine we got in Sheridan. lol.
Saturday we had some KICKASS thai food for lunch, then went down to the Pike Place Market, which is totally awesome. For anyone who doesn't know, it's basically an old school street market-independent vendors selling their wares...and it's HUGE. we didn't even get all the way through it 'cuz there was SO much awesome stuff to look at. I ended up buying a new peasant skirt (YAY!!! since i don't have any left) and some homemade jam from a local farm (Tayberry, strawberry jalepeno, and boysenberry). Then of course we had to go to the original starbucks 'cuz it's right there, and it was insane. The place was packed, but what was really cool is that they have the original logo on their sign and a bunch of merchandise. It's totally different then the green and white one I've always known. So of course I had to buy a "Bearista"-it's fucking CUTE, and soft, and since I left penguin in bed in Tempe now i have something to sleep with. :-) lol. i know i'm such a dork-sleeping with a coffee bear. oh well.
So after the amazingly overcrowded Starbucks experience, we headed back to the van and over to Seattle Children's Theatre where we had free tickets (thanks to our artistic director) to a show called The hundred Dresses. It's based on a children's book which i highly recommend, 'cuz it was easily the most beautiful and heartbreaking show I've ever seen. Truly amazing work. After the show we walked over to the Space Needle ('cuz they're basically next door to each other) and went up to the observation deck where we had an over priced beer and checked out the awesome night view of Seattle. Oh, and we found our hotel too. :-) After the space needle we went and hopped on the monorail 'cuz it was there, just for shits and giggles. It took us over to a mall, that unfortunately was closed so we wandered down to street level and wandered around looking for some grub and drinks. While we were wandering I offered to be DD...and then we ended up at the Taproom, 160 beers on tap. DAMMIT!!! But it was fine. I sipped the beers Drea and Izzy got and we ate some food. Then we ran and caught the last monorail at 11, walked down to the van and headed back to the hotel, stopping along the way at a Shell to grab some beer. And then we had to drive 6 miles out of the way to get to our hotel. Seattle is quite possibly the worst driving town for a tourist. There were like 6 roads in a row that i tried turning left on to get back to our hotel and couldn't. So i finally ended up at the road that the hotel was on but on the wrong side, so i thought i'd take it and just pull a U turn at the light past the hotel...only there was a never ending concrete median!!! we drive 3 miles away before i had an opportunity to pull a completely illegal up and over the curb U-turn to drive the 3 miles back to the hotel. It was one of those situations where I was so frustrated and pissed that I was actually laughing hysterically to the point of crying. (This was of course after we'd gotten lost pretty much every time we tried to drive anywhere that day) Finally made it back to the hotel and went to my room. Drea and Izzy went and changed into comfy pj clothes and then came back to my room and we hung out, drank, and watched Robin Williams Live on Broadway which neither of them had seen. (If you haven't either-Go rent it, NOW!!) Then Izzy left and went to bed and Drea and I stayed up talking until almost 4am.
This morning I got up, packed, checked out, and the three of us went down to the water, grabbed some lunch, and....went on the Ferry!! It was really cool. We went over to Bainbridge Island and back and i got some great pictures. Then we drive the 45 minutes to Tacoma, checked into our hotel, putzed around for two hours, then went and had the smoothest, quickest load-in yet.
Tomorrow we have two shows at 10 and 12:15, then have a 5 hour drive to Eugene, Oregon so that Tuesday we can drive to Crescent City so we can spend the afternoon going through the REDWOOD FOREST!!!!!!!!!! I'm so geeked!!! then we drive to San Rafael, CA and Salinas, CA for some shows before driving to Napa Friday night and hopefully going on the Napa Valley Wine Train next Saturday. Woot woot!! This leg of the tour is definitely WAY more fun than the fall leg was and I attribute a good deal of that to my actors being awesome people. I mean Gina and Marcos were cool and we got along, but it was never really like we were friends. we were coworkers. But with these two it's way more like friends going out and working together, and we all get along SOOO well it's awesome. But for now, I've got to get to bed-need to get up early tomorrow. And remember-even if i don't update I usually read my friends page at least every couple of days. :-) Blessed Be.