3 Stops, Constant Snow

It is definitely winter!  Our first stop after the break was in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and it gave us the coldest temperatures yet on tour.  This was unfortunate because Fayetteville was a great small town with a college campus attached (similar to Tempe).  But there was a gluten-free pizza place!  These are rare finds, so congrats AR!  I was also able to see a friend of mine that I met this past summer in NYC.  I was his "artistic" mentor for a couple weeks.  It was very serendipitous to be able to catch up with him again and hear the new things in his life.  Otherwise, much of my time in Fayetteville was spent in the theater or the hotel....too cold!!!!

Believe it or not, Omaha was much warmer. Funny enough, even though it was warmer, I ended up getting really sick for the first true time on tour.  It was a cold that has been circulating our cast for a week or so.  I almost lost my voice.  But, somehow I was able to pull it together (lots of steam and mucinex!) and didn't miss a show.  I have to admit, I was a little loopy for some of the shows.  It felt like I had a couple beers before the show...but I was clean! Ha.  One day I was walking to the post office which happened to be much farther than I anticipated.  On my way back, I decided to take a different route and came across the building pictured above.  I had nothing to do for a while, so I decided to take a peak inside.  And take a look at what I found below!

It turns out this was an old Union Pacific train station from back when trains were the major source of transportation.  It is now a museum about the history of Omaha and a home to various other permanent and traveling exhibits.  The city recently refurbished the lobby to it's former glory.  It is a amazing how this country was settled and how certain cities made it and other ones passed by the wayside.  I must have spent about 3 hours looking around.  A must see!  We also took a trip to the Omaha Zoo which has quite a collection for a midwest town.

And now we are at our last stop (Madison, WI) before the "international" portion of our tour in Toronto.  And I have just added another first to my career in the business.  I had to call out because of an injury today.  This is also the first time since I got cast in Little House back in 2008 that anyone else has played the role of Almanzo!  Luckily, we have great understudies in our company.  I'm sure Will, one of my understudies, will knock it out of the park today.  Having been an understudy in other shows before, I know how exciting it is to finally get to go on.

So, here's hoping the next memories won't be sickness or injuries :)  It makes us grateful for the times we are healthy.

New Years in the Appalachians

Wow, it was so great to be home with my family.  We PRAIRIE folk are lucky that we all get along and enjoy each other's company.  However, everyone needs a break here and there when you are seeing each other ALL THE TIME :)  So, this holiday break was the perfect timing.  On top of it all, we had a white Christmas in Denver and one at home in North Carolina.

This is the house I grew up in (pictured above).  You are only seeing a portion of the house, an original log cabin that my parents found in another section of the mountains, took apart, reassembled here, and then built the rest of the house next to it.  One of the best parts of the house is actually what it allows you to look at from a cozy dining room table.  See below!

It is hard to leave a place like this.  However, duty called and I answered.  I soon found myself in the next stop on our tour (Fayetteville, Arkansas) missing my mountain home.  One gift I gave to my father this year was a new ax for chopping wood. It was needed, to say the least.  His other two axes were hanging on by a thread...soon to be the culprit of a home tragedy!  So, before I left, Dad made sure he got some action shots with his new ax.  The "sensible" one is at the top of this posting.  The "home tragedy" is below.  Thank goodness I like my brother, or it would have been off with his head!

Detroit, Tempe, Christmas in Denver!

The next 4 weeks were a bit of a blur.  I think we were all looking forward to the holidays and a week off to see our families and loved ones we have put on hold.  It is a funny thing we do, always working when others are playing.  Then we are free when others are working.  Luckily, we have a week after Christmas to travel wherever we'd like.  I'm in North Carolina, where I grew up...but to that later!

Detroit...well, it was pretty cold in Detroit.  Michigan has been hit especially hard with the economic crisis and has been recovering from the riots of 1967 ever since.  Though the downtown, where we stayed, feels vacant and unsafe at times, it is a vast improvement of what used to be.  Times Square in NYC used to be completely off limits to families and visitors and now feels as safe as any small town in middle America.  So there is hope for Detroit.  All that being said, I wasn't able to see too much of the city.  However, one of the highlights was the Motown Museum (also known as Hitsville USA) where thousands upon thousands of Motown songs were recorded.  The number of famous people that came through there was unbelievable.  This is a MUST SEE if you are in Detroit.  A few of the cast members went to the Detroit Historical Museum which is supposed to be one of the best collections of Americana in the nation.  Lastly, the Fox Theater in Detroit (much like the one in St. Louis) has the same tradition of painting murals on the wall.  We left our mark again...part of history now :)

Tempe was a nice change of temperature!....eventually.  We arrived to one of the biggest rain storms they have had this year.  Even with the rain, it was much warmer than Detroit.  The Gammage Auditorium hosted our little skit, right on the corner of the ASU campus.  It was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and is very memorable :)  We had some great crowds here and some great outings on the main college drag where shops and restaurants line the streets.

(My silhouetted girlfriend in Dillon, Colorado...she's pretty even in the dark :)

And Denver...ah Denver, how I have missed you!  This is my 4th trip to the Mile High City, and it is great to celebrate Christmas in a city you know at least a little.  Plus we have friends in the Christmas Carol playing at the Denver Center, so we are surrounded by familiarity...not normal on a tour!  We visited our favorite restaurant, Rioja, 4 times now.  It is a little pricy, but I have never had such diverse flavors so successfully paired than I have there.  And most importantly, we had a little apartment with a kitchen and a REAL Christmas tree (the tree was a gift from Melissa Gilbert to all of us).  If we couldn't be home, this was the next best thing.

Thank you Little House for a great first leg of the tour.  Here's to another great run next year!!!

Thankful St. Louis

These last couple weeks were a bit crazy for various reasons.  We had some understudies on, some cold weather, and VERY SLOW INTERNET.  I'll tell you what, I remember the days of dial-up internet...and I would prefer not to go back.  Some hotels are slower than a modem!

But, St. Louis had many great things to offer.  We checked out the arch which I could see right from hotel balcony.  It was literally right there!  This is a shot from the top looking down.  It really is an amazing structure.

I was able to spend some time with a good friend of mine from New York.  It realized it had been a while since I had spoken with someone about career goals and dreams and there was a synergy that fed both of us to make them reality.  Those kinds of conversations are so energizing!  Thanks John!

The Fox Theater in St. Louis is a huge and wonderfully historic theater.  So many tours have passed through.  It was originally built as a silent movie theater by Fox, and now it provides live entertainment all year round.  The best part of the theater is actually backstage where the walls are COVERED with murals painted and signed by each of the touring companies that come through.  You can see a couple sample pictures.  There isn't a corner or wall untouched.

There was also a fantastic museum called "The City Museum".  If you are ever in town and have 1-3 hours, you MUST go and become a kid again at this adult jungle gym.  I definitely broke a sweat climbing, throwing balls, sliding through nooks and crannies.  This is the essence of "hands on".

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  I was lucky enough to share it with many people I love here on tour.

Chihuly & Cheese Grits

Oklahoma City had way more than I expected.  We were walking distance from the hip "Bricktown" with great food, a movie theater, and ice cream mixed on a marble slab.  They had a botanical garden complete with thousands of colored lights at night. Their theater is only 8 years old after the renovation and is quite beautiful with TV's and couches in the backstage dressing rooms (was great for watching some weekend football).

But my favorites were definitely the Museum of Art that was housing the glass exhibit by Chihuly.  WOW!  This guy is amazing.  I saw his work at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, but had no idea it was him.  If you are ever near any of his work, you MUST drop by and see it.  This picture above is one of the many whimsical and beautiful works he created.

My other favorite was the Oklahoma City Memorial commemorating the OK bombing in 1995.  We were lucky enough to have a personal tour of the outdoor site by the designer, Tori.  She and her husband managed to incorporate peace into a site remembering such a violent and tragic event.  You MUST see this if you are every near as well.

This morning, I got to have breakfast with a mother of one of Kara & I's friend.  She was sweet enough to treat me to the best shrimp cheese grits I have ever eaten....WOW!!!!!!  What a great way to close out OK City.

MY HOME!: Rocky Ridge, Little Rock, and Springfield

Well, these three places were my home for the past week, BUT the house in this picture was built by the REAL Almanzo for the REAL Laura.  We were close enough to Mansfield, MO to make a morning trip over to this gem.  Having lived with this character and the Little House story for so long now, I almost cried when I saw Pa's original fiddle in the museum right next door to this uniquely and lovingly designed house.  My favorite room was the kitchen where each counter was about waist level, the perfect height for his 4'11'' bride, Laura.  All of the cabinets were well within her reach.  When they finally got electricity (a luxury piped in by their daughter Rose), Almanzo carved out a perfect cubby for the refrigerator...and I am talking PERFECT.  There was nary an inch of space between the sides of the fridge and the wooden walls of the cubby.  My father would have been impressed!  As you can see, it was a beautiful fall day.  Looking out over their land, my heart yearned to own something as peaceful one day.

This was our first and only split week, playing two towns in one week.  While it does not compare to the one-nighters I did on tour in Europe with Grease!, it still is difficult to travel and perform on the same day.  Both cities gave us some great crowds.  I have to say I was a little partial to Little Rock because of our stay in the fabulous Peabody Hotel (complete with live ducks in the fountain) and a restaurant/bar called the Flying Saucer which served not one but TWO types of gluten free beer.  It is once in a blue moon that this happens, so I made sure to taste them before I left.  :)

Our presenter, Larry, is taking care of us for the next 2 or 3 cities.  He's a good guy, so I'm looking forward to bringing the show to each of his venues.

One last picture:  Every picture that I have seen of Almanzo and Laura has them standing at least 3 feet apart from each other, and awkwardly looking at the camera.  So, Kara and I tried to recreate history in front of "our" house :)

NASHVILLE: Music City USA

Why a pumpkin, you may ask. Well, as my Nashvillian cousins would say: why not a pumpkin? !?! Well, I guess it was pretty appropriate since it was Halloween during our stay in Nashville. Can you see the theme? The eyes are "little houses"....get it? :)

But Nashville did not disappoint. In fact, it would have been nice to spend two weeks there. I think I probably had about 5 different meals involving BBQ. There was live music wafting through the streets near Broadway every night. The crowds were great, hooting and laughing. We planted trees with Habitat for Humanity one cool morning on their 7 acre or so plot. It was great to have a man there who knew about trees and how to plant them. "Almanzo" learned something new that day :) Our van driver who took us home from the Habitat plant was named Ms. Daisy, and she was proud of her city. She took us the long way back and showed us several universities, a local hospital, and of course, her favorite BBQ spot: Mary's BBQ. Luckily I had a car that week, so I made a special trip out to meet this Mary and taste some of her delicious cooking. When I asked her what she recommended, she said, "well, I don't eat it, but it's all good".

The best part about my Nashville stay was getting to see some of my cousins, aunts and uncles. I don't get to see them enough, and they were kind enough to let me crash at their place for the week. I had 7 family members and 2 friends in the audience for our last show. Luckily I did not fall off my sleigh during the show (that happened to me a couple days before for the first time since I started this show). I love my family. They make me laugh.

I will trade in the comforts of a house again to spend another week in a hotel. Let's hope it's a good one next week!