Coming to you from Canada: Day 1

Hello again from Canada!

We had auditions today and I learned a whole lot about Canada. Mainly that they say "zed" instead of "z" and think we say "flag" funny. Also kilometers. Still trying to figure that out...

Mandy and I finished up our day at the school and went to Boston Pizza in High River for lunch. I don't know why it's Boston Pizza. There wasn't anything particularly Bostonian about this Canadian-based chain and while Boston is known for a lot of things, pizza isn't one of them. We visited a Stephen's No Frills store, which was a big old grocery store where everything was neon yellow and then got thoroughly lost in High River when we tried to find the post office.

High River is the most populated place we've seen since we left Missoula and we're having a hard time adjusting to a town where you have to make more than three turns to get somewhere!

Once we'd found our way back to our homestay, we decided to take a walk because oh yeah, while New England is being totally destroyed by a blizzard, we've got 40 degree weather over here. We found a park and played on the swings while we watched the sunset. 

Admit it. My life is pretty great these days.

Oh Canada, Where We Can't Use Our Phones!

I've rewritten our northern neighbor's national anthem: Oh Canada, where we can't use our phones! Truth be told, we can use them but it is quite expensive! Now then, our trip to Canada was far more interesting than a few complaints about data usage and wifi access, so where do I begin?

We left Chinook early this morning. We needed to get a money order and arrived at the grocery store at 8am. Well, no, in Chinook, you just can't get to the grocery store that early, so no money order. On we went to Havre to fix this nonsense!

Today brings us to our first residency in Canada: Cayley, Alberta. We were well versed in company protocol on crossing the border, but that didn't mean we weren't nervous! We had written a manifest of all of the stuff in our truck and went to find the US Customs and Border Patrol Office so we could get it stamped before we went to cross into Canada. Well, the internet led us to a gravel road with some very high speed wind but no office to be found. Still confused, we made our way to the border where the contents of our truck were of no concern, but we were still told to pull over.

After waiting at the Canadian border for a while (not too long, but long enough to hear quite the interesting conversation over an immigration dispute), we were told we needed to get work permits to be in Canada. We had been told that this might be a thing and were prepared but still! They literally printed out an official document and STAPLED it into our passports. They also stamped our passports! Do you know how much of a crazy person you need to be an American who gets their passport stamped to enter Canada? They don't do that for the regular folk, just those crazy enough to live in a truck for five months.

The paper is, for the record, quite colorful and has some signature Canadian maple leaves on it.

Into Canada we went with still quite a ways to go before we reached Cayley. On our drive, we passed Milk River, where we will be in a few months. Mandy wanted to stop after seeing a dinosaur statue from the highway but I nixed that idea so that we'll have things to do when we actually get to Milk River. Who wants to spoil the fun now?

We went to Tim Horton's for a really Canadian breakfast/lunch (P.S. I miss Dunkin Donuts and I have been lied to for America does not run on Dunkin as there isn't a single Dunkin in the entire state of Montana). A fear of mine was put to rest with a singular order -- Canadians have grilled cheese. Wonderful, I can stay here. Even though I got lunch food, the breakfast options at Tim Horton's did look banging, I'll be blaming the muffins for my upcoming muffin top.

Canada didn't look too Canadian and no moose sightings yet. Mandy said that so far, Canada looks a lot like Texas. I cannot attest to this but I will say that it doesn't look like Massachusetts. We had to drive past Cayley to get to our homestay in High River (cuz sometimes you don't stay in the town you're working in). Even though they weren't home when we arrived (and still aren't), they had made us soup!! It was absolutely delicious and once again, I am so thankful for this opportunity.

We also pulled over by this official sign for a few sweet pics as well.

Those are thumbs up. Good thing you can totally tell...

Mermaids Took Chinook

It's our last night here! I should be packing... and I am... not. I spent the last few hours watching Grease and now as Grease 2 starts and the night comes to close, I've decided that I need to blog and pack and write my tour reports at the exact same time. Oops.

We went to both of Chinook's restaurants during our week here and frequented the gas station for F-Real milkshakes. We had two shows today to close out our week and because a kid was sick, I ended up making a cameo as Prince Perfect (because who needs Prince Eric anyways? This isn't the Disney version kids... no, it really isn't. We don't even have an Ariel).

Tomorrow we make our first trip to Canada. Just a week to get acquainted with our neighbors to the north (also known as North Montana if you're me and pretty much only me) before we're back in MT for a week and then it's six weeks with nothing but hockey and maple syrup to keep us company.

Cayley is about an hour outside of Calgary so we might try to get there this week. If not this week, then we're hoping to get there some other time during our tour.

Also after the show, we went to dinner and in true Montana fashion, we ran into an elderly couple who'd seen the show (I bet half of the restaurant had seen it, but only this couple said anything to us). Now, before I continue, I should mention that Prince Perfect's role needed to be rewritten because MCT got a few too many complaints about his...um...flamboyant nature, so when this man said jokingly that he found the Prince to be a little effeminate, I had to laugh, because if only you knew, sir. If only you knew.

Prince Perfect and Professor Irmagard Thumperdumper. Certified hotties.

The Wildlife Museum

Today we got a special tour of Chinook's Wildlife Museum. I think "Wildlife Museum" might be a misnomer, because this was most definitely a taxidermy museum.

That doesn't mean it wasn't cool though. Just lots of dead animals, posed in different positions.

It was here that I also found an honest to goodness Chinookian post card! It's even from the Wildlife Museum and I got it for free because everyone in this state is so damn generous.

We also visited Chinook's newest restaurant (aka the second restaurant in town) and got subs for lunch.

Malta and Chinook are just like New York City -- the streets are all numbered and make up an even grid, except here, the numbers only go up to nine.

But other than that, they're basically the same.

"From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever."

This morning, I convinced Mandy to get up and go for a sunrise drive with me. Bear Paw Battlefield National Park is 15 miles south of Chinook and even though we didn't have an earthly clue of what we would find out there but everything out here (including our motel) is named Bear Paw, so we went out for a look.

Turns out, it was a place where some white people killed a bunch of native Americans. There are too many places like that it, but now it's a national park, so I guess that is something. It is apparently the place where Chief Joseph "gave the immortal speech" and said "From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever," which seems kind of fitting since we woke up at the butt crack of dawn for this. We got some really great views along our drive and of the park as well. The Park is actually a trail that you can walk with all of the important sites from the Battle identified, but it was windy and 8am, so we settled for views over the vista. We also saw a big group of white tail deer at the Park (which might I add, I identified on sight and only Googled later to verify) -- the search is still on for a moose, however, because I will see one before this tour is over!

I totally freaked Mandy out by pulling over on the side of the road to take these

Sorry not sorry

Bear Paw Battlefield Trail

"Thomson, take a picture of me by this rock!"

You Can Havre!

Today, we used some of our allotted joy miles to drive to Havre, Montana (pronounce Hav-er, but more on that later).

We went on a tour of Havre's historical underground. In 1904, arson burnt down a large part of downtown Havre, except for the building's basements, which were refurbished into what became Havre's literal underground. The seedy underbelly of small-town Montana, if you will. The maze of underground businesses included a saloon, bordello and opium den! Less scandalous enterprises were also underground and today, many more exhibits have been added to give a complete sense of Havre at the turn of the century. It is also supposedly haunted by the ghost of a notorious bootlegger but we didn't see anything.

Saloon

Saloon

Bordello

Bordello

Bordello

Pharmacy

Cuz who doesn't love heroin tablets?!

On the tour, we learned the origin of the town's name, Havre (pronounced Hav-er like I said before). Apparently it was named by French Canadians who wanted to give the town's name an American twist but the local legend goes that two men were fighting over a girl and finally one of them stood up and shouting, "You can have 'er!" Either way, the town was pretty neat.

We got lunch (Warning: I might become an accidental vegetarian just from being with Mandy all the time) and visited Walmart. We're probably going back on Friday to get monster ice cream cones from the local ice cream shop and do other fun stuff! Now rehearsal time...

I went to get my phone back...

And since I was already up, I decided to drive around town for a few photo ops.

Chinook pride right there!

Highway 2 -- my new best friend

240 South

240 South Pano -- next to the sign that said No Gas for 100 miles

Day 1 in Chinook

Chinook legitimately has more churches than restaurants and their second restaurant just opened three weeks ago! It's pretty weird.

Today, our contact took us to her farm and we got to see three little lambs that were born yesterday. The lambs were born yesterday!!! Do you understand how cute that is? I don't have any photos to post because I was too busy going awwwwww.

Chinook is smaller than Malta and our motel is super close to the train tracks, so we basically hear the train all day, but everything else seems great. Their mascot is the beets, as in the vegetable. I'm looking for Chinook swag as we speak!

We did two incredible workshops at the elementary school, plus auditions and rehearsal! My most brilliant moment of the day, however, was probably leaving my cell phone in the locked high school after rehearsal. Oh well, I'll pick it up in the morning. Until then, Chinook!

Welcome to Chinook!

Mermaids Take Malta

WE SURVIVED OUR FIRST RESIDENCY!! The kids of Malta, MT put on two wonderful shows and we lived to tell the tale (or is it tail? Homonym humor!)

Our week in Malta was really incredible. I can't believe we found so much to do here and met so many incredible people. After the show today, we went to do our laundry and the elementary school secretary saw our truck parked outside and came in to say goodbye! It was a truly special week. It is insane that we are leaving tomorrow and starting all of this again in a new town.

Tomorrow, we are driving to Chinook, MT. We drove through Chinook on our way to Malta. The people in Malta have told us that there isn't very much to do in Chinook and that we're going to have to drive to Havre to find stuff to do, although I know we'll find something (we are totally going to drive to Havre anyway because they have some cool stuff of their own). Now, we literally only have to make three left turns to drive the roughly 75 miles to Chinook, because that is how things in eastern Montana seem to work!

To celebrate our fantastic first week, we got some "Mermaids Take Malta" shirts made!!!  Aren't they the cooliest?

That's our tour trainer, Kevin, in the middle. 

Phillips County Museum

So, being the small town celebrities that we are (seriously though, they put our pictures in the paper and Mandy got free coffee), and having a wonderful homestay with impeccable connections, we were able to get into the Phillips County Museum today! It's normally closed in the winter, but like I said, we have connections! It sounds pretty lame, especially when you consider the fact that there is a full blown dinosaur museum next door that is entirely closed, but I can guarantee that it was the exact opposite.

I went with Mandy and our tour-trainer Kevin. The museum is simply about the history of the area, stemming back from the dinosaurs (because yes, they had a dino too. It's name was Elvis) to pretty much modern day. They had SOOOO much stuff. Mandy said at one point that you're used to seeing this stuff in pictures, but never up close. It was really cool to get a glimpse of the lives of people in Montana in the friggin 1800s, that's for sure.

http://www.phillipscountymuseum.org/

Good Morning, Malta!

Well, the sun rose again this morning. And today, I went out of my way to capture it. I also got locked out of the truck and had to walk across half of Malta, but let's not talk about that.

Hoping I can take better pictures before I leave but...

The sunrise in Malta is pretty friggin' great.

Twas cold in Malta today. We got to see the elementary school, middle/high school and Stretch's Pizza. Not much time for exploring, but perhaps in the morning? The local dinosaur museum, which seems to be the only thing people suggest we do, is closed for the winter. I called them to see if they would schedule an appointment and they said that they only did that for groups of four or more. Oh well! I'm sure we'll find lots of ways to entertain ourselves!!!

Road to Malta

Hello from Malta, MT (most definitely not the island in the Mediterranean), where the wifi is far more reliable than it was in Missoula, despite the fact that Malta is barely a fraction of the size.

409 miles, three bathroom breaks and more than a few snow flurries later and we are here.

We left super early this morning in the middle of some serious snow fall and ended up taking a longer route on the road more traveled because it was the road that had actually been plowed (sorry, Robert Frost). I drove up through some beautiful mountains, then down some very scary ones until we got to Helena where Mandy took over the driving for a while. More mountains but not much of anything else got us to Great Falls where we stopped for lunch. After Great Falls, there was pretty much nothing for several hundred miles. Just flat. Flat. Flat. Flat. We drove down US 2 -- a two lane highway that seems to go on forever and occasionally crosses paths with a town, if that's what you want to call these places. We didn't make a lot of friends here -- the cars behind us weren't too pleased that we were actually driving the speed limit, but hey, if you want to go more than 70mph in a giant truck that you've only had for two weeks that doesn't belong to you and is filled to the brim with heavy lighting equipment and potentially dangerous props, be my guest.

We did see plenty of cows, however. All day. All the cows.

On US 2, we passed a sign for the world's largest tractor, except we didn't actually get to see the world's largest tractor because it was not in it's designated parking spot! Pretty inconsiderate if you ask me. One thing I really like about driving in Montana is that they occasionally have these little signs on one side of the road or another that say "Historical Point 1 mile" and then after you've driven a mile, you see another sign that simply says "Historical Point" with an arrow pointing in the direction of the supposed "Historic Point." WHAT ARE THESE PLACES!!! I want to know but I can't just pull off to the side of the highway when there isn't any designated area to actually pull off!!! They don't tell you anything other than the fact that there is something historic in a general direction and we must have passed at least 20 of these things on our drive and this is some US history that I'll never get to know!!! Wah.

Also, apparently Lewis and Clark went through Montana? This was news to us (sorry to whatever teacher I clearly wasn't paying attention to in history class), but every other town has something named after them.

Another reassuring thing about driving in Montana is when your GPS tells you to drive about 100 miles on a road called Last Chance Gulch. Because that's exactly what you want to be thinking as you drive down an icy mountain that has a speed limit of 25mph.

All in all, today was a great drive though! We even got to drive through Chinook, which is where we will be next week (although there isn't much to do there from the looks of it). Auditions (and maybe some exploring) tomorrow!!

Mandy took this while I was preoccupied with the big mountain I mentioned

Planning and Adventuring

Mandy and I are using some of today's free time to do research about where we'll be spending the next five months. We're mostly working, but keep in mind this is the longest amount of time we have had to sit still since we got here! Now, part of our job as TADs is to fill out tour reports so that whoever visits the same town next will have some idea of what things are like there; we have last year's tour reports as well. Most of this is related to the people and the work space, but some of it is also related to what there is to do in the area. Mandy has discovered the Edmonton Mall. Edmonton is the capital of Alberta, Canada and just 40 miles away from one of our residencies and also has the biggest mall in North America. This is exciting to say the least.

We also discovered Roadtrippers.com and the accompanying app which allows you to put in where you'll be going and it tells you what there is to see and do en route, so that is pretty cool.

Also, who knew that there are absolutely no Bank of America branches in Montana? I did not. Oh well...

Training is Over!!

12 days later and I am officially done with training! My truck is packed (pictures to come, but know that it is scarily full) and I don't head to my next destination -- Malta, MT -- until tomorrow.

Our vigorous training schedule has left very little time to explore Missoula, which is lamentable to say the least. But finally, I had time to visit Missoula's Shakespeare and Co. which takes it's name from Paris's Shakespeare and Co. -- a bookstore I visited this past summer to great success! Missoula's Shakespeare and Co. was a bit of a let down, but then again, what isn't after Paris?

Taken on our walk from the theatre to the bookstore. No biggie.

It's really embarrassing to say that even though we've had no free time to explore Missoula while we're here, we don't have any plans for our free day and we're all so exhausted that we might just find ourselves at the local megaplex for a movie... or two. We also have a lot of work to do before we go unfortunately.

Malta is roughly seven hours away and we have been given the task of comparing MapQuest to GPS to an atlas because our bosses don't trust GPSes and are scared that we'll get stuck at the top of a mountain. We'll be leaving nice and early on Sunday which means that I will be driving while Mandy sleeps for the first few hours. So excited to get started.

A Carousel for Missoula

Well, I arrived here a week ago and haven't had much time to blog. Missoula is great but cold; I never thought I would think of 10 degrees as a heat wave, but here I am. Today we got out of rehearsal early and were able to visit A Carousel for Missoula, which is the fastest carousel in the US (and second fastest in the world). It goes 7.5 mph -- crazy, I know!

Missoula is a lot bigger than I thought, but I don't have a lot of time for exploring unfortunately. It looks like I'll have some time next weekend though, and that's exciting! It is snowing right now -- basically all the time -- but things have been going really well. Everyone from work is awesome and I'm just loving this adventure!!

My daily commute

The view from my office

A Carousel for Missoula