My New Look

Even though I wrote an early morning post about Tuesday today, I decided, for whatever reason, that I wouldn't update you on Wednesday's event until Thursday was almost over. Don't ask me why, I think it has to do with being hungry. That's what I blame every other weird decision I make on!

So, Wednesday! Wednesday was a big day for me and Ryan! We got started early to beat the traffic as we headed back to NYC. We also made a pit stop at Dunkin before we hit the road! Once we'd returned, we got ourselves gussied up and went to lunch with Ryan's mom! We didn't really get gussied up for her (although she's obviously worth it), we made ourselves pretty because it was makeover day!

BEFORE

Ok, making ourselves up for a makeover sounds weird, but it wasn't a complete transformation, just the hair, and it is my personal belief that if you're going to get your hair cut, you should dress up so that as you sit staring at your own face for hours, you feel good about it! And I did feel good! I loved my long hair but it was time for a change!!!

The guy who cut our hair was named Marty. We went to his apartment and he did our hair there. He also had a dog named Sassy which may or may not be the best name I've ever heard for a dog. This guy didn't just do hair, his apartment was full of costumes and all sorts of everything because he runs a drag show, does hair/wigs for a few Broadway shows/cruises and had a role written for him on Grace and Frankie which is a Netflix show starring Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. Martin Sheen was texting him while we were there! Basically I was in unfamiliar but amazing hands.

AFTER!!!!!

He started with Ryan because he was doing color and then it was my turn. Like I said, I needed a change! I brought a few pictures but Marty just knew what he wanted to do without even looking at them (conveniently what he wanted was pretty damn close to what I'd been thinking). Ohmygoodness, it was so much fun. I love my new look. I could not be happier with it.

But actually, I could continue to be happy. Cupcakes make me very happy. I'd planned an NYC Cupcake Crawl for December but I never went to NYC in December so it didn't happen. BUT a plan in motion stays in motion, so the Cupcake Crawl was coming six months late! We met up with one of Ryan's roommates, Anna, and took off!

We knew we were going to four bakeries and also that it was crazy hot out, so we decided that the best course of action would to be taking all of our cupcakes to go and comparing them from there. The first bakery we went to was Prohibition Bakery; they make mini-cupcakes with alcohol! Not only do they make cupcakes, but the owners make a cookbook which I bought for Ryan as a belated birthday present!!! (The Cupcake Crawl was originally designed as a birthday celebration). We're going to try to make some cupcakes from the book before I leave. We went to Butter Lane and Sugar Sweet Sunshine bakeries as well and then hit up the big one that I'd been looking forward to the most, Two Little Red Hens. They were literally the big one -- they had the largest cupcakes! I was most looking forward to this one because this bakery consistently makes "best cupcake" lists across the internet, while I found the other ones on a best NYC list (best of NYC still probably means that they're A++ but I also knew that Two Little Red Hens is famous for a chocolate on chocolate on chocolate cupcake known as the Brooklyn Blackout). As one might expect, we ended up with a huge variety of cupcakes, from the aforementioned Brooklyn Blackout to pretzel and beer, salted caramel, Oreo, red velvet, key lime pie and more! I insisted that we try the Brooklyn Blackout first thing when we got back and I might have set the bar too high because it was a work of art that I'm just not sure the other cupcakes will be able to live up to. Chocolate cake, chocolate filling, chocolate frosting and chocolate chips! All of the cupcakes we've tasted have been amazing so far but that one takes the... ya know.

We got some pizza for dinner and then we crashed hardcore. Ryan and I realized that we've been going nonstop since I arrived so a good night's sleep was in order!

Today we were in for another exciting, if not lazier, day! It started off with a trip to the grocery store! Intense stuff, I know! Ryan wanted to make mac and cheese for dinner and I'm his girl for that so we needed supplies! After that, we walked to The Queens Kickshaw which is known across the internet for its fantastic grilled cheese! Now, I really wanted a grilled cheese, but I wanted something else too! My friend, Olivia, also lives in Astoria! She's a former TAD who I trained with and is basically the sweetest person to walk the planet. Sometimes she might be walking on her own planet, but it's a pretty special planet and she's still the sweetest thing! Ugh, I just love her!

So we got sandwiches and caught up. Ryan and I did the thing where we each order a sandwich and then take half. I ordered their egg and cheese while he went with the gouda. The egg and cheese was different than we'd expected. The cheese was on the outside of the sandwich, giving the sandwich a bit of extra crunch but also a slightly burnt feeling. The best part of that one was the maple hot sauce because it had a really nice kick! The gouda sandwich had black bean hummus, guava jam and pickled jalapenos, along with gouda obviously. We really enjoyed both sandwiches but the gouda was our favorite. We probably would have ordered the mac and cheese that they're also known for if we weren't planning on making our own macaroni dish for dinner. After lunch, we said goodbye to Olivia and headed back to Ryan's where we eventually made the previously mentioned macaroni and where I simply hung out all night while he was at work! He is presumably on his way back now and we'll have to head to bed soon to get ready for our final full day of adventures together!

Just a Girl, Her Guys and a Goat

Clockwise from left: Tacos 1, 2 and 3

Ryan and I have decided that most of our adventures revolve around food. 99% of what I do is food-related but this is especially so as part of my relationship with my best friend, which is why, on Tuesday, we embarked on what some might call a taco crawl but what we called a Taco Tournament.

We'd seen an article on Buzzfeed about going to Jackson Heights in Queens and being able to go to six different places and buy six tacos for $20. Challenge accepted. Ok, challenge modified because we couldn't find all of the places, so we instead decided that we would go to three taco places! One thing that the list did not tell us was that we should have brushed up on our Spanish before we went. All of the tacos we got were legit and trust me when I say that we could have gotten three tacos on just the first block of our adventure. Each of the tacos was different and delicious. Our favorite taco was the steamed tongue taco. Yes, we ate steamed cow tongue! We wanted to order something different!!!

We planned it perfectly to make it back to Ryan's apartment just in time for our next adventure. Our next adventure would span three states because we were returning to the place where it all started, our alma mater, DSU. Small note: Ryan is in the middle of a small existential crisis because he's officially one year out of school and is feeling directionless so I've done the very helpful thing of reminding him that I'm two years out of school and even more directionless. We weren't driving back so we could freak out together but instead to visit a few of our wonderful friends. One of our friends is gainfully employed by the same university that handed me a diploma after four years of blood, sweat and tears on my part. Billy Peterson (or Bill as his name tag says... blech) now works for DeSales University. I'm not entirely sure what he does there but he has an office and I wanted to see it. (It should also be noted that I'm the one who edited his cover letter and therefore must be credited with all of his subsequent success! Just kidding... a little bit). His office was so adult! My office for the past 18 months has been a car and I'm a little bit homeless these days so it was really cool to see how amazing things are for him at this point!

We let him head home so he could change out of his adult clothes and into something more comfortable before dinner and we took a spin around campus. DeSales has recently erected a new statue, Jesus The Teacher. Let's just say that we aren't the biggest fans of it. The view of our old home, Labuda Theatre, now has an impressive view of Jesus's butt! Speaking of Labuda, the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival is now in full swing and we ran into my old boss, Jill Arington! We said hey and she agreed to revamp an old letter of recommendation for me and then we were on our way to see Rose Hayes.

Now, all of my previous tour partners know Rose as "Rose the Goat." There is a long-standing joke that Rose looks like a goat. She explained the origins of said joke to me but I'm still a little sketchy on the details, but nevertheless, I call her Rose the Goat to avoid confusion with all of the other Roses I know (there aren't any others...). Rose also got a job in the Lehigh Valley post-graduation but it isn't at DeSales. She does fancy film stuff in Allentown and has a very cute little apartment. She also has a very new not-so-little boyfriend who I wanted to meet, so we all went out to dinner. We went to the Copperhead Grille -- which is kind of a DSU staple -- because I wanted favorite fries. Favorite fries are really potato wedges. Potato wedges covered in cheese (and bacon, but we got that on the side). They come with ranch and they are literally life itself! Billy and the boyfriend (Rose's, not Billy's, he doesn't have one) joined us and I'm glad to say that the boyfriend has my seal of approval. After dinner, we made a little trip to the local bar, the Tally Ho, to see a few other friends and then Ryan and I drove to his house in New Jersey to crash for the night. Crazy day, I know! And by crazy, I mean crazy amazing!!!

Just a girl, her guys and a goat.

Gay Rainbow Bagels, Ducks of the United States and Walking Fah Dayz

This is my first, truly MCT-free Monday this year. Yes, technically I had a few unbooked weeks but in reality, I was still on the clock, but today, I was free as a bird! And oh boy, did this bird fly.

I started the day with cheesecake. 1am cheesecake basically became 2am cheesecake but wow, it was worth it! A+ work from Mr. Jas Spencer! Ryan and I then stayed up until like 4am talking which was pretty crazy considering all of the plans we had for the day. (Also, talking that long for us is literally nothing which is funny because we typically spend a lot of our time talking about nothing!)

I was awake four hours later to carpe diem some stuff. I got out of bed with a little more gusto than Ryan did. He took a little poking and prodding to get going but luckily he had me and I am always game for a challenge.

Spinach on the left/Jalapeno on the right. Rainbows everywhere

Yesterday, Ryan told me that he doesn't go to Brooklyn. He just doesn't according to him. Five minutes later, he remembered that there is a store that makes rainbow bagels and it's one of NYC's latest food obsessions and of course when he looked up where it was, it was in Brooklyn. He needed to get over his aversion to Brooklyn because I needed a rainbow bagel! Now, I'm made of rainbows, so eating rainbow colored food is a tricky situation for me because it may or may not be cannibalism... Getting to Brooklyn and finding bagels wasn't that hard but making a decision about what to get was. The rainbow bagel was a given but they had so many different types of cream cheese! Cream cheese can obviously make or break a bagel. Ryan and I decided to order two bagels with different types of cream cheese and split them so that is how we both ended up with a rainbow bagel with jalapeno cream cheese and a rainbow bagel with spinach and artichoke cream cheese. Ryan had voted for the jalapeno (not that I took any real convincing) because that would make it a spicy rainbow bagel and we're both spicy rainbows (which brings up, once again, the cannibalism question). It was rainbow heaven. Basically my tastes buds got to ride a friggin' rainbow. We didn't have anything we wanted to do in Brooklyn besides stuff our faces so we got back on the subway after breakfast for more adventures.

We went to Union Square because there was a Barnes and Noble there. Now, you're probably thinking, why, with everything there is to do in New York, would Thomson and Ryan possibly want to go to Barnes and Noble?! I demanded that Ryan take me there because they have a promotion called "Blind Date with a Book." The books are wrapped up so you can't see the cover and you simply pick one based on the description! He got one last week and I needed to have a literal adventure in choosing a book and a figurative one in reading it. After a drawn-out debate with myself (this is not a swipe-right/left Tinder situation here, I'm making a serious commitment!), I went with Indie Rom-Com. I identified with it because it talked about Chicago and millennials and I'm a millennial with plans to move to Chicago! From the moment I opened it later in the day, I knew I'd made the right choice because before I even read the title, I saw that the book cover was pink. It's a book called Office Girl and I read the first 30 pages to Ryan while we hung out and we realized that this book could not be more perfect for me. The description of the main character basically could have been a description of me -- down to the mismatched socks I was wearing -- so now I'm even more excited to read it. We also visited The Strand and it's 18 miles of books because we're super nerds.

Next we walked to Big Gay Ice Cream, which is a real place, I kid you not. I don't know why it's called that but it's sort of become a local legends. I ordered the Salty Pimp and yes, I actually had to say that. It was vanilla ice cream, dulce de leche, sea salt and chocolate dip and it was amazing. I ate it in what was probably the most unattractive way anyone has ever eaten an ice cream cone (they don't do cups but they do have little trays and after a few licks, I probably got myself a tray and deconstructed my cone from there) but I was a very happy clam.

Next Ryan took me to walk The High Line which gave us the opportunity to think about life and come up with different plans on how to destroy slow walkers. For those of you who do not know, The High Line is a park that is 30 feet above the street level on an old rail line with river and city views. And yes, I stole that description from Google but they did a much better job describing it than I could.

Actually, Ryan took this pic

And then we were hungry again (to be fair, we'd done a lot of walking without eating much at all), so Ryan decided on Melt Shop. Let me tell you, the boy knows me well, because Melt Shop is a grilled cheese restaurant. Once again, we decided that our best option would be to order two different things and split them down the middle! So it was the three cheese (which, of course, had three cheeses) and the big skinny (which had lots of different things in it, so I don't know why they called it skinny). We also ordered tater tots, which they gave some other name, but they were still tots. Very delicious tots with garlic Parmesan on top, but tots.

At this point, I realized that I had probably taken more pictures specifically for this blog in a singular day than I had in the past three weeks. Civilization will do that for you.

Ryan and I then killed time by riding the elevator at the Marriott. (Shout out to the Marriott in Indianapolis because that was still the best hotel I stayed at on the road).

Ryan then took me to dance class at the Broadway Dance Center. Little Thomson would have died if she'd had the opportunity to go to a dance class in NYC and the only real difference between Little Thomson and Present-Day Thomson is that I'm taller now. I didn't actually die (although I did get my butt handed back to me) but it was a pretty wonderful experience!

After that, I needed to find some grub before I went to Ryan's place of employment. Ryan suggested I go to Bare Burger where I promptly ran into a DSU grad. Not anyone I was ever particularly close with, but small world. Bare Burger has a lot of different options for the meats you can get. I'm currently in the process of reintroducing meat into my diet to ensure that I can safely eat it in Central America, so I had a lot of options here. I went with the Fire Quacker. In case you couldn't guess from the name, it was a duck burger. It was comprised of duck pepper jack cheese, pickled jalapenos, red onion, spinach, tomato and habanero mayo on a brioche bun!

When I was all done with my dinner, I headed over to Ryan's place of employment, Don't Tell Mama. I was not just going to Don't Tell Mama to visit Ryan, but also to meet a friend. Yes, I have friends besides Ryan! Ms. Caroline Casey is a living legend. I should preface this by saying that when I went to college, everyone commented on how tall I was and blah blah blah and it is true that my college friends are all very short, but in high school, I was the little one. At 5'9", I was the runt of the litter. Caroline, like my other dear friend, Mandy Belscamper, is six feet tall. Caroline has always had a personality to match. We were both basically adopted by the same all-boys high school and kept each other sane through our junior and senior years. I, however, haven't seen her in years so we had a lot of catching up to do. Honestly, it was like nothing had changed. We ordered Shirley Temples because we're adults and I cannot imagine a better way of spending the evening. The duck burger was also a good choice for dinner because Caroline's catchphrase in high school had been "Ducks of the United States!" (Don't ask me what it means, I'm not sure that even she knew).

After we said our goodbyes and promised that there would be more hellos, I took the subway back to Ryan's all by myself! There was a lot of walking involved in today and I'm sure I'll be sore tomorrow, but it was all worth it.

The Adventure Continues...

Today was my first road trip in 18 months sans little red truck/tour partner and I must admit that it was pretty weird. One thing that did remain consistent, however, was my pink luggage, as I traded in my two pink suitcases for one pink backpack. Some things will never change.

So basically, even when I'm not traveling, I'm traveling. Today I drove down to NYC to see Mr. Best Friend, Ryan Lind. Ryan has endured all of the trials and tribulations of tour life with me except for the actual touring part. He's my main confidant. MCT should basically have been writing checks out to him this whole time. I got him an Aladdin shirt as a big thank you for standing by me and because he totally deserved a souvenir. And now I'm going to get my taste of life as a young, millennial actor who stays in place for more than seven days at a time!

My drive was surprisingly short, especially considering that I was alone after such a long time of not having to drive by myself. I used this as a time to fully jam out because -- although my tour partners will find this hard to believe -- I'd been holding back on my car dance parties.

Anyhooo, I made good time to Astoria, which did not require crossing the dreaded George Washington Bridge (side note: I hate the GW and it will be the first thing I destroy when I take over the universe) so that was exciting. Ryan and I then did the very exciting thing of watching a DVD of one of my performances of Aladdin and then did the even more exciting thing of laundry! Not joking. Ryan took me out to brunch at a bar near his apartment where he dines frequently enough to know the entire staff by name. He's a regular (and yeah, that's probably the first time someone has ever called him regular).

After that, I went with Ry to work. He is a host at a piano bar a few blocks away from Time Square! I hung out while he did host things. His mom was in the city so she came by to say hello (another side note: Ryan's mom is the coolest mom out there besides my own). Ryan's shift was from 4pm-12am so I went out for dinner around 7. I got pizza. I ordered two slices because that is pretty typical for me, but these two slices were essentially an entire pizza pretending not to be an entire pizza. LOOK AT THAT! It's literally the size of the tray. It was insane. I also made plans to see other friends in NYC because it wasn't until I got here that I remembered that this is a very large city and I know people here who aren't Ryan.

I went for a walk after dinner to burn off some of the crazy calories I'd just ingested and wound up at the Hershey store, which unfortunately smelled like peanut butter! Disappointed, I walked across the street to the M&M store which, thankfully, smelled like chocolate, so that was dangerous! I didn't get anything but someone did mistake me for being a part of their school field trip and I just feel like chaperones should probably know their charges a little bit better... I also feel like people should be able to tell the difference between a 24 year old woman and a high school freshman, but apparently, they cannot.

My plan had been to stay with Ryan at work until his shift was over but things got a little crazy and his bosses didn't seem to like that I was there (I bought a Sprite! I was a paying customer!!!) so I took an Uber home. It would have been a very comfortable ride if that driver hadn't played the same strange song over and over and over again. I heard it NINE times between Ryan's place of business and his place of living.

During my time in Manhattan this afternoon/evening, I also got cheesecake. Jas told me about a place called Junior's that I needed to try, so when we walked past it today, I knew that it was fate. I picked up two slices: the chocolate mousse cheesecake because it was what Jas said to get and the red velvet cheesecake because it was what my heart said to get. My wallet said I shouldn't get either but I told it to shut up. I haven't actually tried them yet because I was waiting for Ryan to eat them with me (which he couldn't do while he was working) but now he's on his way home from work and 1am cheesecake sounds like a brilliant plan to me!

Ryan and I have a ton of plans for the week. Including a mini-adventure to our alma mater in PA and lots of tromping around NYC. I'm so happy to finally be here! Also really happy to eat late night cheesecake...

Back to the 406 and Onto the 617

So, I’ve been in Missoula since Sunday but I’ve been busy! Working and stuff! Cuz I had a job. Now I don’t and I’m a statistic (unemployed, struggling actor, ya know).

We had a long drive from North Dakota on Saturday and Sunday. North Dakota is very pretty, as in pretty flat. It was rather dull, except we had a book on tape to pass the time. I took a picture because the sun was still out and about at 9pm. We stopped in Williston for the night and I was able to revisit the Walmart that Mandy and I once drove to just to say that we drove to North Dakota to go to Walmart! We slept for a few hours and got back on the road. The sun was up before us because well, North Dakota is north…

We made really good time to get to Missoula and I was able to literally drive down memory lane as I passed by at least three old residencies. We reconnected with lots of friends on Sunday night and then we started check-in on Monday morning.

Check-in is, unfortunately, a special form of hell BUT Jas and I decided to make it fun for ourselves by dressing up. Jas got a Batman mask as a thank you gift from the cast in Cavalier so he wanted to wear that and I wore all black because on Mondays, we wear black.

Lots of checking in and such occurred and we turned in our truck. I did the math and we drove 9419.3 miles and worked with 974 kids in five months.

Today, I hung out at the tour office because my flight doesn't leave until tonight. I got to hang out with some friends and watch Jas train his new show, Sleeping Beauty. Jas met his new truck today and I mean new. The truck has less than 100 miles on it!!! BUT MCT 88, our home on the road (mine for five months, Jas's for nine) still reins supreme because it had automatic locks and Jas's new, yet-to-be-named truck does not! Jas and I watched our last episode of The Flash as tour partners and then he took me to the airport where we had a very teary goodbye (he was sobbing, I tried to tell him that he'd be ok without me, but I really don't know if he will be... ok, that is a very large embellishment, I told him that it was ok if he wanted to cry and he didn't).

I'm writing from the airport now. My flight leaves in an hour and I am very excited to be home. It has been a magnificent year and a half with MCT and I'm sure I'll be back in Missoula someday but for now, the next adventure is calling.

This is Because I Sent My Boots Home...

Last year, I sent my boots home with a few weeks left to go in the tour. I figured, I've only got a few weeks left, what is the harm? And then it snowed like a foot. It snowed in May! Thanks, Canada.

This year, I made myself a promise that I would not send my boots home for fear of a repeat weather catastrophe, but when I arrived in North Dakota on Sunday, it was 80 degrees and so I decided on Monday that it was safe to lighten my load and send my boots home.

Well, of course, the weather promptly got cold again BUT no precipitation UNTIL this morning, where there are currently snow flurries outside of my window. If you've read my past few posts, you'll know I'm a very short distance from the Canadian border, so thanks again, Canada. Actual snow is falling from the sky at this very moment! I don't know if this was caused by my own arrogance or if it's because it's Friday the 13th but either way, I threw myself down on the couch for a legitimate tantrum over this turn of events.

On top of all of that, my entire family is in North Carolina for Whitney's graduation and it's 70+ degrees there. (Side note: My family said "North" and I stopped listening which is how I ended up in ND when I should have gone to NC).

Manitoba Time

I've eaten plenty of pizza in Canada but today was the first time that I went to Canada for pizza. With this week's residency being less than 10 miles from the border, I knew it would be an absolute crime for us to not make a trip to visit our northern neighbors! Pizza really does transcend all cultures and bring people together.

When we joked about driving to Canada to get some lunch with our contact, they had just the place for us! They told us that we needed to try Pizza Haven if we were going to go to lunch abroad.

I am glad to say that I can cross a new Canadian province off of my list because I've officially been to Manitoba. For the sole purpose of getting pizza. No biggie.


This was Jas's first real chance to get to use his passport to leave the country and it was not wasted either. He got to experience a lot of Canadian things today, like border crossings and kilometers! He was quite nervous and actually held his breath while they were checking our passports. The border crossing here was the smallest one I've ever encountered. It was teeny tiny! It was like a baby border crossing compared to others I've seen.

Fun fact about me, MCT and border crossings: I have crossed the US/Canadian border with each of my three tour partners (although I've only done residencies in Canada with one). I obviously made him stop to take a picture when we were in Manitoba. We didn't get any closer to the sign for fear of picking up for ticks but we still got our photographic evidence. As you'll see I was going for a windswept look... #Model.

Yummm...

When we got to Pizza Haven, they delivered. Actually, they didn't literally deliver, because if they'd done that, we could have stayed in the States. What I mean is that the pizza was great. I ordered the personal sized "zesty ranch pizza," which had a zesty ranch sauce, onions, green peppers, pineapple, mozzarella and cheddar cheese. Yes, I got pineapple on my pizza. No, I don't know what someone has done with Thomson. It was good and big enough to bring leftovers home for dinner. Pizza Haven didn't just have pizza, however, they also did dessert and I got what might have been the largest slice of red velvet in the history of desserts named after both colors and fabrics!

Jas noted that despite being American, getting back into this country was a lot harder than leaving it! I'd expected this but it was still very funny to watch it play out. They asked us if we had brought anything back with us and seemed pretty surprised when we gave our monosyllabic answer in unison: "Cake."

Icelandic State Park

Yesterday, we took a five mile drive to visit Icelandic State Park. We're not sure why it's called that and couldn't get an answer while we were there, but we did find something else while we were there. We actually saw/found a lot of things but I'll get to that extra special something in a moment...

We went on a really nice little walk/hike. It was lovely. I saw a frog, lots of birds, a chipmunk and even a snake. Good times!

Onto that other thing we saw... When we arrived, we stopped at the visitor's center to see if they had any helpful tips or advice before we went out. They didn't. After leaving, we thought of something that might have been helpful for them to tell us about... wood ticks. I told you that we found something else!!! So far, I only found one of me and one attached to my shirt (and I made sure that both are thoroughly dead by hitting them with my shoe approximately 10,000 times). I have to, however, say "so far" because Jas found another tick on himself at 10pm last night and the locals have said that they just show up, so yeah, um, that's cool. I'm not totally paranoid or anything! On the plus side, I looked it up and they don't carry lyme disease, so like, at least I don't have to worry about that at this time.

Oh well, today we're driving to Canada for pizza because that's a thing we can do here!

Mac Master

So I have documented my near-obsession with mac and cheese and grilled cheese. I also know that in the history of this blog, I have described at least two instances where I indulged in a macaroni/grilled cheese combo, but yesterday, I attempted something that I had never done before. I made my own grilled mac and cheese.

Yes, I put mac and cheese in a grilled cheese sandwich. The result was a grilled jalapeno popper mac and cheese sandwich! Leftovers gone right!!! I put cheddar cheese on one slice of bread, cream cheese on the other and a monstrous scoop of noodley goodness in the middle, toasted both sides to perfection and ate to my heart's content. I've never been prouder of myself!

The Last Mac

Literal cheese gold

One thing Jas and I have done a lot this tour is eat mac and cheese. Ok, so that is something that I have done a lot since the day I was born but Jas and I were able to do something that I never got to do with Mandy or Melissa and that was make our own mac and cheese from scratch and we did that a lot this tour.

Our go-to has been jalapeno popper mac and cheese -- the recipe comes from Homeroom, a California restaurant dedicated entirely to cheese and mac (it feels weird to say it backwards but elegant variation!) -- and we knew we couldn't say goodbye without making it one last time. *Note: We have tried different types of mac, but jalapeno popper has been our fave.

So yesterday, we made the last mac. There was one thing that was extra special about this delicacy, however, because instead of using regular, old, store-bought, shredded cheddar, we used cheddar cheese that we bought in an actual cheese shop a few weeks ago. Real Wisconsin cheese that we actually bought in Wisconsin! It was heavenly. Absolutely to die for. (Except we aren't dead, don't worry).

So that was a pretty epic way to kick off our final week together. Also, when I met Jas, he told me that he wasn't really a mac and cheese person -- I've changed that!



Mac and selfie

Stop Before You Cross the Border

Today I start my 49th residency, which is the final residency of my 18 month TADventure (it's like adventure but for TADs). Yesterday was not technically my final drive day of the tour since I will be making the pilgrimage back to Missoula next weekend but it was my final drive day to a residency. It was also the longest drive day I've had in a while because all I've been doing for the past six weeks was zig-zagging back and forth across Wisconsin and I'd gotten quite spoiled. I suffered from some serious drive day delirium yesterday as we drove over 500 miles from Mondovi to Cavalier, ND which is where I am now.

I shall now rewind and begin at the beginning. We left Mondovi early in the morning and made a stop at Dunkin Donuts in Eau Claire. This will be the final Dunkin run of the tour since both North Dakota and Montana are embarrassingly Dunkin-less! And we drove...

I did some work while Jas drove but it was pretty boring for the most part and then it was my turn to drive and things got even more dull from there because we'd reached the flat part of the drive. Minnesota is flat. North Dakota is flat. These are facts.

No one, however, has ever been more excited than I was yesterday to cross the border into North Dakota because it meant that we were closer to our final destination (we'd reached the five-six hour mark in our drive at that point). I actually cheered.

We had planned a stop in Grand Forks, which is the largest town before Cavalier. I didn't see a grand fork while I was there but I did see a Tim Horton's! Oh Tim Horton's -- Canada's Dunkin! The life force of my Canadian tour! We stopped there for lunch. Jas had never been to Tim Horton's before and is now a changed man!

But, we still weren't in Cavalier. We had another 70 miles to go. And those 70 miles were north. Cavalier is just 10 miles shy of the Canadian border. I can basically see Canada from my homestay... It was to the point where I'm pretty sure the GPS's directions were just going to be "stop before you cross the border." The GPS didn't actually say that, but I did and I thought it was funny.

15 minutes from town, I experience such drive day delirium that I started laughing to the point of crying about the dead bugs on our windshield. Weird, I know. But it's what happens when you're in the truck that long. Jas and I did discuss how on our first long drive together, neither one of us got as weird as we did yesterday because we'd both been on our best behavior. We've moved past that, thankfully.

When we got here, I decided to see the sights. It didn't take very long. Cavalier is smalllllllll. The extra Ls are required for dramatic effect. It isn't as small as other towns that I've visited but it is still small and has a dusty feeling that one might expect if one was expecting a stereotypical town in the plains. Strangely enough, I was wearing my Chinook sugarbeaters shirt (gray shirt with the neon orange logo of Chinook, MT, whose school mascot is an actual beat) and discovered that Cavalier's mascot is an equally vivid shade of orange, except they aren't a vegetable, they're a natural disaster -- The Cavalier Tornadoes.

After that, Jas and I hung out at our homestay and I delighted in the fact that the sun doesn't set until 9pm here.

Goodbye to the Genie

I haven't quite said goodbye to Aladdin yet but tonight marked my final performance as the Genie!

I've got one more residency of this tour but this was my last week on stage (unless something goes wrong, but like, that never happens!

So, yeah, this is me doing awesome stuff and Jas being difficult! What else is new?

The Mondovi Buffaloes

Mondovi, WI's school mascot is the buffalo. I have seen a lot of unique mascots in my time of the road (Chinook Sugarbeaters, Bridger Scouts and an unfortunate amount of [insert town name here] Indians) and I'd even had my share pre-TAD life (Cohasset High School's mascot is "The Skippers" which basically means that they dress someone up as the Gorton's Fisherman and the rest of the South Shore area of MA has unique and nautical themed mascots as well), but I have never seen this before!

And by this, I don't mean a buffalo, because I have seen those (thank you, Yellowstone). What I mean is that I have never seen a school with a giant buffalo statue on top of it! The Mondovi Buffalo is definitely the largest ode to school mascot that I have seen to date. Seriously, they put a buffalo on top of the school and if you don't believe me, I have photographic evidence!

Wow.

Giant mammals aside (and by the way, did you know that Congress is voting on whether or not to make the bison -- which is actually what you're supposed to call buffalo -- our national mammal) this week is going well... I mean, since I recovered from nearly being run over! Good times.

I'm not going to judge all of Mondovi, WI by the fact that I was almost just hit by a car, but yeah, I was almost just hit by a car.