Last Night in Lander

Ok, the title of this post has a bit of a double meaning. I'm talking about my last night in Lander, but I'm also going to include things that happened last night, so it's like two last nights.

Last, last night, aka Friday, we finally figured out how to get WiFi in the cabin. Better late than never, I guess.

Before that, I went downtown and picked us up a few copies of the Lander Journal. Now, my I say that I was very impressed with the heft of the newspaper? Not only that, but they publish bi-weekly! Good for them. Well, I didn't pick this up just to read about how a Lander girl won the design contest for Wyoming Susan G. Komen or any of the other interesting stories I now have at my disposal, I did it for their little blurb about MCT! Did I make the front page? No, I did not. Did Katrina, Aladdin's mother and the vagabonds? Yes, they did! I tried to take a better picture than the one you see on your right, but that just wasn't happening and beggars/blog readers can't be choosers.

Last night, we also made the kids fight to the death! Not really, we had a little contest to see which group could be the BIGGEST and MOST EXPRESSIVE! (Those words must always be shouted and acted out with large, exaggerated gestures). The camels won and I was responsible for giving away the prize -- which was the opportunity to see their costume before the rest of the cast. Naturally, I couldn't just show them, I had to show them.

Wearing the camel costume is kind of like an Aladdin right of passage, so it was about time it finally happened!

The camel's head might need some love one of these days. It's a little droopy.

Now today, which is also my last night in Lander, for real, was the first show day of the fall tour! I finally got to make the joke I had been dying to make all week!


It's a genie on a genie!!! I'm so funny! And adorable.

Time to say goodbye to Lander and Katrina and hello to Lyman and my new partners, Taylor Ann and Kayla (yeah, I'm getting two partners, it's insane).

I Use Antlers in All of My Decorating -Gaston and Wyoming, Apparently

I’ve had Disney’s Beauty and the Beast (not the MCT version, because that's actually Beauty Lou and the Country Beast) stuck in my head recently because everywhere I look, there seems to be a dead animal on the wall. This could not have been more obvious than when I went to Lander’s Museum of the American West yesterday. Dead animals galore!

According to their website, the museum is about the different groups that utilized central Wyoming and Fremont County – which is the size of Massachusetts. It has both indoor and outdoor exhibits where one can learn about the history of life out here and walk through a reconstructed pioneer village.

Reconstructed pioneer village

Other than learning about what I would consider questionable interior decorating, I found out that apparently, Wyoming is home to some of the most badass women in history. (And considering that I am a badass woman, I know what I’m talking about). Wyoming was the first jurisdiction in the United States to give women the right to vote – they weren’t even a state yet when they granted women the right to vote in 1869! (They became a state in 1890). The 19^th Amendment wasn’t passed until 1920, meaning that they were 51 years ahead of the rest of the country! Female voters led to an unprecedented appointment: Esther Hobart Morris was the first woman Justice of the Peace in the United States. Elected in South Pass City, WY in 1870, she filled the seat of another Justice who had resigned over women’s suffrage (go figure). Historians argue over whether or not she is the mother of modern suffrage, but either way, she made history. Not that this is really relevant, but she was also six feet tall (I’m looking at you, Amanda Belscamper. I have to look up though, because you’re three inches taller than me). Pioneer women were basically just the best at everything, because they had to do everything to survive.

Stough House

In the reconstructed pioneer village, we were able to see a church, schoolhouse, store and the Stough House. The Stough House seems to be the crown jewel here because Charles L. Stough was the Sheriff in Fremont County in 1890 and jailed the notorious Butch Cassidy in 1894. So I’ve now been to places where both Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid have been jailed, but neither of which appear in the Academy Award-winning film that you’ve probably heard of (or maybe they are mentioned/shown? I doubt it but then again, I’ve only ever watched one scene of the movie and not very much is said at all because Paul Newman just kicks some guy in the crotch).

After all that, I became a changed TAD! This is Katrina’s first week doing Aladdin, so I’ve been able to teach her a lot of tricks about the show (as one of our bosses said yesterday when we called in, this is essentially an extra week of training for her) but she’s taught me plenty about being a TAD in general and yesterday might have been the best lesson of all. Wednesday is the first day that the accompanist comes to rehearsal and they join us for the second session after the very youngest members of the cast leave for the day. I’ve always jumped right in to starting a run through, but Katrina mentioned to me that she and her partner always have a music rehearsal during that session where they run through all of the songs with the accompanist and if they have any time left over, they’ll start a run through. I said that I’d love to try it that way! (They can always try jumping into a run through on Wednesday afternoon on their own, but when else would I be able to see this in action with someone who has done it before at the helm?). I made the right choice. It went splendidly and I’ll definitely try it again at some point.

P.S. The stars in Wyoming were on point last night. A++.

The Cabin

First off, here is our audition selfie from yesterday!

Now, some people (my parents) are extremely curious about the cabin situation, so here are a few pictures that hopefully satisfy all of your hungry eyes.

Sinks Canyon and Brown Trout

Our little cabin is on Sinks Canyon Road and is about half a mile away from the actual Sinks Canyon. Actually, we can hear/see the river (Popo Agie River) that created Sinks Canyon from our cabin, so we decided we’d start out this week with a little nature walk/hike.

We drove down the road towards where we knew the canyon would be and stopped every time we saw a sign. This included a sign for a trout lookout. We didn’t think there would be any trout but we were wrong! They were brown trout, because apparently those are the trout that spawn in the fall. There was also trout food for 25 cents and that’s went the trout went wild (ok, they have always been wild, but man, do they really like their food!).

After that, we drove down the road and parked at the visitor’s center (that is only open from Memorial Day to Labor Day, so it wasn’t very welcoming). We walked up to the Sinks Canyon lookout and wow. It was something to look at.

Next, we walked down to the Sinks Canyon caverns (which you could see from the lookout) and once again wow. I didn’t know Wyoming had so much stuff!

Since our goal had been to go on a hike, we proceeded even further to the one-mile nature trail. So, do bears crap in the woods? Everywhere, apparently. We needed to watch our step for the majority of our little hike. To be fair, I cannot confirm that it was bear scat, but the adage isn’t about where mountain lions relieve themselves… We also had to cross a bridge of questionable strength. And finally, my favorite part, we found a dismembered deer leg. Why did I take a picture of it? I’m not quite sure, but I did, so you get to see it!

Yum.

And now, it’s time for Aladdin auditions! I’m a little nervous because I haven’t looked at the show since I went on break and we might have a really big turnout but MCT is a bit like riding a bicycle and I think it’s going to be great!

Why Did the Buffalo Cross the Road?

Just kidding, it was a bison! And probably because it doesn’t care about you or your stinking road.

Speaking of roads, Sunday was the first drive day of the fall!!! Woohoo! Fireworks! Happy to be back!

The day started early. I feel like most drive days do at this point. I picked up Katrina at her hotel at 6:30 sharp and we were Wyoming bound. The first few hours of the drive were pretty dull. I drove and Katrina slept. Katrina might be better at sleeping in the car than Mandy, which is saying A LOT (she slept at least five hours of this 11+ hour drive day!).

The first few hours were Montana and then it was into Wyoming, and we quickly went from regular Wyoming to Yellowstone, Wyoming. Yellowstone is seriously lacking in cell reception and 4G, but I caught a few geotags before my phone essentially became a paperweight.

Yellowstone. How do I describe Yellowstone?

Yellowstone is flawless. I saw it wearing army pants and flip flops so I bought army pants and flip flops. Ok, that didn’t actually happen and I don’t think I actually saw any yellow stones, but NATURE!

 

Seriously, on a scale from one to oh sh*t, that’s a bison, it was more like oh sh*t, there’s 20 of them. We also saw an elk. I learned a very important lesson that it doesn’t matter how many bison there are, people will stop and lean out of their car windows with their iPads to take pictures of every single one, because it took us something like an hour and a half to drive the 19 miles from the park entrance to Old Faithful… And yes, we did see bison cross the road. Even with my annoyance at the Apple maniacs and their questionable driving, it was simply spectacular.

Oh sh*t, that's a bison

Oh sh*t, there's 20

Next we went to see Old Faithful! We didn’t see it erupt, but we did get pizza and postcards at the gift shop and also put my selfie stick to good use. (Ok, questionable use, it took us a few tries to get both of us and Old Faithful in the photo).

After Old Faithful, there were less bison to be enthralled with so the drive went a little faster. It was gorgeous. Katrina slept some more! This was also when we reached an altitude of nearly 10,000 ft. I was basically in an airplane.

When we got to Lander, we blew through it because we’re staying outside of town in our own cabin. This isn’t a haunted slave cabin like the one I stayed in when I was in Alabama back in June, but it doesn’t have WiFi, so this is something familiar about it. There are also lots of dead animals on the walls. Like a lot. And they’re all staring at me.

Getting ready for a fun week out here, my next post will talk about what I did on Monday morning. Please refer to the line in the previous paragraph about the lack of WiFi in my living quarters before harassing me about posting photos or my thoughts (Mom).

Earning My Missoula Passport Stamps

A few days ago, I posted about the New City Passport and how it is supposed to get a new resident out into their new home, and Missoula is sort of my city now and I got to go exploring today. I didn't follow one of the Passport rules of photographing everything because I'm not actually working on creating a scrapbook since I don't actually live in Missoula, c'est la vie!

Item 1: Find a good place for breakfast that isn't Dunkin.
This is what inspired my adventures today; I usually grab a slice of banana bread from Liquid Planet, but I thought it might be nice to try something new, so I googled "breakfast Missoula" and was on my way. Yesterday, I mentioned that there aren't any Dunkin Donuts in Montana, so finding any decent breakfast place would fulfill this requirement but I went with Catalyst because it was only about four blocks away -- two past Liquid Planet. It was crowded when I got there and I was in a rush (see Item 2) but luckily for me, I'd planned ahead and decided what I wanted before I got there. I ordered a breakfast burrito and it was delicious! I think I'd like to try it again at some point when I don't feel like I need to shovel it all in my mouth but there were some other interesting places that showed up on my Google search that I might need to check out before I go back!

Item 2: Go to a yoga class.
Technically, I already went to a yoga class at this studio, but the Passport didn't exist back then. PLUS, this yoga class had live music and I've definitely never seen that before.

Item 3: Make a new friend.
I've made a lot of new friends in the past 24 hours. TADs bond quickly (I guess we do everything quickly because when you've only got five days to put on a whole show, you get used to it). But I put this specifically as Item 3 because my new friend, Molly, joined me for yoga. It was her first ever yoga class too! She'd done yoga for movement classes and watched videos but this was her first real class and she was really good. She told me that she's now looking up to see if she can take classes on the road! We also bonded because not only is she going to Canada this fall, but she's also going back to Kyle, SK! I went to Kyle and it was one of my favorite residencies, even though there wasn't much there! I told her that there is a yoga studio in Swift Current, which is about an hour away!

Item 4: Make dinner - get all of the ingredients from a local farmer's market or independent stores.
Technically, I didn't complete this one because I can't actually make dinner, but just my luck, the Missoula Farmer's Market was happening downtown today, so I went for a stroll. I saw onions the size of cantaloupes! Seriously! I wish I could have made myself some dinner!

Item 5: Find a thrift store.
I'm pretty sure I found a pawn shop, but I'll give myself credit anyways.

Item 6: Visit your local library and take out a book.
Another partial credit here. I couldn't get a library card because I'm not a Montana resident (not that I would have taken out a book on account of the fact that I'm leaving tomorrow). Sad face.

Item 7: Visit at least one popular tourist attraction.
I'm not sure Missoula has more than one popular tourist attraction, but I went there. I hiked the M! (Again!). The M is sort of exactly what it sounds like. It's a giant M on a mountain. Thank you, University of Montana. Hiking the M is kind of a TAD Merit Badge. I'm pretty sure it is a merit badge for anyone who has ever visited Missoula. I went with Katrina and her regular partner, Jas, Molly and another TAD, Whitney. I didn't take a picture of the M, because up close, it doesn't look like anything -- you hike the M to look at everything else!

Left to right: Whitney, Jas, me, Molly, Katrina

You Could Say That

Back to Missoula!!! I left my house dark and early this morning for the airport to return to Montana. Part of the reason I hate packing to go to Missoula is because there are quite a few things that I need to pack away in a suitcase that will never see a suitcase again once I get there, like my GPS. It doesn’t belong in a suitcase, it will live in the truck for the duration of the tour, but getting it to Missoula means finding a way to pack it and this bothers me, so I feel like everything is all over the place at the moment, even though everything I want/need is compactly tucked away into one of the deep dark corners of my bright pink luggage.

I got my final Dunkin run for the foreseeable future this morning on my way to the airport. Dunkin Donuts really needs to work on their slogan because although “America runs on Dunkin – except for Montana” isn’t catchy, it is honest. There is not a singular Dunkin Donuts in the entire state of Montana, not even a Dunkin/gas station hybrid! I checked. Also, Bank of America should be called the Bank of 49 States, not Montana because they don’t have any branches there either.

I have a smart phone – I think most people do these day – and my smart phone keeps track of certain things, even if I don’t want it to. I get a lot of updates on Taylor Swift because I googled her ONCE… Moving on. It keeps track of my flights and hotel reservations which is very thoughtful (almost too thoughtful, I’m on to you, Google!). Now, my smart phone will ask me if the updates it is giving me are useful (and sometimes it ignores me when I say that they aren’t *cough cough Taylor Swift cough cough*) or if I want it to add something to my calendar, etc. Well, this morning, it didn’t just show me my flight confirmation, it had another card that said “Get updates for commuting to work?” *Deadpan* You could say that. I screenshot it because I thought it was so ridiculous. So yes, I guess my work commute is technically 2,000+ miles…

Now when you spend five or more hours on an airplane (Boston to Salt Lake City and then a quick trip from Salt Lake to Montana), a lot of things happen. For me, these things typically include cheating on the Sudoku that comes in the airline magazine (I’m getting better! I cheat a lot less now), cheating on the crossword puzzle in the airline magazine (I’m not getting better, I still cheat a lot), worrying about getting blood clots from sitting too long, and getting bumped into as people get up to go to the bathroom (I swear this happens even if I have a window seat!) and after I’ve finished my cheating, I’ll just start coloring in the magazine. Well, today, I picked a page at random and started coloring the letters at random and when I got bored, I realized that I’d entirely, accidentally changed the meaning of the ad “There’s more to Iowa than just cornfields.” I guess my subconscious remembers driving through there back in June on the way to Alabama. Oops, sorry Iowa. I also typically pull my laptop out at some point and write about whatever has happened, which is why I feel like flight travel day posts are more detailed than other, more interesting days…

Tiny plane!

Upon arriving in Salt Lake, I didn't search for geotags (I was just there a few weeks ago, remember?) but instead had to search for my airplane because it was teeny-tiny. Just a little puddle jumper! I was sitting in row 11 out of 12. No joke.

Guess where I am?

I landed in Missoula without too much trouble and managed to collect a new geotag! Priorities. In Missoula, I was reunited with Marcus, otherwise known as the little red truck, otherwise known as MCT78. He isn't quite as young as he was when I last saw him (other people drive him besides me, ya know) and we're starting the fall together at 64642.9 miles. I also got to meet my new temporary partners. Unfortunately, the first few weeks of this tour will be Melissa-less but a few other TADs were available to step in. Katrina will be my partner in Lander, WY next week and I'll have two partners in Lyman, WY -- Taylor Ann and Kayla. None of them know that I have a blog yet, I wonder how they would feel about me blogging about them before I've ever told them that I have a blog... Oh well, it looks like the fall tour is off to an exciting start!!

MARCUS!