Oh yeah! And I am sitting in this old drugstore type place, complete with an ice cream counter that has been in existence since 1938. Unfortunately our homestay is already trying to pawn off tons of ice cream on us that she doesn't like, but that counter definitely wants you to come sit at it.
We finished out our week in Missoula with some bar hopping for Megan's 21st birthday which was, as always, a blast. I have never had a bad night out there. The inability of the person at Burger King to comprehend our order at 2:30 a.m. was pretty entertaining as well. The next day Shirnest and I packed up Lula Bell (that's the name of our truck- it's a pageant queen/parade float name) and headed up MT 200 to visit another tour team, our friends Beth and Rachel, up at a town near Glacier National Park. We went to the 7:00 show of "Robinson Crusoe" and didn't see any of it. They had, uh, problematic children that week and I spent most of the show backstage endeavoring to keep the Frowny Face Tribe under control. By the way their darn song is still tuck in my head. Also Beth had to be in the show because one of their leads, Wilson the goat, was too sick to perform. Bummer. Apparently the show went miraculously well though!
Their homestay was nice enough to let us crash for the night (plus she fed us carrot cake and decaf coffee after the show!) and I played with her older girl's gecko (mind you, her older girl is seven- she was a very cute and well-behaved chameleon). I learned that after handling a gecko you should wash your hands- you can get salmonella from them. So I washed my hands, we all got gussied up in non-child friendly outfits and head out the the bars in another nearby town.
Well we felt super classy was enjoyed a semi-expensive bottle of wine with our dinner and we had no real intentions of making it a crazy night out as we walked across the street to enjoy one beer before heading home. Alas, the bartender up-sold us a pitcher of hefeweizen and Beth dove right into conversation with the boys she noticed glancing our way. And the night ended with us grooving to the band and playing shuffle board with two boys from Michigan on holiday in Glacier. It was so so so much fun!
The next day, rather than hitting the road, we drove off in the opposite direction to Glacier to do some adventuring ourselves. It's unbelievably beautiful out there and I've got footage to prove it! After our adventure, which began at approximately lunchtime, we stopped off a little roadside restaurant/gift shop for some pulled pork sandwiches with huckleberry barbeque sauce and famous huckleberry ice cream! (huckleberries are a Montana thing)
Onward and upward we arrive in Washington at our homestay around 9:00 p.m. Pacific Time. Monday was audition day and we had 84 kids show up! Unfortunately NO older boys. So both the merboy next door and the prince are being played by girls. The girl playing Gil is pretty stellar though. And, though she is only ten, she has a beautiful voice and really, really natural instincts about acting. I just can't wait 'til she gets that script out of her hands!
Funny tale about Monday: We give the older kids this speech about leading by example. We ask them for suggestions about ways in which to do this. Well one of the Scouts raised her hand and said: "This building is only two years old and pristine condition and we'd like to keep it that way." We told the janitor about that one and he was pretty entertained.
We did an improv workshop with third graders yesterday that was little unnerving. We start off the workshop by asking them, who can tell us the three parts of a story? We're looking for the response "the beginning, middle, and end", an answer that we typically get right away. But this group did not know this, let alone know what was established in each part! So it became a much more educational experience for them than we originally intended!
I'm REALLY hoping that my homestay next week will have wireless so I can do daily, short updates, rather than writing a weekly novella. Next week is also going to be my first K-6 experience, where-in the oldest kids are going to be eleven. Fortunately "The Little Mermaid" is a pretty easy show- K-6 on "Red Riding Hood" would have be nightmarish.
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