Tuesday's adventures

Tuesday 12 April 2011

Blogged by Jenny Remington

Tuesday was very exciting because we were finally done with the sprint to Texas. We were staying in Midland and set to perform in Odessa. We were not exactly on time in the morning. Kevin and Chris were brought to the wrong stake center and Brother Hilliard was just… late. The people of the day were Bethany and ­­­­­­­­­­… someone else whom I have forgotten. After a rousing speech from Dale Hilliard we began our journey by touring the local Petroleum museum. We found that it was difficult to pay attention, but we had a great time taking pictures with the various items throughout the museum. The museum focused on how they drill for oil, the history of drilling for oil in the area, and where that oil is used today (race cars). It was sunny yet windy, but we were glad to be out of the bus. Next, we stopped by Walmart because some people were not given sack lunches by their home-stays. A few girls bought sandals for tour and quite a few of us bought movies for the bus ride. We had planned on next going to George W. Bush’s childhood home museum, but apparently it was full. But according to the home-stays there wasn’t much to see anyway. So we went jewelry shopping instead. The boys decided to skip out on that venture. Some bought earrings and purses and necklaces. After that we drove right on over to Odessa High school to start setting up. We began getting our costumes ready and ran a few shows. Then we decided to lay Marley and set up chairs. We put it directly on the gymnasium floor with “front” towards the main entrance. Our costumes were paces on the stage behind our Marley. We drew the curtains of the stage so we could change behind, enter, and exit from it. The stage had the appearance that it had been abandoned for quite some time. It was covered by a wrestling mat and dotted with work out equipment. But everything was covered in dust and dirt. We also found a lovely ant colony living along the back wall which found there way onto Abbie and Bethany’s costumes. We ran a few more numbers on the Marley and then sat down to some Pizza Hut. Then it was a mad dash to get ready, warm up, (which there was no room for and few of us did for fear of touching the wrestling mat), and then performing. We changed in these tiny, dingy bathrooms. Shay was not feeling well. The gym ended up about halfway full. We were forced to keep lights up on the audience because of the facilities. So they were rather quiet. The performance went well considering this was our first tour performance without wings. There were a few things that happened that were pretty humorous. For instance, Abbie and Janae entered earl in Kenzie’s number. In Wendy’s piece I found myself in plank position facing the group of missionaries, clearly flashing them. The missionaries left during Kali’s piece. During Cabaret, Chris was unable to dress on time and so Alli improved walking on without him and he finally joined her with a half buttoned shirt. Kelsey was bent over the trashcan after her duet performance. What a trooper! If any other fun performance stories happened that I am unaware of, please blog or comment them! It was a very interesting show, one I know we won’t forget! The audience really seemed to enjoy the show. Multiple audience members expressed embarrassment that so few audience members showed up. After striking Marley and costumes, we either went to the home-stays directly or went on the bus to the chapel where our home-stays picked us up. That concludes Tuesday’s adventures.