Tales from the road

Day 3. Setting: the Holiday Inn Express in Redding, CA, population 85,000. This place feels like a metropolis to me right now.

Crazy 36 hours. We woke up Monday and got yelled at by the principal - she thought we were supposed to be there at 8:30; our schedule said 10am. Turns out there was a break in the chain of communication - the contact for us at that school wasn't exactly on top of things.

Some other things that happened to us yesterday (and this morning):

- No cell phone service.

- Didn't have directions to our school for the following day.

- Went to the site for our evening show (also no directions); they only found out about our performance 3 1/2 hours before show time. The space was a wreck - we had to clean it ourselves, with the help of the generous people who worked there.

- Drove 17 miles to our new hotel in Fall River Mills in a driving rainstorm. The rain turned to snow close to the end of the trip, but it wasn't sticking. The guy who checked us in said, "The snow won't stick. Don't worry." Dropped our stuff off and headed back to Burney. Snow started sticking on the way.

- Had to eat dinner at McDonald's. The employees were having a snowball fight on the playground. When we came back to the car after eating (20 minutes) our entire car was covered with snow. Forced to clear off car with ice scraper.

- Did the evening show for 20 people. Were told by the organizer, "I'm a nurse at the hospital in Fall River Mills, and I'm supposed to go to work tonight, and I'm not going - it's too dangerous. And you're not either. We're putting you up in a motel."

- Went to Safeway to get supplies (contacts, food, alcohol) for our second evening in Burney. Paid $6.75 for a contact lens case.

- Went into crappy motel room, with our luggage 17 miles away. Raf and I split a six-pack and laughed about how our day couldn't get worse. Called the office back in the Sleepy Hamlet to get set up for today's performances and classes.

- Transformer blows in Burney just after midnight. Power and phone go out. Day just got worse.

- Wake up at 6:30am. Carefully drive to motel in Fall River Mills. Quickly shower, change, pack up car.

- Carefully drive to Fall River HS. Get out of car, notice that the parking lot is empty. A maintenance man yells out to us, "No school today!" The school contact tried to get in touch with us, but couldn't, because our motel phone had no power, and our cell phones got no signal.

- Looked for Raf's cell phone at both motels (finally found it in our car). Got the car stuck in the snow several times. Realize I don't have my cell phone charger.

- Drove to Redding. Finally, something good happened here. We checked into our hotel early, and we had lunch at In-N-Out Burger. Good times.

Now I'm tired, and I'm hoping that I have the most uneventful evening ever.