Yankees Night!

This post is a bit overdue (like all of mine recently because I'm so busy with work) but.... last Friday night was probably the BEST night of this year's tour so far.

One of the girls on this tour is part of the family that owns the Yankees. I'm not going to get into it, but due to her "family business" if you will, she invited the entire company to a Yankees/Reds pre-season game. Nice, right?! But here's the kicker- we sat in the owner's box! Swanky, let me tell you!

About 50 of us arrived at the game on our big bus, and parked in the players lot. No big deal. Just some crummy Escalades and Benz's. We then walked up through the stadium, and up to Box 1. That would be George Steinbrenner's box. It was beautiful! Plenty of room for everyone inside, and about 20 seats outside to watch the game. Darrel was in absolute heaven.

Our Judas sang the National Anthem, and then Richard Gere threw out the first pitch. We all ate wonderful food (I'm talking a never ending supply of beef, turkey, burgers, hot dogs, shrimp, veggies, Mexican food, salads) and enjoyed the open bar. You want a Bacardi? They don't have it? They'll get in within five minutes. Beer is getting low? It will magically appear within minutes. It was so generous of them to have us!The cast was getting ready to head down to the field to sing Take Me Out To The Ball Game for the 7th inning stretch when you guessed it... Richard Gere comes strolling in to say hello! It was too much! I didn't get a picture with him though. Oh well.

After prying some people off Richey, they all ran down and sang on the field, and we enjoyed the rest of the game. Especially the dessert cart they rolled in there with Bailey's and Sambuca that you could drink out of little chocolate edible cups!THEN, when we thought this dream was all over, they had a big fireworks show after the game was over.
Can you even believe this was our night off!? We can't. :)

If you want to check out other photos and (pretty damn funny) videos, check out Mark's blog.

Larger Than Life

This is how I live right now- larger than life.

That being said, one week in D.C., one week of one nighters in FL and CT and PA since then, has made me a.... fatty!! My jeans are so terribly tight- legging outfits are on the rise. My shirts are too tight... dresses here I come!

I tell myself that our way of life makes this happen, and it does. I eat dinner every night at 11:00pm. I have drinks with dinner. I have not had a vegetable not cooked in oil in months, and I actually usually pick the potato instead. A home cooked meal happened once in February, and once in March.

I'm sure the fact that I am in Hershey, PA right now, and there is free chocolate at the theatre, is really going to help.

My next bog will be about the fabulous night I had in Tampa at a Yankees game (lots of food and drink there!).... until then, over and out with my sweat pants!

Washington DC

This post is a bit overdue, but LAST week, we spent the entire week in Washington! This was the fist time we have been in one place for a week since we were in Tucson for New Years. That's just crazy.

When I got the tour schedule last year, I noticed that my mom's birthday fell during this week. I told her cousin's Jim and Carol that I was going to try to convince her and my aunt Susan to come visit for a few days- and they did!

The first few days we were there, Darrel and I spent some time sightseeing. This also means shopping, in my world. In between working, we were able to see the Botanical Gardens, Air and Space Museum, Museum of American Indians, and the Library of Congress. We also walked the whole mall and saw the White House, Washington, Monument, etc. He was able to see a lot more than I was, but I was pretty happy with how much ground I covered. I LOVED the Botanical Gardens, and the Library of Congress was one of my favorites buildings in America. I had no idea what it would look like inside- it was like being in Europe! I had a strong urge to go there after going to Monticello a few weeks ago and visiting Jefferson's house- thousands of his original books from the 1700's and 1800's are in the building, and it's just awesome.

While the sightseeing was great, the best thing about the week was spending time with my extended family, who we really never see except at weddings here and there. They were SO generous! I felt like Carol was my personal driver for the week, going back and forth from her house to our hotel! Below are some pics of everyone, enjoying my mom's (belated) birthday.




Oh... and Georgetown! Wow. Went there four times for lunch, dinner, walking around, and shopping. The bus took me there for $1.00. Not bad! Darrel and I found some really great, old places to eat. And they have every store a girl could dream of! I was good though- I really only bought my mom a gift.

It was a nice, fun week, and it made me want to be able to see the Washington family more often!!

Savannah, GA

I have been slacking a little in my blog writing over the last few weeks because A. we were in D.C. for a whole week, and my mom and aunt came to visit (more on that later) and B. we have been in Florida this week, and I have been trying to spend time outside.

Anyway.... Monday we had a travel day in Savannah. Which means no show- woo hoo! This happens when we have a really long drive to get somewhere, and it's going to take two days. We call them "stop over cities". And Savannah was a good one! Sometimes we get places like Middle Of The Desert Utah with our only food option being a truck stop or Waffle House.

I got some work done early in the day, and met our friends at 4:00 to take a cab to River St. It's an old cobblestone road right on the water, lined with bars, restaurants, and shops. Pretty much the minute we got there, we found a place with $5.00 pitches. So of course the guys said we had to go there, and no where else. It wasn't too bad actually! They had great music, but the bathrooms were nasty, so after a while we switched locations to find nicer ones. Not that you need that information, but it's the sole reason we left. The girls won that battle! We wound up at a bar on the second level of a building with an AWESOME view, and a guy playing James Taylor. Does life get any better?!

Yes, it does! We found this amazing candy store- chocolate covered everything your heart desires. Even Ritz crackers. We all walked out with bags and boxes. I have pretzels and oreos for the next two weeks!

It was just so nice to have a day off in a warm, pretty town- Tuesday we started a week of one nighters in Florida, and life has been kind of crazy ever since!

Sarasota, FL

We arrived in Sarasota this morning! We pulled in, and I immediately remembered being here in 2006. How the HECK could you forget a big purple theatre on the water!? Here is the view from my (really nice) hotel room today- life is good!

Live and Learn

There is one important lesson I have learned over the past two weeks of my life: I should NOT color my hair at home with products from CVS.

I'll start at the beginning for you.

I have started to get gray hairs, at the age of 30. I actually starting getting them at 28. Perfect excuse to get my hair colored the way I choose! For a few years, I have been going to the salon, having my hair colored a bit darker than my medium brown, and getting highlights. Sometimes a caramel color, sometimes with a bit of red- fun stuff. But as of late, it was getting so expensive to keep it up. The highlights look great for about an month, and then blah.

Over the Summer, I decided to go to the salon and have the highlights taken out, and just go to a single very dark brown color.

Forward to the Fall. I (literally) run into this stranger down at the Muni Lot tailgating for a Browns game, and LOVE her hair color. I immediately tell her, and then I find out she is totally drunk, and wants to get into a whole conversation about it. Well, due to her high level of beer intake, she must have told me at least 20 times that it was "L'Oreal Perfect 10 Dark Brown".

Here I am on the road, needing to cover up these grays, so I think back on my drunken conversation with Browns girl, and go to CVS to buy her perfect hair color in a bottle. A friend of mine on tour came to my room and two weeks ago, and we dumped two bottles of it on my hair. I wash it, dry it, and ut oh- the bottom of my hair is practically black, and the roots didn't even take! I was so bummed out. A friend who used to work in a salon said he might be able to fix the roots with another bottle of the stuff, but I was just over it.

I then became paranoid girl. In my mind, everyone was looking at my light roots. At the same time, I also had a large curling iron burn on my neck. I was so paranoid that when a man looked at me and said, "child, what did you do to yourself"? I thought, oh god! Even he noticed my hair! Duh- he was asking about the burn.

Last weekend in Richmond, VA, I went to a salon and the dude told me it was going to be a corrective color, and he charged $50 an hour. Three to four hours, so $200. Yea, right! Long story short, I visited a few salons here in D.C. and found a wonderful older woman who was no frills, and she fixed me for $75.

Moral of my story is that cheaper is not always better. It wound up costing me about $120 to make my hair brown!

Charlottesville, VA

This past week we spent one day and one night in Charlottesville. Believe it or not, I have ALWAYS wanted to go there, because it is where the Dave Matthews Band started. (I'm a huge fan, and have been for about 15 years). But I really didn't know what else there was to do there, so I of course turned to my handy book.

Turns out the Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, is in Charlottesville! With Darrel being the history buff he is, and our friend Craig matching his enthusiasm, we had to check it out. I honestly didn't know too much about Thomas Jefferson before going there, but I learned SO much in those few hours!

We started the day by having lunch at Michie's Tavern, practically on the Monticello property. It was a tavern built in the late 1700's, and the people who work there wear the clothing from that time period. Your only choice when you go in is to get the "homestyle buffet" with fried chicken, pulled pork, biscuits and gravy, beets, mashed potatoes, etc. The doors were so low in there that Darrel actually had to duck to get to the buffet! Another great thing about it was how authentic they kept things- the cups and plates looked like silver/pewter, and the tables and stools looked like they could have been originals.

After lunch, we decided to walk up the mountain (Monticello means "small mountain"). I think it was about a mile or so, but there was a path, and it was a really nice walk. It made you realize how expansive his property really was.

It was $20 to enter the grounds, and take the tour. I had no idea what an inventor he was! Just small things that made life in his house so much easier. He had a dumb waiter pulley system that went from the basement to a side compartment of the dining room fireplace so the slaves could pass wine up for dinner, he had a pulley system on his French doors so that when you opened one, the other one automatically opened, he made clocks, and a ton of other interesting things. We learned about is life, family, and property (including over 100 slaves). We were then able to walk around and check out the family cemetery and the grounds. Darrel and I of course had to take a picture in front of the house, because it is on the nickel!

Charlottesville is not a place you just happen to go to for vacation, but seeing Monticello is absolutely worth it if you happen to be close by!

That night, a few of us went to the bar where Dave Matthews used to bar tend, and met the rest of the band. Heavenly!! :)