And... She's back.

I was in Oregon, for those who did not know.

How was the audition? I thought it was pretty lame. My mouth got really dry (a nervous habit) right before I started my pieces and that may have totally ruined it all. The audition was probably the weakest point of the trip. The drive down to Ashland was spectacular (my mother and I landed in Portland, stayed 2 nights with the Aker family in Southern Washington and then drove 5 hours S to Ashland). Visiting the Aker's Five Acres was quite a different experience, being there with my mother. Less NWF "Discussion," and a little more sight seeing. Nice people live out there. Strange, though. If you ask how Portland is, you'll get the answer, "Very liberal, there are a lot of homosexuals." And George Bush is a hero there, which is a bit frustrating. The church service wasn't the Rye-Cheese-Mess I may have anticipated. It kind of reminded me of my Aunt Judy's church in Grass Lake. Bill took us (That is, my mom, Francie, her youngest daughter Sadie and me--their other kids, Lucy and Patrick were out and about) to Stevenson, WA, which was a cute Gorge town, and we had steelhead fish which was really good... for fish. And then we, hm, what did we do? Oh, we saw a fish ladder. Don't ask me what that is, I couldn't tell you. But Sadie was cute, and she talked to me a bit more this time than last time. She looks like a perfect Ramona Quimby, or Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird. She has the personality of both.
We drove 5 hours down to Ashland, like I said, and the view out my window was so beautiful, I thought I would see Heidi and Peter running down the green hills with their goats and sheeps. Sheep. After the audition, we drove up the 5 again (That's a highway) for three more hours. It was, by this time, kind of stormy and foggy, which, as Lisa knows, brings out the green. We stayed in a small town's Holiday Inn Express (not Microtel). Then we drove around and found this restaurant called "Sweetwater's," which I thought might be as quality as the Sweetwater Cafe' they have over here in Ann Arbor. No. It was pretty crappy but our waitress was so syrupy she was entertaining. I had chicken tenders which are universally pretty good. We stopped and got some popcorn for the hotel room, but before we could get to it, we watched a bit of Disney's A WRINKLE IN TIME on TV, which put us to sleep.
The next morning I woke up to the news. I will never watch the news again. Not likely, but if you've watched the news lately (a bunch of Generals and army folk pretending to be surprised that *OH NO!* The war was brutal after all!), you'd know what I mean. Maybe. I'm glad I don't have a TV. It was quite a thing to see after being in the Columbia Gorge area...

Am I spelling Gorge right?

The plane rides were pretty cool. Seeing Wyoming from the plane window was neat because I saw the green, blue, and red dirt again. And the Great Salt Lake looks really pretty from up there. It's so blue. Landing in Denver on the way home was frightening because there had been some killer tornadoes around there. Very Roller-Coaster-esque.

Okay, that's it. I think I'll leave you with this very funny quote my friend Scott found on a web page once:
"If you can read this, thank a teacher.
If you can read this in English, thank a soldier."

~Oh, please excuse the politics embedded in this entry.