A Place in the Country

This past weekend I had a couple of days off from work and decided to visit Watseka, Illinois, home of the Sugar Creek Symphony and Song summer festival.  My friend Jamison was the coach and continuo player for The Barber of Seville and my friend Jennifer from Baylor was covering Susannah in The Marriage of Figaro.  It was so nice to be able to go to one location to see two close friends from completely different parts of my life!

I was lucky enough to get to see the orchestra dress rehearsal for the Figaro performance, and it was definitely interesting to see a production that I had so recently done.  They made a lot of cuts (both with characters and musical passages) and their performance clocked in at about 2 hours and 15 minutes... which is about an hour shorter than the one that we did!!

The act 2 finale is soooo busy!

My tour guide, Jamison, also took me on a private tour around the countryside of good ole Watseka! 

Rockin' it in the company car

Soooooo many crops!

CORN!

And if you thought that the only cultural entertainment happening in this tiny town of about 5,000 inhabitants, then you would be WRONG!!!! 

Aw, poor Aaron Tippin havin' to rough it at the Super 8 :(

I also got to go to the nearby town of Kankakee (I think that's how you spell it, I didn't really care enough to look it up and make sure it was correct) with Jennifer because her mom had come up to see her and that is where her hotel was.  She treated us to a lovely dinner at the hotel restaurant, where I had the Italian Beef Wrap.

Me: So, what exactly in this makes it an "Italian" wrap?

Waiter: Well, let's see... let's look at the ingredients.  Roast beef.  Mushrooms.  And cheddar cheese.  So, that gonna be it for you?

Me: Uhhhhhh, sure, sounds great.

JENNIFER