Day #21: Beastly Traffic

Loooong day today.

Today's post is dedicated to those who have known the pain of traffic jams.

OK. None of the magazines had miserable looking people. Just use your imaginations! The sunrise was beautiful today...

The alarm went off at 4AM (and I had just finished up yesterday's blog right around midnight!). We had a performance scheduled at an elementary school in Norfolk this morning. Our departure time was scheduled for 6AM. This allowed for a great deal of "tunnel traffic" padding in our schedule. Little did we know that the military bases in the area were doing special maneuvers of some sort and had tightened up security. Let's just say that the five-mile stretch between I-664 and the tunnel took us almost an hour! The total 95 mile trip took us 3 and 1/2 hours. Yikes! (And we were able to actually turn off the truck more than once as we sat on the highway-turned-parking-lot.)

We remained in contact with the school throughout the ordeal, and they were very understanding. A school in Norfolk would have to be understanding with such a large military presence. A number of parents and teachers experienced similar delays.

We arrived a shocking one hour and eight minutes after our anticipated arrival time. We were all a bit grouchy (it was waaaay past breakfast time -- and breakfast was in the trailer with the puppets). But we managed to get the show set up quickly and were ready to start just twenty minutes past our scheduled time -- huzzah! (Special thank you to Sam and Melanie who really, really stayed focus to get set up in record time!)

I will say, it was a great performance! I think there is something about stress that keys you up a bit and increases your focus.

We were pretty stressed out, too. It has been YEARS since we were not ready to begin a show at the scheduled time. I think I was pregnant with my first child the last time we had a delay; this was well before my husband and Melanie joined the company. Once I got horribly lost heading to Keysville, VA -- but that was before the advent of GPS.

Today's puppet is really toy theatre! I have taken some of my younger daughter's cars, made little people from magazine cut-outs, and created a crayola backdrop to go along with it! I thought about making a mini-cranky (we were all, in truth, quite cranky) to create moving scenery for the background...but our time in traffic was not really spent moving much. (And, let's be honest, I have to get up early again tomorrow morning...sleep is good.) Maybe this is just a form of puppet therapy for me...

A much more interesting reason for a traffic jam: DINOSAURS!

Those people should look a bit more worried...if this were a horror flick, they would be doomed!

We did drive past Williamsburg...I was inspired!

The beautiful sunrise was a treat -- our silver lining.  After setting the toy theatre up, I decided that the traffic jam would be much more interesting with dinosaurs. I mean, traffic jams caused by too many people are rather trite...but dinosaurs would be cool. Traffic Jurassic!

Tomorrow we leave the house at 5:30am and head North on I-95 for three performances in Manassas...wish us luck on the traffic front! (And no dinosaurs!)