Amanda and Graham's Great Pig Adventure

Sunday 15th March

Tantalisingly close to Chicago, but two shows at 1.00 and 4.00, and absolutely pouring with rain! We didn’t venture further than the theatre!

It was a bit of a maze backstage, as many of the theatres are, and we now get muddled with so many venues to remember. Luckily there was coloured tape on the floor to follow to find dressing rooms, green room, catering, and of course, the stage. Both shows had big audiences and they were lively and responsive which was great. Evie was back on today. The catering was good today too which always helps. Silver linings….!

Disaster struck during the get-out. We have wooden trucks for the Pigs and stage gear which go into the trailers behind the buses. These had to go down a ramp from the loading bay and unfortunately, one got away and rolled down and off the side of the ramp, its corner smashing into the windscreen of the other bus (cast and crew bus). It was theatre staff who were handling it! The windscreen was damaged to the extent that the bus couldn’t be driven. It is being seen to at 7am tomorrow, but it means that everybody will cram onto our bus tonight.

Some did go into Chicago in the evening to an improv comedy show, or just to sightsee. They tried to go to see the bean in the park (a large metal bean which is a famous tourist attraction – apparently!). After a walk, a tram and a walk, they arrived at the park to find it was closed off because the metal bean is a lightning risk! Much as I would have liked to see Chicago (one of the places I was looking forward to) we couldn’t see the point in such heavy rain.

We did go to a shopping precinct across the road and I bought some boots from Nordstrom (a favourite store in Canada and USA) as my others are leaking and have no grip on the soles. The only other footwear I have are trainers and we are going into snow for the next few days. (That’s my excuse, anyway!) we got completely soaked through just doing that.

We had to clear our “junk bunks” (two spare bunks, one full of instruments which have gone onto the other bus, the other with day bags which we have squeezed onto the bottom of our own bunks). The people from the other bus could only bring small bags on, not their cases, but it was crammed. Two people could grab a spare bunk, others sat up in the two lounges watching films. It was arranged that we could check in to our hotel early at 4am when we arrived. It is lucky we have two days off next, and it was only a relatively short drive!