DonB! trip to the East Coast

On Sunday, I left to begin my 10 day trip to the East Coast. In one day, I drove from Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Nashville, Tennessee. 14 hours if I drove it straight through, but I needed fuel and food throughout the day, so the trip lasted about 16.5 hours.

While in Nashville, I visited with BJ & Katie Harris, and we talked about some routines and ideas for the upcoming October Sens de Vie tour.

One afternoon, I decided to go out for a walk, and ended up at Bicentennial Park, right in front of the capital building:

I promised Debbie that I would try and eat healthy for this entire trip, so it was with great joy that Katie & BJ were also going healthy for the week. I was able to eat Katie's homemade spaghetti sauce, as well as homemade breads and desserts (healthy ones, of course):

The next day we all played Frisbee on the HUGE green lawn of the capital building. While reading all of the history of Tennessee at the park, I was able to have my picture taken in the outdoor amphitheater there. It is really big, and may be a possible site for a future program. Hmmmm.....

I left Nashville on Thursday, headed to Sandy Cove Ministries in North East, Maryland. On my way over, I was able to spend the evening with long time friends, David & Rachel Pribulick and their 3 intelligent kids (they all converse like adults).

At Sandy Cove I did one show on Friday evening for the 300+ people that were already there, and one little girl gave me flowers after the show. Nice.

When I arrived at Sandy Cove, I saw on the brochure that they had a trapeze set-up for summer, but I was disappointed to see it sitting here in the parking lot:

Sandy Cove has everything, ranging from tent camping all the way up to "The Lodge", with hotel-like accommodations. I stayed in this building:

On Sunday night, the entire 700+ campus of people were in attendance, and the house was rockin' I had opportunity to push my improv abilities to the limits with the fun, but interesting volunteers I chose from the audience. I love having kids onstage because you NEVER know what can happen. Kids think "in the moment", and react accordingly, making for entertainment with a twist at almost every show. Here I am, ready to go onstage...

Someone from my Ringling Brothers/Disney days, John Hadfield, drove over from Delaware to catch the show, and we went to dinner afterward. John ordered a crab-something-or-other sandwich, and when it arrived, there was no doubting what it was. It looked exactly like a crab, legs, eyes and all. John slapped in on a bun and crunched his way through the entire thing. Here's what I had to look at the whole time:

Yes, those are legs hanging out of the bun. Eeewwwwww.....

Then, as I made my way across Maryland towards home, I was able to stop and visit with another friend from Clown College '84 (yes, that's 25 years ago), Mr. Kevin Brown and his family. We went to breakfast, talked a little about magic, and did some great catching up of long ago memories. It was great to see him again.

Finally, what good is a drive across country if I didn't take time to stop and pick up a few geocaches? One of them actually takes you hiking down into a lowland park, and then back around the underside of a waterfall. Standing there, I just had to try and get a picture:

One was in a hilltop cemetary in the middle of PA:

And 2 were at Vietnam Veteran Memorials:

So amazing is this world we live in.

On Tuesday evening, Debbie met me at the airport (so that I could return the rental van), and we headed off to dinner together. No matter how nice the memories are of traveling on the road, THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME.

Another trip in October, so watch for the story here.

DonB!