2nd hawaii post

hey all. so i figured i'd post my second post about hawaii, even though i'm already back on the mainland.

so yes. load in took forever, i helped hang the lights and the strand lbx board is officially the worst board ever created and I hope to never see it again. I know that doesn't mean a lot to you all, but it does to me and I had to put it out there.

After load in we went to an amazing place and I had some of the best sea food ever. It was a nice end to a relaxing day.

The shows went well and after the shows on monday I rented a paddle board for 2 hours. A paddle board is a surf board that you stand on and suprise suprise have a paddle and row yourself around. a lot harder than it looks. i fell off alot, alot alot. i was too scared at first to try and catch waves, but after the 1st hour i was feeling better about it and stayed in for another hour. in my second hour i caught 2 waves, it was AWESOME and so worth every minute of falling off. some day I will paddle board again, and actually catch waves. yay.

problem with paddle boarding was that the next day my uppper legs were in so much pain ! omg, my muscles were KILLING me. it was a little ridiculous. like sore to the touch, could barely bend over or sit down and stand up. took 2 whole days to go away even with stretching for at least an hour every day. craziness.

after that we went to maui. maui was pretty cool, but i didn't get to do much, went to a movie with one of the actors (fired up, hilarious) as well as on the last day checked out this town calle paia, where i will officially move someday. I will move to paia, get a little dog, a surfboard/paddle board, a motorcycle and sleep either in a hammoch or a mattress on the floor or a tent somewhere. so if anyone wants to join, let me know. oh i also would love to open a coffeehouse/bakery/bead shop while i'm there if i can't work in theatre. sounds like a plan right?

so at the end of the day Hawaii=awesome. i loved the warm weather, the ocean everywhere, the breeze, the laid back attitude of island living. i'd love it there. so that's it. now i'm in west virginia, huntington. staying at a best western for a few days shaking off this jet lag, well i think. so that's it. i'll update again when anything exciting happens.

aloha!

so i am currently in hawaii, in the city of honolulu on waikiki beach!

it's beautiful here. the flight here was long. we left charleston wv at 4:15 am plane flew out at 6:15 and we left for hawaii from houston. it was an 8 hour flight, and i tried to sleep most of the way because of the 5 hour time difference. im suprised at how well my body has adjusted, we'll see for real tomorrow though. hahahah.

hawaii really is a paradise. even though it's "chilly" by island standards right now (high of 79 today) it's still beautiful out. with a nice warm breeze that is around almost constantly. we're stayin right near wikiki beach so i can just walk to the beach.

i am in heaven! if you don't already know i collect pineapples, and hawaii is the land of pineapples. i've had to show some serious restraint. but i do have a long term plan to have a kitchen more or less focused on pineapples, pineapples and ceramics. might be an awkward mix. i finally manged to buy pineapple shaped salt and pepper shakers, amazing kitsch pineapple coaster set, a pineapple bowl, pineapple post its, pineapple reusable wine cork, pineapple post card, and a pineapple keychain. i founda pitcher that i will definitely be buying when i get my 1st apt. actually i plan on coming ot hawaii to furnish my 1st apts kitchen. gives me an excuse to come back.

i'm already spending way too much money here. (first see above with my pineapple obsessions)
but really today i splurged hardcore and gave myself a spa treatment, i got a detox and metabolism boosting wrap, which was incredibly pleasant, something new i had never done, and i also got myself a hand massage. it was WONDERFUL. but expensive. but worth it. if i had more money i woudl go back and get a massage too. but i can't afford it lol.

after that i walked along the beach and bummed around. i was outside for like an hour and got wicked sunburn i couldn't even believe it earlier tonight when i looked down and realized i was all kinds of red. it's weird to have a sun burn in february, but i'm not complaining at all! hahaha.

after that i shopped most of the day but only after going out for AMAZNING sushi to this restaurant we went to last night. i think i've decided that sushi is one of my favorite foods. though really, the best sushi i've had was with kyla in burlington vt, not what you'd expect right. when i get back to btown i want to try bizen again.

tomorrow i'm going to rent a surfboard with a paddle to give surfing a go without having to go from laying down to standing, though i think i could do it. we'll see. i'm excited. the ocean here is beautiful and clear and turquoise. i love it. the waves crash pretty far out too so i can be out of ppls way. if it's wicked crowded tomorrow i don' t know what i'm going to do. b/c i don't know how fun it'll be if things are paaaaaackkeeeeed. but tomorrow i will def put my new sunscreen on.

anyways. that's about it now. i'll update more as we go on. hopefully some pics soon.

i keep forgetting to do this

hey all. so now i'm in texas. since i've last left you i've been to vegas where i got to see some family, which was cool. i also saw 2 cirque du soleil shows. O and Ka. i splurged on myself and spent waaaay to much money but got myself 3rd and 5th row seats in the center section. totally worth it. O was my favorite. it has a giant pool in it. i spent as much time watching the mechanics of the show as i did the acrobatics. it was so much fun for me. Ka was mechanically astounding. but i still liked O better. Vegas was fun. i made a little bit of money on slot machines, but not much to be too excited about. After Vegas we went to washington state. which was cool. Washington reminded me home a little, with the mountains and the trees. though it was much much warmer. We were outside of seattle but I didn't get a chance to go into the city b/c i spent all my money in bellevue WA on a new portable gaming system and delicious delicious tea from this place called teavana. I'm going to buy myself more from them online soon. I have never had such good tea in my life.
After washington it was off to california. I 5 was closed bc of blizzard like conditions, which in one way was cool because we got to drive through the redwood forest and see the pacific but it made our day so much longer and we ended up off our normal course. Still pretty cool though. After california we repeated our drive through new mexico arizona and texas. Texas was, once again, booooooooriiiiinggggg. I swear I 10 is one of the most boring roads ever made. It's like someone went. I have an idea, let's put a road in texas that goes through nothing, has nothing on it and gets you almost nowhere. yeah that sounds like a plan. oh man. we go to hawaii soon. which is going to be rough.
things continue well. i'm loving being on the road still.
here's some pictures i took out of order b/c im too lazy to fix it.


from the amazing restaurant we went to in boise idaho. amazing salad, amazing pizza and amazing beer. what more could you ask for?



a picture i took in bellevue washington


got to watch a master glass blower work in tacoma washington. it was so cool.

on the road in washington

falcon ridge!!!!

bellagio fountains in vegas


hahahah

obviously i went to paris.


the hoover dam!

grand canyon. omfg loves it. i want to hike it and paddle it for the rest of my life.

went to the grand canyon west today. it was amazing, first day off. i almost wish we hadn't been so close to teh grand canyon b/c i would have like a chill ass day off. but instead i got to see this natural beauty and wonder, so i can't really complain. All i want to do now is quit my life and kayak the Colorado river. It was expensive, but we got to go on the skywalk which was this cool sort of sidewalk that was glass that went over the canyon. I had a fun time just laying down over the glass looking at the canyon 2,000 feet below, unfortunately they didn't let us bring camera's out there. it was still fun though and the photographers had a great personality and it was fun talking to them. so here are some pictures from the trip. I'm in love. I've decided some day i just want to take a break from my life and hike and/or paddle the grand canyon. loves it. i plan on going back again some day soon. me and some the actors were just talking, but what i was saying was that i was so glad i took pictures, because it was just so grand and picturesque and huge and immense that my brain cannon conceptualize it. like i'm looking at the pictures and i can't even imagine that i was there and it was actually that large. I totally totally want to go back. I plan on looking at this pictures for a while.





in air at the top of this pint we ended up at. very cool








a completely accidental shot that came out amazingly of one of the actors on teh show kevin.



a cool color accent shot i took


here you can see the skywalk we walked on.



one of the views i saw. so beautiful

first on the road picture post!

Hey everyone out there! so here's the first post of my time on the road!
things are going crazy, but alright. Still getting in teh swing of things. I got really sick the other day and spent a whole day feeling ill in bed. luckily we had driven so that way we had the time to let it happen. I'm still feeling weak and really nauteous especially when i think about any of the food i've had in the last week, or any food in general.
Things are going well, stressful. I'm trying to get used to the show and going to a different venue every time. I'm also not really in the swing of things and comfortable with what i'm doing entirely yet.
so there's that. hope everyone out there is doing well! i'll be enjoying the warm late spring like weather before our load in at 5pm.

so far i've been through:
virginia
north carolina
south carolina
georgia
alabama
mississippi
lousiana
texas
new mexico
arizona
woo hoo!



me looking like a fatty fatty no friends in my suave pink hat i got at the thing



oh hell yes we stopped and saw "The Thing" on I-10. It was a little weird, and not any 1 specific thing. luckily, it only cost a dollar.


something we saw at the thing. not really sure what it is.... oh wait. it's THE THING!!!!!



it's fraggle rock! we saw it on the road going through arizona.


yay! welcome to arizona. It's 80 degrees here. i love my life.


sunrise coming through new mexico i think? on the way from texas to arizona.


driving the truck in texas.


thanks arizona, i'll take that into consideration. we also saw huge smelly stock yards we could smell them for miles before and miles after, and there were so many cows crammed into a relatively small area. they made me incredibly sad. so no thanks, i won't be eating beef.



the "meteor crater"/tiny gully thing we stopped at in texas. it was incredibly dissapointing. but i like the way the way this picture came out.


where me and jon ate in big springs tx. very interesting place to eat.


fried zuchinni slices. mmmm... this place was awesome.
some windmills we saw in texas. i thought they were pretty cool




lighting hopkins statue in crockett tx.



texas!


cheer wine, this delicious and incredibly sugary beverage i had at a bbq place in south carolina. the food was great!


jon in the truck. after he had just broke branches off a tree. oops.

on the road again!

tomorrow morning the blues journey crew heads to our first venue in Charleston SC! i'm so excited! it might end up being trial by fire, so we'll see. i'm incredibly nervous and excited at the same time. life will be tiring especially the next few days so hopefully it'll go well.

just a picture i found funny. took it in nyc.

hey all i figured i would post my address for ya'll
so here it is

Jen Howard for Michelle M. (email me if you don't know my last name. )

Education Department

Kennedy Center

PO Box 101510

Arlington, VA 22210

If it’s a package, send it here:

Jen Howard for Michelle M.

Education Department

Kennedy Center

2700 F Street, NW

Washington, DC 20566

if you send a letter to the package address it'll take more than a week to get back aaaand it'll get zapped by gross radiation and stuff and supposedly the paper will get brown and sticky, so unless you want me to see what it's like, don't send a letter to the physical address. woot!