Savages, Savages, barely even HUMAN!

Hi Friends!
I woke up in my snug little hotel bed in Spokane and was ready to start this final leg of tour. What was nice was that I was already packed. I guess thats a bonus considering I had just got off a plane only a few hours before. HA! Beat the system. I ate a yummy breakfast while I waited for Loretta to come and meet me so we could ride off together. Our first destination? Starbucks. Gotta do this right. Then we were off to Savage, Montana. Now don't get caught up with yourself just yet, I already know what you're thinking.

"Oh driving through the state of Montana must be beautiful!"
Wrong.

Yea there's mountains but they're closer to Idaho. Once you pass Missoula, it's flat. So Loretta and I had a very long day ahead of us and the GPS said we would get there around supper time. Ok not bad. By this point a 12 hour drive is a piece of cake. Well except for one thing. On that day we just so happend to drive through a blizzard. Ugh! I was so mad! Here I was in Lynchburg, Va only 24 hours before in hot sunny weather and I come to Montana just to drive through a foot of snow?!?! Something is just wrong about that. Now I like snow but after getting a taste of warm weather, I did not like this one bit. Mainly because our truck (Ranger Rooney) needed new windshield wipers and was therefore rendered useless. Within a matter of moments the windshield was completely covered and I could only see out of about 6 inches of the window. Thankfully everyone was driving really slow so that wasn't a problem. We pulled over at a gas station to fill up, get some lunch, and wait out the storm. I think everyone else had the same idea because that was a hoppin little place. Unfortunately because of this delay we ended up getting to our homestay later than we would've liked. :(

Savage, Montana was another small town for us but it was fun. No there wasn't any cell service or internet but I'm quite fond of reading and we found fun things to do so it was ok. :) The high school was literally only a block away from our house and when we got there, we couldn't believe it. The Savage high school mascott was the "Savage Warriors" meaning a Native American. BWAHAHA! We both thought that was terrible but yet kind of funny. All week I kept singing the song from the Disney movie Pocahontas hence the title of my blog. haha! The school provided us with more free meals. Score! I love saving my money and not spending it on groceries. At the end of the week they also gave us some cool souvenirs: a Savage t-shirt, water bottle, and a cool bag.

The kids were awesome that week too. They are every week but this week the kids were really fun to hang out with at rehearsals. Our week in Augusta, the kids never laughed at our jokes and sometimes had this "too cool for school" attitude but our week in Savage was soooooo different. I always felt so cool when I would walk into the cafeteria. All the kids would fight over me sitting with them; I tried to change up who I sat with everyday. You know it's tough being popular. ha! I'll never forget these two little girls that were Minis. They were best friends and I swear they were "Gills" in the making. Oh my goodness! I sat with them one day for lunch and watched them say "undapants" back and forth in between giggles for 15 minutes straight. It was one of the funniest lunches of my LIFE! haha! Too cute! Another thing that was cool for us was this school (from K-5 to 12th grade) held 100 students and we LITERALLY cast half the school in our show. Missoula Children's Theatre is a big deal there.

There was something about that week too, maybe because we had a lot of time on our hands without the internet and our phones but Loretta and I had a lot of reminiscing moments from our childhoods. We went bike riding a lot. Two of the cast members actually had one of those two seater bikes (I've always wanted to ride one) and they brought it to the school just so Loretta and I could ride it. Man that was so awesome and fun. Then Loretta and I went and visited the creek to watch the beavers. It's apparently what all the cool kids do in Savage. The next day Loretta and I noticed like 5 bikes just in our homestays front yard. Well since all the kids were in school we stole them for the afternoon and rode around Savage. That took about 15 minutes on our bikes but it was still fun. It reminded me of when I was younger and I would go ask one of the kids that lived on my street to go for a bike ride, just because. Good times. On the day of the show Loretta and I even rode the bikes to the school. Yep. We're THAT cool.

One of the highlights during our week in Savage was that we introduced the kids to Nsync. No one knew who they were. Kids. >:( All I have to say is they do NOW! Haha! During one of our breaks we played their first album and danced around (because Loretta and I remember their choreography). We also played it as background music while we sorted costumes with some of the cast members that week. Oh Justin Timberlake, you will always excite my little tween heart beat. haha!

After the show on Friday our homestay took us out to this bar/restaurant which was the only one in town and told us everything was on them. They really encouraged us to take advantage of this. OOOOOK! The lady who was our Contact and homestay that week reminded me so much of my cousin Lesley. She was cool, spunky and fun. All week I did everything I could not to hug her. Her husband was a cool guy too. He fell under the silent and mellow category. Loretta and I stayed in their two son's bedrooms while the boys slept in the guest room. I had Logan's room which was decked out in hunting stuff like camouflage and throwing stars. Loretta stayed in Owen aka Owskiski and he was a big basketball fan. This was one of the coolest families we stayed with. We've stayed with a lot of cool families but they're definitely in the top 5.

TAD date!

Later that week Loretta and I met up with our TAD friends Hannah and Laura. We got to hang out with them way back when we first hit the road when we were in Texas with our trainers. (Full circle)That night we all went out to eat and then headed back to their hotel, the whole time filling each other in on all our tour stories. It was a fun night for sure. A good way to end a fun week.
-Jen