Adventures in Milwaukee

Last night, a friend and I went to see the Broadway Tour of the musical Hairspray in Milwaukee. A former drama student of mine has been in the tour group for three years as Lil' Inez (she's 24 playing a 12-year-old). I was bouncing off the walls all day, waiting to leave. First, I hadn't seen Marsena since '04 when she graduated and second, I hadn't seen a Broadway show since '03 when we saw Aida in New York City. Rob was not interested in seeing the production, so a friend went with me instead.

The show was amazing. I don't think the smile left my face the entire time. I loved the sets, costuming, the majority of the cast and of course, Marsena did an excellent job. (Trust me, she didn't learn any of it from me!) We were able to meet her after the show and talk for a little while. I dug up a picture of her from a musical in high school, made her sign my copy, and gave her a copy to keep. We laughed and reminisced for awhile, then she went to her hotel for some sleep and my friend and I left to go home.

And then the real adventure started. Rob was concerned for our safety being in the city at night, so he sprung for us to park in the event parking at the theatre. That way we were just across the street. It was also a fairly safe area of Milwaukee. All we had to do was get onto the interstate. Since it was only one block from the museum we had been to a few weeks ago, I just pulled out the directions I had copied at that time. As it turned out, we couldn't go the direction we thought we could, made a wrong turn, and ended up on the wrong interstate. My friend then pulled off and tried to turn around to go back but we couldn't figure out where the entrance was.

So here we are driving around a rather shady part of the city at 11:00pm with no clue where to go. We finally pulled over at a gas station to ask the attendant how to get back on the interstate. At just that time, a group of teens came over and were hanging out at the store entrance. They were younger teens so we weren't real worried, but it did cause a few extra prayers to go up. The gas attendant was no help, but one of the boys finally talked to my friend and told her what to do. At least he was more helpful than the police officer in the parking lot, who ignored us!

We did find the entrance and got back onto the interstate, then found our correct interstate, which had a detour, and 30 minutes later we were pointed in the right direction. We made it home at midnight with no more mishaps and lots of laughter on the way. When I got into the house, I just started laughing. I told Rob that in spite of his best efforts to keep me safe, I found trouble anyway. God is good!