Travel Diary

Another one-day trip? Very well. It’s been a while. Over two months actually. Guess it’s time to travel once again. I believe I was ready for it. Allons-y!

It was a Saturday flight and a very short trip (around 24 hours), but at least it was a late morning flight and that's not a bad time to be flying. Nice that I didn’t have to get up at 4 AM and only get two hours of sleep. As a dog would say, those days are rough.

I decide to forgo the train (and Uber for sure) and drove to the parking lot near the airport. The SeaTac parking fees are just a bit too high, even though they are a little more clear. I allowed plenty of time and was able to leisurely stroll over to the airport and see what things were like at SeaTac. Hard to believe it had been over two months since I was there last. What had time done to it, I wondered.

I guess it was fairly busy for a Saturday morning, though perhaps that's normal. Security allowed me to use Touchless ID, which only had three people in front of me. I would almost feel bad for Clear as a few people are gonna want to pay $100 to $200 a year for something that may now be slower than a free service—or at least TSA pre-check Touchless.

I also got to see the new section of the airport, which was pretty cool. I guess if the airport is going to keep getting busier, they might as well make it more enjoyable. Although, I don't usually buy anything to eat or drink there. That's just a complete waste of money.

My flight was upgraded to first class; however, I was in the first row so I had to board early to make sure the overhead space wasn't used up, since sometimes people in economy will sneak their bags in the first class section to avoid losing out. That being said, often late in the boarding, they do announce to just use any space you can find.

I had the aisle seat, but an older guy next to me was okay switching. He just wanted to ensure we told the flight attendants a couple of times. I guess people get paranoid about that, if you don't fly very often. They didn’t mind or care.

Since it was a fast flight, there was no meal service, which was too bad as I was a little hungry due to no breakfast. But we did get a free drink so I ordered an old-fashioned (most bang for the buck). I then studied my lines and took photos out the window, but it was a very hazy day, so no great shots. Darn fires.

After an hour and a half, we landed in Sacramento and I went downstairs as my friends were already there to pick me up. No time to lose.

It would still be about 90 minutes to reach Chico, so we started driving north. What was cool was passing all of the old familiar places that we used to see when driving to the Gold Country Casino. In fact, we would be going right by Oroville. No time to stop at the dam though, but we of course discussed the great droughts and the great floods and spillway failure years back.

We did stop at Burger King for some food and that was a pleasant break. It was also an exceptionally hot day which, living in Seattle, I don't experience a lot of these days. Then we got on the road and headed over to the Elks Lodge in Chico.

Our green room was actually the stage, but the curtain was closed and we had a nice long table there to set up our stuff. The performing space was decorated quite nicely with a fantastic amount of props and table settings. They even acquired a pirate ship section that I imagine was made for Halloween or something. That was quite impressive. I would hope that was just rented. It would seem like an odd thing to actually buy, for how often could you use it?

The show would be Red Beard, which used to be called Red Leg, but it got confusing since the original concept of the show was called Red Leg, and my new script really had nothing in common, outside of the character name and the idea of a mayoral pirate kidnapping. So it was changed a few years ago.

We had a full house with a great crowd, and the show went really well. I played Saul T. Dawg. It's a crazy easy role, with very few lines. This is because when I wrote it, I owned the company. It was to allow me to be in the show, but also be able to stage manage at the same time, without too much trouble. However, now there's a different stage manager, since I don't run the company anymore and the role is just very simple.

The food was pretty tasty. It was a chicken in some sauce that kind of resembled an applesauce or something to the like. I couldn't quite place it, but I did enjoy it. There were also some rolls (Author: Odd, I used voice dictations and the first time it spelt “roll” when I was talking about acting and wanted “role” and now it spelt “role” when I was talking about food and wanted “roll”) and a chocolate cake for dessert. I mainly just enjoyed the chicken.

After the show finished and we took our cast photos, a few of us drove over to the hotel we were staying at which was a Doubletree Hilton, and quite nice. I was sharing a room and after getting set up, we went to the bar to get some drinks.

Well, the drink of choice was just the famous beer shakes that have a long history. You see we first got them at the Sierra Nevada Brewery Restaurant many years ago, when we used to perform at the nearby casino.

A few years ago, we had returned to the casino for a show that might've been our rebirth there, but it didn't go that well so that never happened. Well, the show itself went pretty nicely, but the turnout was very small and I think the casino decided to forgo bringing back a regular murder mystery like we had from 2013-2019. However, after that return show, we went back to the Sierra Nevada brewery restaurant, hoping to try our beer shakes once again, but the waiter said they didn't sell them. In fact, the person said it was never on the menu, which was weird because it WAS since we had them and all three of us remember having them. Just quite strange.

So they did sell us ice cream and beer separately and said we could just mix them together. It wasn't quite the same, but I guess it got the job done. We actually drove out to some shopping center parking lot to do that—a la college kids acting crazy type thing.

Anyway, back to the present, at the Doubletree, we ordered the same thing as no beer shake was on the menu. I guess I should say the others did that since all this had been decided before I even got down to the bar. I just arrived at the table, and there were three glasses with a scoop of ice cream on the table and three beers adjacent to them. To be honest, I would not have ordered a beer at all, as I don't really drink beer much these days, but it was already ordered so I wasn't going to argue with it. Although I actually didn't even finish one beer. That year of sobriety changed things. Maybe permanently.

We chatted at the table for a few hours and then returned to our rooms to sleep.