Deep South

The Riley

We spent some time toodling around the south. Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee... Our first stop thataway was the lovely Riley theatre in Meridian, MS, a lovingly restored Grand style opera house. Their lambrequin (spelling may be off...) curtain was the original one that hung in the 1890's and had a portrait of a woman everyone just calls, 'The Lady' and a light is left glowing dimly on her during every performance.

Prettiest building on the block!

If you look to the right hand corner you can barely see the Lady there on the curtain...

It was a good day. We had local volunteers, kids from the college (who preferred to stand some ways off discussing computers rather than lift walls) and four young men from the Navy who were wonderful. My favorite part of the day (in keeping with my Epiphany) was to see how the city had given the money and effort to restore their beautiful theatre.

Next favorite stop was Baton Rouge! That's right. One night only, though. Our venue was the local university theatre. Not much to speak of there. A typical load -in and show, but I was able to acquire some tasty craw fish ettouffe, gumbo and regular ol' boiled and spiced craw fish. It was something that had to be done while we were in the proper region, don't you think? And they were delicious.

Our hotel room in Baton Rouge was really the topper of the day. A bit cozy size-wise but goodness were they beautiful! It's stops like this that wake you up and make you remember that you're in a different place almost every night. It's so easy to coast through without taking everything in. But this place had some style and we wallowed in luxury for the evening:

We were scheduled to remain in Baton Rouge for the next couple of days, but J.R. proposed a more adventurous plan...