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Today was a day of radio interviews on the road from Mississippi to Alabama! After a day of driving, we arrived at Camp Liberty in Battleground... our official "home" in Alabama! Camp Liberty is a pretty special place that has hundreds of young men & women come and train "boot camp" style every summer, AND they also provide an event space with amazing patriotic lodging for weddings and events throughout the year!
We got a private tour of Camp Liberty by the owner, Joseph Land who we've known for years, and then our good friend Ken came to pick us up and take us to dinner! We had a great time catching up over steaks and salad and lots of lemonade for Jack.
Tomorrow night, our show in Alabama is at the Betty Leeth Haynes Theatre in Hanceville and proceeds go towards benefiting local veterans! Please come out and support... tickets are only $10, AND it's the 49th stop on our tour! We hope to see y'all there!  Today was the official show date for Mississippi.... at the awesome Downstage Productions Theatre in Gulfport!
It was a packed house, and we absolutely loved the enthusiastic audience! We were excitedt to have WXXV Television attend and do a feature on the show as well (CLICK HERE TO SEE THE INTERVIEW)!
Our friends Carlette and Bo that we met at WTOL the day before at the station came to the show and were wonderful! We had to show off Carlette's amazing smile during the performance. She has such a vibrance about her and we are excited to stay in touch and get to know them better. After the show, the Quilt of Valor was presented to an Iraq veteran, Lela Breman! She was supported by her incredibly loving son, Aiden.
Downstage Productions Theatre was amazing to work with. We absolutely loved their incredible staff and will definitely be returning to Gulfport to get to know those talented individuals better.
Thanks, Mississippi! You've been an awesome 48th stop. xo This morning we left New Orleans, and after a quick stop at the "Big Easy Cafe", we arrived in Gulfport, Mississippi! We checked into an awesome Air B&B and quickly changed and headed to WLOX for an interview with David Elliott. CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE SEGMENT!
After some work, beach and pool time, we hunted town a sunset for Dan to take a photo. At first he was thinking the clouds were going to ruin the shot, but we chased down a storm and he was able to capture some lightning in clouds!
Ice cream from a truck and team time at the Air B&B while catching up on work made for a relaxing evening. We can't wait for our show in Gulfport tomorrow night at 7pm at Downstage Productions Theatre!
Today in New Orleans we had the opportunity to go back to the National WWII Museum and explore. We saw the film at the museum, Beyond All Boundaries, which was a spectacular technical and emotional movie that we highly recommend!
We worked for much of the day, visited the incredible rooftop pool at our hotel, and returned to Jackson Square at sunset for Dan to get his photo for Louisiana.  Days like this make the road really special. We love you, New Orleans.
Today is Tyler Zickmund, our amazing lighting designer & ASM's birthday! Our show was at the incredible National WWII Museum in New Orleans at the Stage Door Canteen Theatre. It's been a long term dream of Letters From Home to perform at this museum, and it was awesome to fulfill that on our official 47th stop of tour!
It was Mother's Day, so we had a ton of families at the show, and the museum gave all moms flowers who attended. The entertainment staff at the museum was incredible, and we loved working with them. Tyler's parents, Gary and Vicky were also at the show and it was incredible to see them!
The Quilt of Valor went to US Coast Guard veteran Jane Sandy, who was awarded the quilt in front of her entire family after the show! It was special as always, especially being able to award the quilt to a mom on Mother's Day!  After strike, the team walked down Bourbon Street and visited Cafe Du Monde for beignets and coffee. We went to Jackson Square, people watched, shopped and had a lovely evening.
This morning, Myra and Erinn started out in Texas and the rest of the gang started out in Arkansas! We had a long travel day, and on the way, Myra and Erinn experienced one of the wonders of the south- Buc-ees Travel Plaza! Many folks were telling us to visit Buc-ees on the tour, and we see why now! We were especially impressed with the fresh jerky bar, the fudge shop and the "FRESH BRISKET ON THE BOARD"! Meanwhile, in the other car, Grace, Tyler, Jack and Dan had an Alligator cross their path on the highway!
We arrived in New Orleans and checked into our awesome "home" for this leg of the tour, the Holiday Inn Superdome Downtown! Tomorrow is Tyler's birthday, and his parents came in to surprise him (and for Mothers Day)! They hung out for the evening, while the rest of us went to eat some incredible New Orleans Seafood and celebrate Grace's graduation day (which would have been today but she graduated early)! We ate Alligator balls and Grace had a real crawfish.
The evening ended with beignets from Cafe Beignet, and watching The Princess and The Frog at the hotel with celebration cake for Grace's graduation.
Today we arrived in the incredibly adorable city of El Dorado, Arkansas!
Our official "home" for Arkansas was the incredible Union Square Guest Quarters- one of the most unique and lovely places to stay of this entire tour! We all had a very different apartment kind of place to stay, and breakfast was in an old train car! After walking around the town, we took advantage of the town gym and lap pool, had ice cream, dinner and a game night in with the team.
Our show for Arkansas was at the awesome South Arkansas Arts Center in El Dorado. During load in, we discovered that Erinn had left TWO of her costumes at the theatre in Irving, Texas, five hours away! Luckily, the amazing theatre allowed us to borrow two costumes that truly did the trick and even though they were vintage, fit like a glove! We felt VERY lucky to be in such a perfect place for this to happen.
The audience was a blast, and we had our youngest audience member onstage to date, "Baby J" who was one of our jerks in the jeep! They especially loved the jokes and there were so many Vietnam Veterans in the audience we got the opportunity to welcome home.
The Quilt of Valor for Arkansas went to our good friend Tony LeMay, who was an Army Veteran who served in Desert Storm. He does so much for the community and his fellow veterans and it was a privilege to honor him with a quilt tonight.
After we said goodbye to our Arkansas friends, we loaded out, dropped Dan, Grace, Tyler and Jack off at the Quarters, and Myra and Erinn drove all the way back to Texas to get the missing costumes. The show must go on!
We're tired, but oh so grateful to Arkansas for exceeding our expectations and being a wonderful part of this community we call America! Today was a long but rewarding day! We left Bartlesville, Oklahoma at 8am for a 5 hour drive to Irving, Texas! We checked into the beautiful La Quinta Inn & Suites, our lovely sponsored "home" for Texas! The staff was amazing and our beds incredibly comfy for a 20-minute nap before heading to the theatre.  Our show was at the stunning Irving Arts Center and we loved the beautiful space! The show was a blast because the Texas energy truly was AMAZING! The entire audience felt like true friends after the show and left us with a smile in our heart.
After the show we had such a great time: our friends Jerry and Susan and Lynn and Glen from the boat came, as well as Kevin from Normandy France! We also were thrilled to see our great friend Luis who used to work on the American Duchess with us and drove 6 hours to see the show!
The Quilt of Valor went to our friend Glen who was a captain in the United States Air Force. He spent much of his time serving in the hospital during Vietnam and was so grateful for his quilt! We got our share of love and hugs from so many veterans, AND were also surprised by Dan's cousin and their entire family!
The team was amazing all day and night, especially considering we drove through the day to get to and perform the show.
Overall, we all agree that Texas really represented. Their energy truly shined through, and we're so very grateful for the love. Today, our tour takes us all the way to Bartlesville, Oklahoma!  We woke up this morning in such a unique room in Price Tower. Here's a picture of Frank Lloyd Wright designing the tower for New York before it was realized in Oklahoma!
Our show tonight was at the incredible Bartlesville Center for Performing Arts and wow what a beautiful theatre and awesome staff! Before the show, as clouds started to loom outside, one of the folks who worked at the theatre talked us through what might happen if the tornado siren would sound! (Luckily the storm passed so we made it through)!
We had an awesome audience of all ages, and some amazing Vietnam Veterans. It was also a great surprise as Dan's Aunt Cheryl came in to see the show again with a friend! The Quilts of Valor presented two quilts tonight, one to the commander of the American Legion, John Hardison, and one to WWII Veteran Paul Fox.
The green room of the theatre was filled with some incredible stars who have graced the Bartlesville Center stage- like Rick Nelson, Hal Holbrook, Mearle Haggard, Shelley Winters and so many more. They asked us to send them a photo to add to the wall when we return from tour!  Tomorrow's a long day as we have leave early to drive to Texas for our show tomorrow night, so we bid you goodnight for now. Thanks, Oklahoma!
Our day started out of this world! Roswell- the renowned as the site of an alleged 1947 UFO crash. The town is also home to the International UFO Museum and Research Center, and every business in town is alien-inspired! We got some coffee at Stellar Coffee and walked around downtown on this beautiful sunny day.
We crossed the border into Texas briefly on the way, and stopped at the famous Cadillac Ranch! The site was invented and built by a group of art-hippies imported from San Francisco in 1974. We had the opportunity to add our own spray paint to all of the cars! 
After that, we stopped at the famous BIG TEXAN restaurant, where EVERYTHING was Texas-sized! The giant cow outside, the signage, and there's even a 72-Ounce Steak challenge, where if you eat it all in 1 hour or less it's free! We did NOT attempt to do that. 
We kept driving and crossed the border to the state that has a musical theatre song for a name... OKLAHOMA! For our official "home" in Oklahoma, we'll be staying at the incredible Inn at Price Tower- which completely changed the horizon of the Oklahoma prairie town in 1981 when it was purchased by Phillips Petroleum. It was designed by Frank Lloyd Right for New York, but due to the great depression couldn't build it there- so after deciding to move it to Oklahoma, Frank nicknamed the tower “The Tree that Escaped the Crowded Forest” because it had escaped the crowded “forests” of Manhattan skyscrapers and was now able “to cast its own shadow upon its own piece of land.”  |
