My return to Dayton, Ohio

Dayton, Ohio was our seventh city to hit on the tour. We were there less than 30 hours, we rolled in on the bus at 3:30 one day and left the next day after our last show about 9:00. We preformed at the Nutter Center Arena, the same arena I competed at in the 1997 & 2000 National Baton competition! It was funny returning to an arena in such a random part of the country that I had already preformed at. It looked the same, maybe a little bit nicer then I'd remembered it- and there was no practice gym with baton twirlers crowding the floor or judges in black suits- just our stage! I met up with 2 baton professionals while in town, Julie and Joyce. They took me to lunch before they came and saw the show. Joyce actually owns a dance studio in Dayton, and she brought her whole studio...there were about 65 people that came to see the show! I came out before the show in my 12 Days costume and did a little meet and greet with the girls, signed autographs and answered questions about Rockettes. After our last show we hopped onto our bus and drove an hour to our next city, Cincinnati, so that we could wake up on Thanksgiving and not have to travel. It was fun to travel at night- we were all wide awake, normally we are sleepy on the bus. I'd picked up a Christmas Mad Libs book at the gift shop in Grand Rapids the week before that I was dying to do, so the girls and I did Christmas mad libs the whole way there. It's been a while since I've done mad libs- but it was great fun! We laughed so hard!!