Good Times in the Badlands

First, Faithful Readers, some Medora background:

About a year ago, our dear friends Jay and Erin visited us in Dickinson and then invited us to join them at their campsite in Theodore Roosevelt National Park adjacent to Medora, ND. Here is what we did then.

Later that month we enjoyed Medora with my dad, stepmom, sister, and her roommate. Here is what we did then.

Recently our dear friends Jeff and Janelle visited us in Dickinson and spent some time with Susan and the girls (I was at work) in Medora--and took our girls to the Medora musical with them. Here is what we did then.

Okay, enough background. Jay and Erin are here again to visit, and we've been having a great time with them, as usual. While our children play together (and play and play and play . . .), we enjoy savory snacks and refreshing beverages and sparkling conversation and effervescent wit. Susan and Erin even got a little shopping in while Jay took the kids to the park (again, I was at work).

Tonight we drove to Medora (with Erin's parents, Dave and Myrna, who have been traveling with Jay and Erin on this trip that included attending a wedding in CO) to see the musical. In the audience we saw many people we know from Dickinson and even someone we knew when living in Grand Forks (who is from Williston and lives now in New York City--got that?!). A friend of ours from Grand Forks is in the Medora musical--someone whom Jay and Erin know, too--so we were particularly eager to see it this year. Here are highlights:

We got to Medora early enough, we thought, to enjoy a spot of ice cream or homemade fudge downtown before the musical. The place closed literally the minute we set foot on the front step. So we made lemonade out of lemons and turned the stoop of disappointment into a pedestal for photographic greatness. Left to right: Jay, Erin, Hillary, Susan, Abigail, Dave, Myrna, Hannah, Gabriel, and Suzanna.

P.S. Over the years many people have either mistaken Jay for me (or vice versa) or else assumed that we're brothers. It happened at the musical tonight, too; Suzanna's fourth-grade teacher saw me at intermission and said, "You must be sitting beside your brother; and that must be your father [Dave, Erin's dad] with you. A family night out, huh?" Do you, Faithful Reader, think that Jay resembles me (or vice versa)? I know the photo is small--squint!

After picking up our tickets, we paused at the top of the Burning Hills Amphitheatre (where the musical is performed midway down the slope looking out over the buttes and valleys of the Badlands) for pics of the vista and of the kiddies. Left to right: Gabriel, Abigail, Hillary, Suzanna, and Hannah.

During one musical number, all the children in the audience were invited to come on stage, where they were given birthday party hats while the cast continued to sing ("What Can One Little Person Do?" about environmental action in honor of Theodore Roosevelt's conservation legacy). Suzanna is smack-dab in the middle in the white-striped green shirt--see her? The three birthdays being celebrated this summer are the Medora musical's 50th birthday, the town of Medora's 125th birthday, and Teddy Roosevelt's 150th birthday. Whew!

And here are Hannah (pink shirt) and Abigail (gray shirt), both in the bottom center of the pic.

Finally here's Hillary in the pink shirt above the blurry crescent covering the bottom of the photo. (Gabriel chose not to join the others on stage. Independent cuss!)

This is one of several sets used during the musical--nothing especially spectacular about this one, necessarily. I just like the fact that the Badlands serve as such an awesome background. It almost looks as though someone has painted an outdoor scene on a scrim and hung it as a backdrop upstage!

The musical always includes a "featured attraction": an act having nothing to do with the theme of the musical itself, each act staying to perform nightly for about two weeks before being replaced by the next specialty performers. Tonight's act was Don Otto, "The Diving Fool," whose act included a lot of slapstick on a diving board over a trampoline designed to look like a pool of water. He kept pretending to start a dive only to cancel the dive at the last minute for one reason or another: getting his finger stuck in the railing, tripping on the diving board and bouncing back into his starting position, etc. His a-lot-of-setup/little-payoff routine, complete with an exaggerated accent that sounded like something from a Bugs Bunny cartoon, seemed like a style of comedy from another era: vaudeville, perhaps. But the little kids laughed their heads off at Don Otto's goofiness; and his wee children (three below the age of seven) were all part of the routine, so it was hard not to crack a smile.

Told ya it was a birthday celebration!

One of our friends from Grand Forks, Job Christenson, has a lead role in the musical. He plays "The City Slicker," basically a foil for the I-love-the-Wild-West cowboys and cowgals in the ensemble, whose mission it is throughout the musical to de-citify him and turn him into a cowboy hat wearing, square dancing, fresh air breathing cowpoke . . . or something. Here he is in the tie lookin' a might bit afeard of the bassackwards country folk surrounding him. Job does a good job, especially with his vocal solos.

After the show Job posed for pics with the kids. Left to right: Hannah (who takes dance classes from Job in Grand Forks!), Hillary, Job, Abigail, and Suzanna.