"The engine's off, the show goes on!"

I know we've only been on the road for less than two weeks, but it sure feels like we've been on the road for months!

Our daily schedule is, and has been, rigorous.  

Our call is sometime between 1 and 3 p.m., and we usually have about 1-2.5 hours to drive to the venue.  The shows start at 8:15 p.m., which means that after a performance, a meet-and-greet, and gear packing, we don't leave the theatre until around 11:30 p.m.  With the lengthier drives, we arrive back home sometime after 1 a.m.  Then, we're usually hungry when we get home...so we sit in the living room, eat, chat, and get to bed around 2 a.m.  Depending on how tired we are, we usually wake up between 10 and 11 a.m.  By the time we've had breakfast, showered, and done the daily checking of e-mail, we may or may not have 30 minutes to an hour of personal time for other things (running, blogging, practicing, etc.).

Put another way, if we leave at 1 p.m. and don't get home till 1 a.m., then we have 12 hours of work and 12 hours of personal time, 8-10 hours of which is spent sleeping.

That being said, I'm very much looking forward to tomorrow's day off!

...especially after yesterday's incident.  

We were chugging happily down the highway when the engine in our 9-person van started to sound strange and we began slowing down.  Dean pulled off the highway and found a random, empty parking lot.

There was much collective examining of the engine.

Dean decided he would drive to a gas station to seek help, so we all decided to stay there.  I ran to the van to grab something out of my backpack and started walking back toward everyone, at which point I snapped this photo of everyone at the end of this bleak lot:

Right after this first picture, Dean started the engine behind me and a giant plume of smoke burst from his exhaust pipe.  Everyone turned in shock and I snapped what may be the most amazingly candid photo I've ever taken.  The moment was perfectly captured.
 

Look at the concern on the faces!  (You can click on it to see it even bigger.)

While Hiddy was over with Dean further examining issues, we stood underneath the shelter to stay warm.

The always popular "show me how you feel on the inside" picture.

This step-touch dance helps you stay warm.  

[Can you tell we spend too much time with each other?]

It was eventually determined that regular gas had mistakenly been put in the engine instead of diesel, which meant that we'd need to wait for someone to come flush out our car.  And since it was cold outside, we all just climbed back inside the van.

Nice and cozy in the 9-person.

Flushing the gas.

Kristina really wanted out of the van.

We napped, snacked, read, laughed, groaned, and generally tried to figure out how to pass what felt like an eternity without completely losing our minds.

Two-and-a-half stir-crazy hours later, we were on our way.

And six hours after we had first left for the show, we finally arrived at 7:00 in Beringen, Belgium, for an 8:15 performance.  (For reference, the trip back home after the show took just about 2 hours...)

In retrospect, it's funny how life imitates art.  These are the lyrics for the first verse in our opening song here in the Netherlands: "Driver, drive me faster, there's no need to go so slow.  Drive me to the music, drive me where I want to go.  Hey, hey, what are you doing?  Hey, hey, what have you done?  Hey, hey, where are you going?  The engine's off, the show goes on!"