Daniel

           I went to the Sight and Sound Theater in Lancaster, Pennsylvania with a group of my church peeps to see the production of Daniel. It was fabulous!

          We met at the church bright and early and left by six in the a.m. I told my peeps in my morning love note that we were carpooling, only I made it two words in my note and I missed the L. Oh how the absence of one little letter can make such a big difference! Carpooling became car pooing.

          “I’m glad I’m not in that car!” one of my peeps responded.

I was in a car with my best girl Jody driving. She is such a neat lady and truly an unsung hero. She does so much for our church and I’m sure gets very little thanks in return. Linda rode shotgun while Elaine and I took the back seats.

Can you say, “Road pictures!”

We had some fog but the sun was working hard to burn it off.

Then we didn’t have any more fog...

...until we came down out of the mountains.

Linda had a stroke and is handicapped. As a result, she seldom goes any farther from home than the church. We were on roads she hasn’t been on in a very long time, nor have I, for that matter.

“If you haven’t been down this way in a while, this is a brand-new section of road,” Jody told us. “The trucks are told to stay in the left lane if it’s windy so they don’t get blown off the bridge.”

And what a view we had from 200 feet in the air.

I don’t know why I didn’t make any pictures as we crossed the bridge.

I did get some shots of other road construction.

“Look at his load,” Jody said. “Why isn’t it centered on his trailer?”

“If Mike were here, I’m sure he could tell us,” I said. “But I’m guessing it has something to do with weight distribution.” These are trusses and the tops were hanging over the side. There were times he would pull across the center line into our lane to avoid an obstacle on the side of the road.

I watched the roadside for flowers and birds. “What are those trees?” I asked when I started seeing a lot of these.

“Locust,” Jody said.

“What is that white flower?” I asked when I started seeing low bushes with white flowers. “Are the raspberry blooming?” Everything blooms earlier the farther south you go and I know blackberries come on after raspberries.

“I don’t know,” Jody said. “I didn’t see it and I’m going to watch the road.”

We passed the Statue of Liberty in the Susquehanna River. It's a replica known as the Dauphin Narrows Statue of Liberty, located near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. It stands 25 feet tall and is perched on an old railroad piling in the middle of the river.

I had thought I’d read it was done as a prank by some collage kids but Copilot says, “It was first erected in 1986 by a local lawyer named Gene Stilp as a patriotic prank to commemorate the centennial of the original Statue of Liberty. The initial version was made from Venetian blinds and plywood, but it was destroyed by weather in the 1990s. The residents of Dauphin had grown so fond of their miniature Lady Liberty that they raised funds to build a new, more durable metal version, which was erected in 1997.”

Look at all the security cameras on this place! I wonder what they’re protecting.

Dutch Wonderland. 

Amish Village.

Someone said all the rooms in this hotel are themed around cartoons. 

Then we were there.

They allowed us to park in the handicapped lot even though we didn’t have a sticker. 

          The history of the theater is interesting. It was started in the early 60s by a dairy farmer and his wife who had a desire to serve God. It grew and changed, adding new technology to make the productions bigger and better. They had a fire in 1997 that destroyed the entertainment center. Glenn and Shirley didn’t give up and 18 months later completed construction on a new 2,000-seat theater that was state of the art and featured a massive 300-foot panoramic stage and a companion 12-ton, nearly 300-foot LED video screen that wraps around the audience on three sides.

          In the production of Daniel, they used 13,000 yards of fabric to create 830 costumes.

“I want one of those!” Jody said. They were fabulous!

They had nearly 300 wigs and 100 beards expertly hand crafted for the show.

There are over 140 people who work behind the scenes to bring the Daniel show to life and 65 actors, including the understudies.

          Okay. Now that we’ve got that technical stuff out of the way, I’ll tell you my thoughts.

First, they have lots of polite people stationed around to help you, from directing you to the correct theater door, to ushering you to your seat, or just to answer any questions you have. During the show, they had monitors in all the sections and occasionally one would come down the aisle and tell someone to put their cell phone away. As you can imagine, they allow no recording.

The sets were fabulous! They were huge and colorful! Great parts of the sets would rumble slowly back out of sight and another set would take its place. Sometimes the sets slowly cranked back, rotated, and came back out to reveal another set on the other side. Sometimes the set sank down below the stage. You could hear the gears and cogs turning and spinning and groaning, which set my imagination in motion. Instead of listening to what was happening on stage, I could see in my mind’s eye, people under the stage running around, getting ready to push one set out of the way and push another onto the lift, But honestly, there was a time or two where I couldn’t understand what was being said anyway.

Not all of the action took place in front of us, as I said a little bit ago, the stage itself wraps around us so some of the scenes were off to the sides.

          They had live animals and actors come down the aisles and onto the stage for an up-close experience. Sometimes they exited the stage by coming past us, too. One of our church gals was swished in the back of the head with a horse tail when she took her grandies to see the production a couple of weeks ago.

          Even the ceiling over our heads was included in the production. At first there were stars twinkling and gently moving in a night sky. When King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had a dream of a great gold statue, it came down from the ceiling somewhere behind me and floated through the air. Nebuchadnezzar sat up in bed, eyes wide and unbelieving.

In the feast scene, beautiful — and huge — chandeliers appeared over us as if we were in the banquet room with them.

I especially liked the scene where the actors were on a boat going down the waterways of ancient Babylon; the boat was moving around the stage, floating on a sea of mist, following the twists and turns of the river as the beautiful and brightly colored city moved past us. When we came to the hanging gardens you could even smell all the beautiful flowers. You could hear the roar of a waterfall in the background, if you listened for it. Birds flew across the screens and real birds flew over us.

          They allowed a 20-minute intermission. I don’t know how many restrooms they have but the one I was in had 45 toilets — I asked.

          Now there’s a second theater in Branson, Missouri. I hope my grandson Andrew gets to go there sometime. I also hope my church goes back again next year to see the production of Noah. Can you imagine all the animals in that‽

          “Peg, ask your AI friend how many live animals are in it,” you say.

          Okay, I will!

          “The production of Noah at Sight & Sound Theatres features over 100 live, animatronic, and puppet animals in the show. This includes a variety of animal pairs, from ducks to camels to parrots, and even a gigantic turtle entering the ark on stage, contributing to the grand spectacle and immersive experience of the biblical story.”

          After the two-hour show, and everyone visited the restroom or bought their trinkets, we gathered outside for a group photo.

          What a good-looking bunch, don'cha think?

          We had lunch at Cracker Barrel, just around the corner from the theater. We weren’t able to be seated together, nor were we seated at the same time. My table was almost done eating and the others, out of sight in another section, hadn’t even gotten their food. No one minded though. We passed the time chatting.

          We were seated at the first table inside the restaurant door and I had a clear view of the cashier station. “I’m going to go take care of my tab while there’s no one there,” I said.

          The gal cashing me out was Linda. It said so across the front of her apron. “Do you want a copy of the receipt, dear?” she asked.

          “No thank you,” I told her. Inspiration hit.  “And thank you for calling me dear!” And that started a conversation. It bothered me when Kyle blew up at me a few weeks ago. Since then, I’ve been surveying service people. “Has anyone ever gotten mad at you for calling them dear?”

          “Oh yeah,” Linda said, nodding her head. “Since I’ve been back, about a year now, it’s happened...” Her eyes went up and to the right as she thought about it. “Twice now. It really bothered me and for a while I wouldn’t say it anymore. Then I thought, why should I let them ruin my day and I don’t let it bother me anymore.”

          Linda and I talked a good while, me stepping out of the way if someone else needed to cash out. When my group was ready to leave, Linda said, “Come here,” and leaned across the counter like she wanted to tell me a secret. Much to my surprise, she hugged me and kissed my cheek!

          I absolutely glowed after that! Grinned from ear to ear! I don’t know what I said to inspire such a warm and friendly reaction from her, but she made my day! I am not often gifted with a kiss on the cheek even by my friends and I have to say, this is maybe the first time I’ve been given one by a stranger.

          I took more road pictures on the way home.

          Do you think this might be a duck blind? It was on the tip of one of the little islands in the Susquehanna. I saw several more on other little islands as well. 

          I have no idea why I took this picture. It’s got a bad window reflection in it. I was getting ready to hit the delete button when I spot a house waaaaay up on the mountain top. 

          I cropped it out for you. 

          Whirligigs on a rooftop.

          Old shingles, new shingles, and a few pieces of tin thrown in for good measure.

          “Does that cloud look like a bird?”

          “I’m going to watch the road,” Jody said.

          Elaine looked. “It does. Some of my favorite childhood memories are of laying in the grass, looking up in the sky, and making cloud pictures.”

          “I was always fascinated with this place,” Jody said and pointed to a plantation-style house. “It used to be a craft store but I never did go in. Now someone owns it.”

          And those "someones" were out planting a garden, the lady sitting in a chair. 

          “If I was going to garden, that’s how I’d have to do it, too,” Linda said.

          It was getting late.

          We watched the sun playing peek-a-boo with treetops as we wound our way down our back roads. 

        

I got home around 8 p.m. It was a long day but one I won’t soon forget. 

          I’m sure you know that my week was filled with more adventures than just the day-long excursion to Lancaster for the mesmerizing production of Daniel, but (and there’s always a but), we’re going to call this one done!

          Done!