Mikado: Or the Town of Titipu

This post is all about the show I am in called the Mikado. It is at the Sesser Opera House and the shows are on Thursday (5/27/10) through Saturday (5/30/10) at 7:00 and on Sunday (5/31/10) at 2:30. Grace, Rachel, David, Jonnie, my Dad, and I are in the operetta. An operetta is a short form of an opera. The show is all about a man named Nanki Poo. He was the son of the great Mikado (Japanese for emperor.) and was told that he was to marry a lady called Katisha. But he did not like Katisha and instead fell in love with a beautiful young lady called Yum-Yum. But Nanki-Poo soon found out that Yum-Yum was to be married to a cheap tailor named Ko-Ko. He left the town of Titipu. Soon he found out that Ko-Ko was to be put to death for flurting, so he hurried back to the town of Titipu to claim Yum-Yum's hand but disguised himself as a member of the Titipu town band. Then a lad named Pish-Tush told him that Ko-Ko was going to die but was reprieved at the last moment and was given the title of Lord High Exexccutioner. Meanwhile, the Mikado was disturbed at the lack of executions in Titipu and wanted an execution immediately. Ko-Ko found out that Nanki-Poo was so sad that he couldn't marry Yum-Yum that he was going to kill himself, Ko-Ko thought that Nanki-Poo could, instead, be executed so he (Ko-Ko) wouldn't be in trouble with the Mikado. Nanki-Poo agreed but said that he would allow himself to be executed only if he could marry Yum-Yum for a month, THEN be executed. Ko-Ko agreed to this and the next day Nanki-Poo was married. The next week a law came from the Mikado that if a married man should be executed, his wife will have to be buried alive. Then the trouble came. Things turned out though that the Mikado found out that Nanki-Poo was his son and took away the law that any one should be executed. Everything was happy in the Town of Titipu once again.

Dollywood Trip

Hi there! On 4/28/10 we went on a vacation to Dollywood. The whole vacation wasn't in Dollywood though. First we went to Bloomington, IL. There, we went to Hilton's Doubletree Inn to a conference room holding the DAR conference luncheon. After the lunch, I read my winning essay about the transcontinental railroad. i later was give a certificate and $100! Then we haeded out to paducah, KY. When we reached we went to Drury Inn Suites and stayed in room number 215. The next morning we headed out to Atlalnta, GA. When we passed through Tennesse we saw that we had juust missed a tornado. It took all day to go through Tennesse and by the time we reached our hotel (which was named Holiday Inn and Suites) it was already dark. Our room number was 316. We stayed a week in Atlanta and we did many things there. First we went to the CNN Atlanta Studios and the Coca Cola Company (This was one of my personal favorites). The next day we went to the Atlanta Zoo. The next day we went to the Fernbank Museum of Natural History (This had a IMAX theater which was a wonderful experience) and the Atlanta History Center. On the last day we went to the Atlanta Aquarium (largest aquarium in the world). On Saturday we went on our way to Pigeon Forge, TN. While going there we wanted to bypass the Smoky Mountains and go around it. Instead we accidentall we went right throgh them. What made it worse was that it was raining. When we finally reached our hotel called All Season Suites we were exausted. The next mornin we found out that it was God's plan that we went through the mountains for the roads around the mountain had been flooded by the rain! We had a wonderfull time in Dollywood. Here are my favorites. First is River Rampage which is a circular ride that is made on rapids. This ride made us very wet. Next was River Battle which is a slow ride that has guns on them. You use the guns to shoot other people who are no on the ride and at special targets that may shoot back. We got thoroughly soaked on this ride. Next was Adventure Mountain which was a new attraction for 2010. It was an elevated challenge coarse that lets you feel how it is to be a mountain climber. first they put a harness on you then attatch you to the ride. then you walk on ledges across single ropes and so forth. It was very tricky at points but we managed to get through it. My next favorite is Blazing Fury which is a dark indoor roller coaster which is like a story with moving maneqins inside only it's a roller coaster with three drops. In one it simulates you crashing into a train and when you get right in fornt of the train, you drop. My next favorite is Thunderhead. This is a wooden roller coaster that goes over and under itself thirty-two times and has twenty drops, but amazingly takes only two minutesto run through the whole thing! Well that was our trip to Dollywood! The following is a picture of Thunderhead.