04.14.06
Jambalaya with the Chauatauqua
I’m on the road, finally!
After sitting in front of a computer all winter, I’ve packed up my Holgas, Nikons, and whatever else I could fit in my little van and have hit the road. I’m heading east and south, with the goal being Bay St Louis, Mississippi. There, I’ll be hooking up with the New Old Time Chautauqua, a group of performers & musicians with vaudevillian roots, to tour around the Gulf Coast. There will be around 50 of us there, including the Flying Karamazov Brothers, spending a week teaching workshops, doing parades, performing, and pitching in to the relief effort around Mississippi and New Orleans. We’ll be in the hardest hit areas, which, according to my friend Jer, who was down there recently, are “still broken”. And all the activities will be free!
I will be the official tour photographer, which is an incredible opportunity! I’ve been wanting to go along “on Chautauqua” for a few years now to one of their normal tours in rural areas of the Northwest. But this gives me the chance to capture the Chautauqua in action and interacting with this unique group of communities, the area, and get an awesome road trip in to boot!
I’ll try to post some during the tour, but we will have an offical blogger, Barbara Stahr from YES! Magazine, and I’ll try to get images up with her posts.
And, I’d love to try to drum up some support for the tour. As I said, it’ll all be free for the communities down there, and all the money we get will go to running the tour (most folks are paying their own way down), plus, anything over that we raise will go directly to the groups we’ll be working with, such as Common Ground and Emergency Communities. For more info about the tour, see the Chautauqua site (including the schedule of performances), and see our fundraising letter for more details about what we’re up to and how to donate.
The tour is April 18-23rd. I’m currently in Utah, getting my car worked on, enjoying the scenery, doing some work on the book, and getting in some of the best roller blading ever, and, hopefully, I still should get there on time. Stay tuned for more updates!
~Michelle