Us Day

Penny and I had an “us” day on Good Friday.  A couple of months ago I bought tickets to the Cirque du Soleil show “Alegria”.  The show was in the Coliseum in Biloxi, MS.  I didn’t know when I booked it that it was on Good Friday.  It was a good opportunity to run off for another day together.

We first drove to Fairhope, AL to have lunch at another Triple D place called Guy’s Gumbo Shack . We took advantage of the special senior dispensation allowing us to eat meat on Friday so we could try the most popular dish there, the TLT (turkey,lettuce and tomato), which featured moist juicy smoked turkey.  We both had the gumbo,too.

We then headed to Biloxi.  Our audio book for this trip was a Dean Koontz non-fiction about  his first dog, Trixie, and how she changed his life.  The book, “A Big Little Life” coincidentally was featured on this past Sunday’s Sunday Morning program.  You can read all about it here:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/04/10/sunday/main20052542.shtml

It’s a great book and he had an amazing dog.

I was surprised at how little there was on the coast in Biloxi.  The place obviously has not and may not recover from Katrina for a long time. 

We got there with time to spare (that should be no surprise to you) with the intent of wandering around and taking pictures.  The only thing there besides a couple of casinos was the restored last home of Jefferson Davis.  That’s where we spent our time.  The home was severely damaged by the storm but has been restored beautifully.

The show, Alegria, was fantastic. It was not a show with the awesome scope of the Las Vegas shows but the quality of the talent was up to that par.  This show had synchronized trapeze, tumbling they call Fast Track, fire twirlers, clowns, the flying man on big bunji cords,  Russian Bars, a strongman, a contortionist, a man riding in a hoop and a group on the aerial high bar.  Every act was 1st class and I didn’t see even 1 mistake or bobble in all the performances.  It was worth the price and the drive.

Beyond the performances are the elaborate costumes and the live band—the features that create an air unique to the Cirque du Soliel.

here’s a picture of the contortionist I clipped from our video. Don’t try this at home.

I bought the whole set of Cirque shows on DVD a couple years ago and so we have the video of Alegria.  We didn’t watch it before we went but now it will serve as a nice reminder of the show.  I watched some of the video today and was surprised at what I had already forgotten from the show in just 24 hours.

We finished the Koontz book on the drive back and it made both of us cry.  It is not fun driving with tears and a runny nose and no tissues.