We drove straight from North Carolina to a town in southwestern Virginia called Abingdon, got a tiny motel room and got to work as usual. Morgan's good friend from years ago, Tom Grennell, lives nearby and came over to help us with equipment. The next morning we interviewed him in our tiny little motel room. Afterwards, he showed us around Abingdon and took us to a place called The Magic Mushroom for pizza. While there, we attempted to contact as many pro LGBT businesses as possible and found Night Owl Circus Arts. We called to ask about an interview and they invited us to a class, which we of course had to say yes to. So we wound up driving back into Tennessee to find a gymnastics building near the border of Virginia and jumping right into a pro LGBT circus class.
The class turned out to be silks, which Morgan was slightly familiar with and Lexie was brand new to. It was really fun to learn the basics and get some cool footage. We then got to follow it up with an interview with the founder of Night Owl Circus Arts, Craig Lewis. He doesn't personally identify with the LGBT community, but ran a GSA for several years in college and now considers his circus school to be an open and welcoming place. In Tennessee and Virginia that's not always so easy to find, so it was really nice to talk to him and hear why he, as an ally, thought it was so important to support the community.
We're now resting in the home of Madeleine Wagner, a good friend from high school. We're still in Virginia and about an hour outside of D.C. so the next couple days will be the most political of any on this trip. We're very excited to see who we can talk to in D.C. and to see the capitol in general.
We're also very grateful, as usual, to the Wagner family for feeding us and letting us use their washing machine.