Choir Trip

This weekend, the Lincoln High School Concert Choir and the special Swingsations, or "Jazz" group went to the Twin Cities on tour. Yay me! I'm part of Concert Choir, and even with two more tour trips ahead, I think this will be one of the most memorable. Following is a chronological outline of our adventures.





5:00 a.m. Saturday morning: I tumble out of bed to silence the alarm. We were at the high school by six and rolling at 6:30.





11:30 a.m. Sat. We pull into the truck stop in Clearwater, an hour from the cities, and had a fabulously sophisticated lunch. I ordered a scrumptious appetizer, and left the table stuffed.





1:00 p.m. Saturday. Hello Mall of America! I am soooo ready for 4 1/2 hours of shopping and escalators! Roughly 4 hours later, "Choir Friend" Songster and I wandered back down to the buses, having acquired several scrapbooking supplies, a pair of cute jeans (mine), three books (hers), and an amazing journal (mine).





6:30 p.m. Sat. We finally find our hotel room. I kicked my now-smelly, quite-repulsive shoes from the poor exhausted feet and embraced the bed for a few delightful sleepless moments.





6:45 Room 605 of the La Bourget was a bevvy of activity; three smashingly gorgeous girls were in the throws of preparing for dinner. (Yes, I was one of them.)





8:00 p.m. We wend our way through the delightful Old Spagetti Factory to find our reserved room. We were promptly served drinks. The first course was salad. Fresh warm bread followed, but despite the filling proportions, they were appetizers. After an appropriate interval, I was served Chicken Marsala-chicken breast with gravy and mushrooms (which were left on the side of my plate an hour later) and spaghetti with freshly grated cheese and parsley flakes. I could hardly eat fast enough! (I managed to make it look delicate enough, I think.) All this hardly had time to settle before I was presented with a simply ginormous piece of Chocolate Mousse Cake. I was forced to leave half of the delectable dessert on my plate. *Sigh* I don't think I was even hungry the next morning.





9:00 p.m. I once again shed shoes with a vengeance and flopped on the bed for a brief moment. Then the girls and I were joined by another and we had a delightful fellowship together, reading a book, reading the Bible, praying, talking.





12:00 a.m. I made it to bed! Without fainting of weariness! And (horror of horrors) I forced myself to set the alarm for 5 a.m.



1:00 a.m. I fall asleep. My wonderful roommates had the chatter bug.



5:00 My friend's phone goes off. I had to get meself up and roust the other two, who slept through the alarm.



6:00 a.m. We are downstairs, dressed, and walking to Perkins for breakfast. In the dark! Relative dark, I guess. I don't think it ever gets dark in the cities.



7:00 a.m. We've finished breakfast, and we're waiting to load the buses.



9:00 a.m. The first service at First Covenant Church in Downtown Minneapolis is just starting. It's right next to the Metrodome, so when we walked in, I poked a little fun at the proud Viking banners on display.



9:10 We're singing some of our classical pieces for the church. The average age of the audiance right then was about 65, and I think we outnumbered them about 3 to 1.



10:00 The second service begins. In this service there is a sermon and we'll be performing our Gospel music. During the first song, everybody stood up and started clapping with us! I must confess I dozed just a little during the actual sermon.



11:15 The service ends and we're invited to enjoy a small lunch with the church. Tasted great! During this time, I realized I'd lost my favorite mittens, the ones from my Grandma.



11:45 a.m. We're back on the bus, bound for the La Bourget. We have to be out of our rooms by 12:30, but our next concert isn't until 3 so we're headed back to the mall for a few hours.

11:47 Mittens relocated!

1:00 Songster and I are rushing around, trying to find a cheaper pair of jeans for me so that I can take back the expensive pair I'd purchased and buy some books instead. I found a pair of Aero jeans for half of what my others had cost. Yay! And we headed down to Barnes & Noble. They had an amazing sale, buy two get one free, for a specific rack of books. I chose (drum roll please!) Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, and The Arabian Nights. All for only $17! I know that for my thrift-shopping friends (I'm usually one of you!) that's a bit expensive, but if you haven't realized already, this was my weekend to be extravagant.



3:00 The choir's re-assembled and ready to sing for Friendship Village, a retirement home/assisted living center for the few fortunate rich. There were about three times as many people there as us. We presented several songs, a few a Capella jazz pieces (by swingsations only) and a fantastic soloist.



5:00 p.m. We finally left Friendship Village, headed for the truck stop/diner in Clearwater, intended to be our last brief stop on the homeward journey.



6:00 p.m. I ordered and enjoyed the same appetizer I'd selected the last time, a chicken wrap filled with cheese and some delightful gravy or cheese sauce. *Sigh of delight*



10:00 p.m. We've been here for four hours. It started like this. One girl on the other buss got sick. Her friend and roommate freaked out and got sick also. They couldn't stop...so we isolated them in the bathroom. For and hour. Then more kids got sick. I think the grand total was five, or somewheres in there. We finally loaded the buses and took them to a hotel in St. Cloud.



11:00 p.m. We finally hit the open highway.



2:00 a.m. I've been drifting in and out of sleep for the last three hours. We finally make our way through Erskine.



3:30 p.m. Thief River Falls! Was I ever happier to see my small-town home? Or my Dad? I grabbed my bags and headed for the car.



What I took home with me:
Three Scrapbooking papers.
A velum quote sticker book.
Tons of memories.
Words--to share.
Jeans.
Full stomach.
Anticipation. For.
Books!
Need of sleep.
*Yawn*
Goodnight.