East Coast Shenanigans

As many of you know, Stephen and I recently toured with the Moody Chorale in their annual Spring Break, two-week, whirlwind tour. And I do mean whirlwind...perhaps more like a tornado. Allow me to enlighten you.

We left at 7 AM, Saturday morning, March 9, We boarded a bus for the six-hour drive into Lousiville Kentucky. We made the trek in a large charter bus and an accompanying van. We were all a little apprehensive since it was said we were driving into a 12-inch snowstorm, and it had already started snowing in Chicago.

We were relieved, however, when the snow quickly died off, and our drive to Louisville was fairly uneventful. But when we got there, we were seriously disappointed to be met with the ten inches of snow that had falled on the unsuspecting (and unprepared) city the night before. I had been looking forward to green grass, sunshine, and warmer temperatures.

It was around 20 degrees as we carefully stepped off the bus over a puddle of slush and headed into a beautiful catherdral for that evening's event. It was a concert in honor of the highly esteemed Dr. Hustad, former Moody chorale director, writer, conductor, performer extraordinaire. It was his 90th birthday, and we were there to sing some of the beautiful songs he had written.

All in all, the evening was a success, and we were off to a good start. It's a good thing we didn't know then what lay in store for us. Here is a brief itenerary of the next few days:

Saturday: 7 am, on the bus in the bus for 6 hours, concert at 7pm
Sunday: concert at 9:30am, on the bus 3 hours, 7pm concert in Nashville, TN
Monday: 5:45 am, on the bus for a 7:30 breakfast concert at the Opryland Hotel, back on the bus for 4 hours, 7PM concert in Virginia
Tuesday: on the bus at 8 am, 8 hours in the bus, 6:30 concert in WV
Wednesday: on the bus at 8 am, 8 hours in the bus, 7:00PM concert in Williamsburg

This was the beggining of our tour. Needless to say, we were all so exhausted by day 4, that when we arrived early to a church, Mr. Edmonds (esteemed conductor, shown here)

would order us all to lie down in the empty sanctuary in pews for power naps.

Other places of interest we hit included, but are not limited to the following: New York City, Washington D.C., Falls Church, Maryland, New Jersey, and Ohio.

Further stories are detailed in more posts:-)

At one church, the pastor walked in to the sanctuary, then promptly walked back out. A friend was in the hall, and he commented to him in bewilderment "they're all in there...asleep!"