Abandoned Forum

[Astarte]

The title says it all!

[Cherokee_girl]

It was so much fun!! We did so much it may take a while to tell.

We (all 33 band members, 4 chaperones, Mr. P, and his wife, so 39 people total) loaded on a school bus at 4 pm Tuesday afternoon and, after saying goodbye to parents and friends 15 times each, headed to Boise, Idaho, a three-and-a-half hour trip.

We arrived at our hotel for the night and found we almost had to sleep on the bus. The computer that our reservations were on lost the reservations so it took another half hour to find them. But when we did get to sleep all was fine and dandy.

4 o'clock the next morning, Wednsday, Boise time, we got up, ate breakfast and loaded the bus once again. We were at Boise Airport by 6 though our flight didn't leave until 8. It only took half an hour to get through security, so we had enough time to call home, take pictures, etc. For a lot of us it was our first time flying, so it was an amazing experience. We flew out just after 8 and headed to Minneapollis(sp?). It was kind of boring but otherwise amazing. We switched planes in Minneapollis and continued on to Philadelphia.

Our tour guide met us at the Philadelphia Airport. She was-how do I put it-a bit peppy, to say the least. She had a umbrella named Daphnie and knew a lot about Philly though she did not live there; she acctually lived across the river in New Jersey. We did a short driving tour before we went to dinner at the Philadelphia Hard Rock Cafe. We returned to our hotel and unloaded into our rooms. We had a brief meeting in Mr. P's room then retired to bed--or we were supposed to. My roomates, who included Pimienta and two other girls, stayed up and had a long laugh and talk about our trip; so maybe it wasn't that long.

Thursday morning we got up at 6 am Eastern time. We were a little tired, but ate breakfast, and packed our instruments and uniforms onto the bus. We did a lot of touring in the morning. We saw the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, the second bank of the US, and the Betsy Ross House. We performed on the Independence Hall Mall. We didn't have very many people to hear us and we were a bit rough on the edges, but it was fun. We had dinner at Dinardo's Famous Seafood then walked around a bit more. That night was so much fun! We got back to our hotel and found out we were going to go to a Phillies game; the Phillies are the Philadelphia MLB team. They played the Washington D.C. Nationals; most of the band routed for the Phillies while trumpet_prodigy and I cheered on the Nationals. The Nationals won! :laugh: It was so much fun.

Friday we traveled to DC. We stopped in Maryland and called home to the radio station. Everyone heard about our trip and how we were doing so far. When we arrived in DC we went to Union Station; it was huge! Pimienta and I got turned around so many times it wasn't funny. We net our new tour guide there though some of us were a bit late meeting him. We did another driving tour and saw all the places we would go in the next day and a half, and stopped somewhere that met so much to a lot of us. We stopped at the mall; yeah it sound like a place to go shopping, but it wasn't, it was where all the memorials were. We saw the WWII, Korean, Iwo Jima, Women in the War, and Licoln Memorials, but the one, I think, that impacted us the most, was the Vietnam memorial. It's ment to represent a scar in the earth, one that will never heal, just like the one in the hearts of thousands. You step on the walk before it and you can feel the reverence of it, the importance it has to so many. It was an awe inspiring experience.

After loading back onto the bus after the memorials, we continued down to Alexandria, VA and the Old Country Buffet to eat dinner. We stuffed our selves so full it was funny to see us run to the bus in the rain. The rain cut our sight seeing short for the day and we went to our hotel for the night. It was so comfortable, we all slept soundly that night.


I think I leave you all tere for tonight.

[Astarte]

Wow! Sounds like you had a great time, I can't wait to read the next installment!

I've always wanted to go to the north-east sector of the US. I think that would be so interesting.

I used to think that I would end up living in New York, but I don't think that will ever happen.

[Cherokee_girl]

Been putting this off for a while, though I don't know why.

Where was I, oh yes! We had gone to our hotel; it wasn't the one we were supposed to have but it was really comfy. The one we were going to have was in Alexandria and didn't have a pool, but the one we stayed at was in DC and had a pool (the pool alone made us all happy). We didn't go to sleep as fast as one might think; we just had to go swimming after our nightly meeting and before going to bed, wear out some of the energy from dinner. We were sent to bed at 10:30 but most probably didn't go to sleep 'till around midnight.

Okay, day four, Saturday; this was our last full day on the East coast and it was raining. And I don't mean just raining, it was pouring! We ate breakfast at the hotel, then hopped on the bus to George Mason University and our clinic with Dr. Tony Maiello. He was so much fun to play with. Mr. P was scared our clinic director was going to take over and do things, but Dr. Maiello let Mr. P conduct and stood to the side, stepping in when he had any comments. We didn't know whast he would do; on minute he would be all serious and listening carefully, the next he'd be laughing and saying "ra-cha-cha" to the percussionist, and then he was all serious again. We wished we could have stayed longer, but we only had an hour and what a difference it made in our sound. After we were done there we headed out to a quick lunch and on to the Lincoln Memorial. Just before we preformed, however, we had our picture taken in front of the Capital building. The rain held off long enough for that. Now, we had gone to the Lincoln Memorial the day before and walked up and around the statue, but didn't realize where exactly we were playing. When you look at a picture of the Lincoln Memorial, you don't usually see beyond that first set of steps, but there is a large landing right before the reflecting pool, that is where we played. We set up facing the Washington Monument, the Lincolen Memorial to our back. We set up, not knowing if the rain would hold off our not. The skies were still overcast and threatening when we began but the rain held off. We played all our songs and couldn't have asked for a better preformance. During one of our songs, called Regenisis and about the eruption and aftermath of St. Helens, the skies darkened before the explosion, and plane flew over during the warning, and evrything was silent in the void. Then came the part that showed everything renewing, the skies lightened, birds sang, and people laughed down the way. It was so perfect.


I'll leave you there, school calls unfortunatly.

[Astarte]

It sounds lovely!

[Cherokee_girl]

Yeah, perfect, right up until we got everything took down and loaded on the bus except us. We were loading on the bus and it started raining again! Needless to say we all loaded as fast as possible. It was cool we even got to play though; there were four bands scheduled to play there that day and we're the only one's that didn't get rained out.

What else did we do that night?? After we changed, we went to one of the places I don't think anyone will forget. Our end of the day tour was around Arlington National Cemetary. in the rain. We all wore ponchos are marched up the long walk to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It was so reverent just standing there, it must of felt amazing for my four friends who participated in the laying of the wreath ceremony. Admittidly, they got soaked, but they felt repayed for it; participate in a special ceremony or get soaked, ceremony wins in this case. We took plenty of pictures and stopped to see the Eternal Flame of John Kennedy on the way back to the bus. That was pretty neat. But when we were almost to the bus, the skys opened, seriously. It had been raining before, but not like this!! We went from slightly wet to totally soaked in no time at all. We endured it though and felt it was worth it. That night we ate spagettii at Bucca Di Beppos and headed back to the hotel.

The last day. Final day of our trip, but by no means the slowest. As soon as breakfast was over, we loaded on th ebus and headed for Mt. Vernon, Virginia, home of George and Martha Washington. The grounds were hugh! There were so many buildings and plants and little things you would never think of at a mansion. It was pretty neat to walk around and see things like they were in the late 1700's. But even after our self-tours there, we weren't done yet. We headed to the Smithsonian Museums for the end of our tour and trip. We were set loose at individual buildings and told to be somewhere at a certian time. Mr. P said he never would have trusted another group to do that ever, but he trusted us enough to stay out of trouble and be back on time, and we were. The museums were cool! I saw three art museums (only because Pimienta got us lost), the Museum of Air and Space, and the Hope Diamond at the Natural History Museum. There was a lot of cool stuff to look at, including the Wright Brother's first plane, a walk through America's wars, and a lot of neat artwork. I would so so it again, just because they always change things so you'll never see it all. But that was one wish that wil sit in my brain for awhile. We met up and loaded back on the bus, headed for Regan International Airport.

Though reluctant to leave, but eager to get home, we said goodbye to our tour-guide and bus driver. We really appriciated them being with us, especially our bus driver, and let them know it. Unfortunatly we had to go home. We unloaded tons of luggage and checked over half of it in then had to got through security. Though it took less time than expected, it took longer than Boise. We waited, ate dinner, and waited some more. We boarded our plane and 8 something DC time and headed home.

Two long flights later, we were back in Boise and loading the school bus; such uncomfortable words, school bus. After riding on a coach for a week, a school bus was the last thing we wanted to ride. But ride we did, the whole cold, uncomfortable, annoying ride home. We arrived back here around 3 in the morning and agreed that school was not on the agenda for that day. Sleep was what we needed and plenty of it. So that's what we did, we went home and slept. When school came around, there was a grand total of three kids in band; everyone else was home sleeping off the trip. When everyone was there though, we talked about what could have gone better; most of it was petty things like not getting locked out of the room, reastraunts closer than Alexandria, etc. except one. We all agreed that the one thing we really needed next time we did a trip like this was more time. We thought that with more time we would have seen a lot more. That trip was so much fun anyway, I don't think any of us will ever forget it.

So, there's a somewhat detailed rundown of our trip. Other details and things you just had to be there to experience; you can't put them down in words.

[Pimienta]

I did not get us lost

how was I supposed to know that the three museums connected under ground
it wasn't like it was posted on the door

[Cherokee_girl]

It could have and we just didn't look hard enough.

[Pimienta]

well then the sign should have been bigger don't you think then we wouldn't have had to spend an extra 5 min finding ourselves

[nil]

All your experience make me very jealous. Now I'm going to find a time machine to travel back to my high school years, and learn to play some instrument, so I can be invited to DC sometimes (but unfortunately for me, learning to play instrument is harder than finding a time machine)....

[hamster]

All your experience make me very jealous. Now I'm going to find a time machine to travel back to my high school years, and learn to play some instrument, so I can be invited to DC sometimes (but unfortunately for me, learning to play instrument is harder than finding a time machine)....

You could play the kazoo ...

[Cherokee_girl]

you could blow on the whistle like whistle-dude did last year in San Jose.

[hamster]

you could blow on the whistle like whistle-dude did last year in San Jose.

Or blow your nose.

[nil]

Ok, I'm good at blowing nose. Is the band still recruiting?

[Cherokee_girl]

School year just got over yesterday, but we're recruiting for next year. For Chamber Ochestra too.