Greetings from the great city of Columbus, Ohio! I have a little more energy today to write this thing, so I am going to hit it hard before I hit the hay,
For starters: The mostly doing fine and wonderful. We have one boy who has a slightly sick tummy, but he thinks he will be fine by morning. We have another boys who is unhappy because he found out he will be reimbursing his host home from last night for the personal belongings of his they now have to ship home. Other than that, the boys are making fans at every single place we stop along the way.
We are starting to gain quite a lot of friends on this tour - more than usual. Each choir has its own personality. There are things they are really good at and things they still need to work on. This year's choir can't clean-up quickly at the end of a concert to save their life, but they are very good with the manners and talking to adults. (We are still working at improving both of them.) Well, onto Sunday.
Today was our first "day-off" of the tour. With no concert, but many miles to travel, it wasn't really a "day-off", but it was more relaxing as far as the boys are concerned. We started-off this morning by meeting at the church and packing the bus as we usually do. Today we also had the chance to make our own lunches in the church kitchen. Our older boys packed the lunches while the rest of the boys loaded the bus and chatted with their host families. The families seemed to really enjoy the boys. It was a great stop with a great crowd. I am sure the boys will have many fond memories of this stay. By 8:05, we were on the road, headed for Mammoth Cave.
The boys were unusually chatty this morning too, probably in anticipation of the cave and the shopping trip afterwards. The drive was nothing overly special, but there were moments on the back country roads of Kentucky that I felt like playing a banjo on someone's porch. It was a little bit like you would think the back roads of Kentucky might look like.
Our bus driver, Rodney, is amazing. He is the machine that keeps us mainly on time and safe throughout the day. Now on his third tour with the LOLCB, he always makes sure the bus is ready to go when we need it and parked where we need it. I don't know what we would do without such a reliable person at the helm. If you get a second and want to write him a "thank you" note, I will be sure to pass it along. I think he would really appreciate it. You can send them to mail@lolcb.org.
We arrived at the cave right on time to take a quick bathroom break and board the buses for the short trip into the park to the entrance of the cave. For the basic tour we were on, the entrance is actually the same one they have had since they started giving tours almost 100 years ago. I shudder to think what the stairs and infrastructure must have been in there back then. Today, it is your typical OSHA-style maze of ladders, stairs and lighting that you would expect in a federally-run national park. It must've been a pretty crazy tour at the start of the century.
The boys had to go through an air-lock in the cave to keep too much fresh outside air from coming in and disturbing the cave to begin the tour. After that, it was down a little more than 1,000 steps to the bottom where they had the opportunity to see some fossils and other cool things. The temperature throughout the cave is 54 degrees year-round, so although we were doing a ton of walking, it was relatively comfortable. We didn't sing in any of the caverns like we thought we might be able to do. Surprisingly, in these caves the acoustics are not all that remarkable, unlike the salt mines in Poland or some of the other caves the boys have been at over the years.
Towards the end of the tour, the boys were brought to a spot and they turned all the lights out for a minute or so to show what total darkness and silence is. (If there was just a way to recreate this on the bus...) It was pretty good for some of these boys to be able to experience. After this stop, we headed a few more minutes to the "Frozen Niagara", a special spot in the park that has some incredible stalagmites, stalactites, and other interesting formations created over 1000's of years. The boys thoroughly enjoyed this part of the tour and will have many darkened pictures of it for you to see. Unfortunately, due to the lighting conditions down there, photography was difficult today. You sorta have to take my word for it that they had a good time because we can't exactly show you like we would want to. Kenny was able to take these photos, but I will check and see if any of mine turned-out tomorrow.
After exiting the cave, we split the boys into two groups. Half of them shopped while the other half had lunch. Since the gift stores are generally smaller, we have to get creative sometimes with getting them all through there in a reasonable amount of time. I did allow the boys to buy some pretty cool pocket knives, but I made them turn them back in when they got to the bus. Didn't need a repeat of the Bullwhip Incident of 2003! :-) Those few boys will be getting them when we get home...
On the rest of the trip to Hilliard (Columbus), we went through a few notable cities. The first was Louisville, where we stopped at the airport to pick-up Isaac and Adam Saxton, who were meeting up with us. (Isaac's brother got married this past weekend and Adam was mentoring some young speech competition participants.) While they were waiting for us to pick them up, they managed to get to a Kentucky Fried Chicken while in the state of Kentucky. They thought that was pretty cool.The days drive also brought us through Cincinnati, where our very own Twins happened to be playing today as well. We didn't stop, but we did feel a little smug as we drove through the town while they Twins were wrapping-up their victory today. Take that, Cincinnati!
When we arrived to the school tonight in Hilliard, the boys quickly unloaded the bus and were off to their host families for the night. We got in about 9:00 pm, so they didn't have a long time with them today, but we are here two nights. Tomorrow is a pretty neat workshop we are hosting for 18 young men at the school that are looking into starting their own boy' choir here. I think this is so awesome! I hope we can help them however they might need it.
We are now also an hour ahead of most of you folks, so I need to end this 23-hour day and hit the hay. The boys are going swimming in the morning at our hotel, cleaning the bus, and voting for the first round of Choirboy of the Year tomorrow. I hope we can get some pictures of those for you all to see.
If you like what you are seeing in this program, I encourage you to go to Givemn.org and financially support the tour we are currently taking these boys on. It's a once-in-a-lifetime chance for many of these great guys, and we cannot do it without the help of people like you. Every single dollar helps!
Until tomorrow,
P.J.
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