Aloha! It’s back to
the old blog routine after two extraordinary unbelievably awesome days. I’m going to do my best to get you caught
back up to speed.
Yesterday morning feels like a week ago. We woke-up in Frostburg, Maryland and loaded
the bus for our next stop: New York
City. The families in Maryland adored
the boys and made us promise that it won’t be another five years before we
return again. I don’t know if we can
keep that promise, but time will tell.
Once on the road, the rest of the morning was pretty
easy. We hit a few rest stops along the
way in Pennsylvania and ate some delicious lunches provided by the church in
Frostburg. I don’t know how they are as
a church, but when it comes to food – they know their stuff! The bread that was used to make the cubs they
provided us was great. (I should
clarify. Everything in the sub was
great, but the bread stood-out.)
We used our usual after-lunch rest period to get the boys as
ready as possible for the long night ahead.
Of course, during what was a great nap, a Lamborghini flew by us with
its incredible sound. Some of the motor
heads in the choir, like Alexander Loahr immediately popped-up to see what it was. It was hard to get upset with them, as the
site of that candy-apple red car blazing by us was awesome! The majority of the boys never even
blinked. That could be because of our
loosening of the rest period restrictions some.
In the past, it was a rare treat for the boys to be able to listen to
music during rest period. We’ve been
trying it all but one day this year and it seems to be working just fine. It’s not as much for sleeping as it is just a
time for peace and quiet. Mission
Accomplished.
Around 2:45 we arrived in Pompton Plains, NJ and settled
into our Best Western Plus. It’s quite
nice here, including a pool and some wonderful conference areas and breakfast
rooms. We called Papa John’s in Pompton
Plains and ordered 15 Large Pizzas to meet us at the hotel. We needed to eat our supper a little early in
order to make it to the show in town on time.
Dinner went well and once we were all settled, we loaded the bus and
made our way into Newark, NJ to meet our train.
The only real snag in the whole plan was this nasty cold bug
that Rodney picked-up along the way. He
really needed a good afternoon to rest and recover. This was that afternoon, so I hopped in the
driver’s seat and battled the traffic to get down there. I wasn’t real sure if we were going to find a
spot to park the bus or if I would need to stay with it until the boys came
back from Superman. We dropped the boys
off at Penn Station (Newark) and I threw the flashers on to find somewhere to
park. To my surprise, the very spot we
happened to park at was one of the only spots in the area you actually could
park! (Aaron spent well over an hour
calling everyone in Newark to try and find where we could park the bus.) This meant I could run and catch-up to the
group and go along to the show.
Lucky for me, (not so much the boys), the train we needed to
be on was having mechanical issues and limped into the station. This allowed me time to catch-up to the rest
of the group. We boarded the train, but
within a minute or so, they announced that the train was not working and we needed
to go to a different train.
Some of the most high-risk times for us to get separated from
boys are loading and unloading trains/subways.
It’s fast. It’s noisy. There are multiple doors, and there is a lot
of “less than model citizens” in these situations. We go
over the moves we want to take (as far as staff placement) everything, but
there is always some variable we couldn’t control that makes us adjust on the
fly. This week, I am happy to report that everything went perfectly. The boys did very well.
Once we were on the back-up train, we had to wait about 45
minutes, parked on the tracks. Aaron had
the boys leaving much earlier than we needed to so we had this cushion. It was a good move, because we used all of
it. The train was parked in such a
location that we had a good view of the skyline and the newly constructed “Freedom
Tower”, or “One World Trade Center”. It’s
impossible not to feel a little something in your soul as you watch that
building rise above the rest of the urban landscape.
The boys were very full of questions during this journey
into the city as well. Some of the boys
were put on “Question Quotas” for the day to help and limit the amount of
insanity the staff had to go through. It
was only moderately successful for those couple boys.
The train eventually began moving and brought us into New
York. Penn Station (New York) is
directly below Madison Square Garden, which is pretty neat. We walked the 6 blocks or so to the Foxwood
Theater for the 7:30 showing of “Spiderman”.
Despite all the mechanical setbacks we had, we were only 10 minutes late
or so – just the first number. By the
second song, we were in our seats as Peter Parker set-up the story.
The technical aspects of this show were breathtaking. Spiderman flies right above the audience at a
pretty intense speed. The end of the show
has an incredible final fight scene in mid-air, right over the audience. Spiderman even comes down on the audience
floor a few times. Pretty sweet! The boys really enjoyed it!
After the show, we had a little time to kill (if we wanted),
so we brought the boys a couple blocks over to Time Square in the dark. What an amazing place to be! We showed them where the ball drops, where “Good
Morning America” and MTV are located, and of course we took about a million
pictures. The boys were in awe of all
the lights and action taking place. On
the way back to the train station, we stopped at Madison Square Garden for a
few pictures. (It is also right across
the street from the Hotel Pennsylvania, where the LOLCB stayed in 1997 when we
sang at Carnegie Hall. Ironically,
Friday is the 15 year Anniversary of the concert!)
In the train station, a worker saw our group and snuck us
onto the train about 10 minutes before anyone else could get on. He also locked our train car so nobody else could
get on. The Conductor also came down and
met the boys. She hooked us up as well
by making sure to open our door a little before the other doors so we could get
out and on the way before anyone else. Just about everyone we have interacted with
down here has been exceptionally nice to us.
These boys have a way of warming hearts and bringing people together. Quite a few total strangers had long
conversations with our boys on the trains/subways as well. (Don’t worry – the people didn’t give-off the
creepy vibe.)
The boys were very tired by the time they made it back to the
hotel. We put them to bed right away, especially
since we had to be back up and moving in 6.5 hours. Ick.
I also must thank all the people that have contributed
through the GiveMN.org website during this tour to help support the boy’s trip
and this program. You are all wonderful
people and your support it greatly appreciated!
We will you in on our second day in New York tomorrow. Be sure to check it out!
Until later,
P.J.
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