Concert Choir Tour Day Eleven: Git on down dem der slides, ya'll!

Aloha!

Your boys are all pretty awesome.  I don’t know if you knew that or not!  ;-)  Today was a warm one, but you wouldn’t know it from talking to the boys.  They had a great time today and did very well.  We had a couple boys that got a little tired and cranky after several hours in the sun, but they were good by the time we got them cooled off and fed.  That generally helps. 

This morning started much later than any of the others so far on tour this year.  We met back at 10:00am which gave the boys plenty of time to sleep in.  We didn’t waste a lot of time and got on the road towards The Schlitterbahn.  On the way, we watched the first of what may be many episodes of “How the States Got Their Shapes”, a History channel series about the different states in the country and the history that led to their present-day shapes.  As boring as the synopsis may sound, they actually really enjoyed them and clambered for more on the way home.  With all the traveling we do, it only makes sense to have a series like this to share with the boys.

The Schlitterbahn was packed by the time we got there.  By packed, I mean wall-to-wall people seeking refuge from the 106 degree weather.  Once we found parking, we brought our lunches in and proceeded to eat right away.  No sense wasting perfectly good sliding time with food.  We were able to bring our own lunches and cases of water in, so that was a big financial relief.  After a thorough slathering of sunscreen we let the boys break-up into groups based on the level of rides they wanted to embark on.  This meant some of them went with a different tour partner for the day.  It’s a nice break for them to hang with a different person for a few hours as well.  The boys went from there to the rides and many got on several before our first regroup time at 2:30.

At 2:30, we gathered them all at our central location and did a check-up to make sure everything was going well, which it was.  The boys really wanted to get back to swimming so we didn’t waste much time in that heat.  We did take the opportunity to move to a better location on the other side of the park.  There is too much to do in one day.  We spent the day in the original Schlitterbahn park.  There are actually three of them on the grounds, but with the incredible heat they are experiencing (it’s even hot by their standards)  we elected to stay at the park that allowed us the least amount of times spent in lines.  This was a good move, in hindsight. Once we were settled back on the other side of the park, we reapplied the sunscreen on all of them and released them back out into the wild.

At 4:30 they made their way to our meeting spot and we began the process of getting them all through the showers, changed, and through the surprisingly inexpensive gift store.  By 5:10 we were on the road and headed back to the church.  We put another episode of “How the States Got Their Shapes” in.  Some of the boys fell asleep on the way back.  They played pretty hard today.  Early results show the sunscreen worked very well.  Only a few spots on the cheeks where they didn’t get it enough.  Much better than this past week at the pool party.

Back at the church they had a great spaghetti dinner all prepared and waiting for us with “enough to feed an Army”.  They boys challenged that claim and put a fairly sizeable dent in the food supply.  They didn’t reach the end though.  After lots of milk, lemonade and water to go with it, they rendezvoused with their host families and were on the way home by 7:00pm.  A much deserved early night for all of us.

Tomorrow is a busy day with three performances.  We will need to be on our toes.  The temps appear to be dropping some overnight and some relief is insight for the old thermometer.

 

Until then,

-P.J.