Aloha.
Everything is covered in sand. Everything.
Fun is sure messy and a lot of work.
Remember how I said yesterday was the best day so far? This might’ve topped it. Who knows anymore? Seems like every day we
have is the newest greatest day. Maybe they are all just that good?
Today was all about relaxing, taking a break from music and
touring, and being boys. We started by
letting them sleep in and apparently, they needed it. Stewart has been increasing his
responsibilities as the tour goes along (and doing quite well, I might add) and
said most of the boys were still sleeping when he went in at 8:00am. That generally doesn’t happen unless they
were pretty tired. We ate breakfast here
at the motel. The boys got a good kick
out of the waffle maker that produced Texas-shaped waffles. Can’t make that up.
Shortly afterwards, I had an idea to surprise the boys with
mail tonight…lots of it. I would need
the help of all of you though to make the goal of 100 letters/emails a reality
by the end of the day. (Wow! Did you all respond well! We got so many letters I wasn’t sure what to
do. We seriously got about ½ of a ream
of paper worth. The stack was
amazing. Thank you. 25 of the 28 boys received mail, including
Ben who isn’t even with us right now, as well as Rodney. He sure enjoyed that. It was easily the biggest day for mail I have
ever seen.)
We had a morning tour scheduled on the USS Lexington, a
WWII/Vietnam era aircraft carrier that saw a lot of action and is now docked in
Corpus Christi to serve as a museum.
The weather was already hot, so we knew it had potential to be a long
day. Luckily, about half of the inside of the ship was cooled with air
conditioning. This helped
tremendously. We split the boys into two
groups for the tour because of the tight spaces and meandering turns of a naval
vessel. The boys learned about so many
things on the ship that I don’t even know where to start. Jeremiah was once again the “Tour Guide’s Pet”,
always having the answers to the tough questions. The tour guide was quite impressed with him,
and the rest of the boys. He had served
on the USS Enterprise and now serves as a volunteer tour guide for groups like
ours. We made it to all the important
areas. The flight deck, the bridge, the
hospital, the engine room, and of course the gift shop. There was also a wonderful air conditioned
theater where we watched a movie on rescue operations, including some amazing
footage of the earthquake in Haiti. It
was all in 3D as well, so the boys got to wear the glasses and had an awesome
time.
As we were making our way to do our shopping with my group,
former Choirboy (’91-’96) Joe Hayen, his wife and beautiful daughter “Lila”
were coming towards us. Joe lives in
Corpus and saw that we were in town from the Facebook post I made earlier as I
checked-in. He knew we were in Texas but
since we weren’t singing in Corpus Christi, it wasn’t on the concert
schedule. Once he saw we were in town,
he loaded the family in the car and came down to say “hi”. The boys all had the chance to meet him, do a
count-off with him (he was #29 as a boy so it worked perfectly) and we sang “America
the Beautiful/God Bless America” on the stage for him and his family. A number of other visitors and volunteers
gathered while the boys were singing and a very nice applause took place
afterwards. I tried to pull a fast one
on Joe when we posed for a picture, but he was ready for the “#3 Smile” and
struck his pose on cue. After all these
years, it’s pretty remarkable how many little things like that are still the
same. We said our farewells to Joe and
headed back towards the gift store to begin our shopping. It was great to see him!
Once all the shopping was finished, it had gotten to be
quite late for lunch. (Virtually zero
complaining out of the boys though.) Aaron made arrangements at the Golden Corral right by our motel. This place was amazing. Probably one of the biggest buffets I have
ever seen with the largest selection.
The boys all started with a mandatory salad and beverage (because they
needed the fluids), then it was pretty much up to them what they had to eat
from there. Boys had everything from
liver to chicken to meatloaf. For
dessert, they had their choice of the doughnut bar, cotton candy machine, or
the chocolate fountain with marshmallows or strawberries. Most of them did the responsible thing and
tried all three.
After lunch we swung through the Target next door and
replenished our water supplies with another 12 cases and a cart full of
Gatorade. We also stocked-up on more
sunscreen and after-sun lotion. With the
weather still being quite warm, we elected to take late afternoon naps since
the tours in the morning wore us out pretty good. NOBODY objected.
Around 6:30, we woke them up and had them get ready for
swimming in the ocean. Aaron scouted-out
a great spot on South Padre Island about 15-20 minutes away from the
motel. With all the boys loaded up, we
took the short drive out there. After a
few precautionary words of wisdom, they were off into the Gulf of Mexico,
jumping into waves and having the times of their life. 27 boys, swimming off South Padre Island in
the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, with the sun setting on the horizon behind
them and not a single care in the world.
It was a little surreal, and in thirty years I hope they realize how
amazingly lucky they are. (They will,
trust me.)
The sand and salt were everywhere so we brought them up to
the showers on the shore and began the process of cleaning-up this mess. They did very well getting their stuff
together and in no time we were on the bus headed back to the motel. It’s all north from here on out.
We got the boys back to their rooms and straight into the
showers. The pizza arrived and we had
them each come down to get a couple of pieces.
Stewart had them all down by 10:20 or so.
Another great day is in the books. It’s very hard to journal when you are taking
so much time to have fun! We will do our
best in the morning. We are starting-up our annual fundraiser to help off-set the costs of touring. Last year was a great success and we are hoping for similar results this year as well. Please consider helping us reach our goal of $1 for every mile we travel. http://givemn.razoo.com/story/Fund-The-Drive-Trying-To-Raise-1-For-Every-Mile
-P.J.
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