The boys should all be home from fireworks by now so we have
a second to get you up-to-date. Today
was fairly routine which is really not a word we have used too much this
tour. By routine I mean the schedule;
the people and the places never get familiar, which has been wonderful.
The boys arrived at Custer Road Methodist in Plano right on
time this morning. We were actually a
little ahead of schedule, so we took the opportunity to have the bus crew go
through and sweep the bus. Ben has
really stepped-up the past few days and done a great job in leadership
roles. I’m pretty proud of him. He and Chi are doing about as well as two
tour partners could do, especially with their jobs in the choir. Once the sweeping was done, we hit the
restrooms and were on the road five minutes early.
The reports from the host families were great – they really
enjoyed having the boys for two days.
You can sort of tell by this point in the tour who had the most
fun. Those boys tend to forget more
things and this morning was no exception.
Three hats were left behind…never a good start, but we managed. They knew they messed-up by this point in the
tour and we really don’t need to say much in terms of corrective actions. It’s all about learning from this so it doesn’t
happen again. This is why we bring extra
hats.
Our attention to detail was lacking a little this morning so
we had a little “market correction”, if you will, during our bus ride this
morning. More or less it was a
conversation with the boys about the fact that tour is not over yet, despite
the fact that we are going to be 1/3 of the way there by the end of the
day. They get that there is still work
to do, but they are excited to get home as well. We all are.
Every year we liken it to horses knowing they are headed back to the
barn after a trail ride. Sometimes you
need to pull back on the reigns so you don’t smash into the barn. Whoa, little Choirboys.
The ride was pretty quiet this morning. Jacob G. had all the boys finishing-up their
journals before they could play their games.
To help him see who had their journals done, he rewarded the boys that
finished with a cowboy hat. The Choir
had some left-over from years ago that we didn’t really care to store during
the moving process so we plan to give them to the boys as an added souvenir. They seemed to like them, so that works for
us. Our first rest stop of the morning
was just on the Texas side of the border.
Our last stop in Texas. The boys
in the photo were the ones done with their journals by that stop, so we
rewarded them by putting them on Facebook.
(By lunch, I am fairly certain everyone was caught-up on their
journals).
Lunch was at a pretty cool park located on no map. I actually learned about it from a local
employee of a Wal-Mart somewhere in some town in southern Oklahoma. I’m not typically into stereotypes, but if
you’ve ever heard backwoods southern talk – this guy had it. I couldn’t really understand where he said
the park was, but I can read arm gestures from my trips to Europe when you
couldn’t understand anyone for four weeks at a time. It was “thataway, ya’ll”. So we went.
There was no park. So we went
further. There was a park. We ate lunch.
The boys didn’t have a whole lot of time to eat today. I kind of had to rush them since we had a lot
of ground to cover and the estimated time on the GPS kept getting later and
later. We love being in Bella Vista, Arkansas. It’s getting their in a bus that is the
difficult part. It’s not really on any
interstates, which means lots of stops signs and other traffic considerations. It also means no rest stops, which makes
things more difficult. You can’t just
bring 28 boys to a gas station like you’d want to. (Believe it or not, we kind of have a formula for estimating
how much time it’s going to take to get through a bathroom. Sometimes, it is actually faster to leave
where you are and go to another location, then come back. If you are going on a trip with a bunch of
boys, I can share some tips later. If
you are going on a trip with a bunch of girls, you are on your own. My #prefecthacks won’t help you.) We managed today, thanks to a couple of
well-timed truck stops and a park for lunch that had a quite “rustic”, but serviceable
facility.
Anyways – how did I get stuck on that??? After lunch the boys took a great nap. About an hour and a half of snoring and
drool. Those are the good ones. As soon as the boys got up, we stopped at a
Pilot Travel Plaza (those are the good ones, along with Flying J’s) and got
right back on the bus. We were well
behind schedule by this point. The boys
requested more episodes of “How the States got Their Shapes” so of course I was
happy to play an educational program for them.
We actually were able to get almost three more episodes in this
afternoon!
As we neared Bella Vista, we drove through Bentonville – the
home of Walmart. I know not everyone is
a fan of them, but I am amazed by what they can accomplish and have had the joy
of doing some reports on them back in business school. It doesn’t get much better than their
supply-chain practices. Tomorrow we will
be back in the area, benefiting from the numerous civic projects they have
contributed to around here. Should be
fun.
We made it to St. Bernard’s Church around 5:31pm – 59 minutes
before our concert time. The boys were
well-prepared, as we spoke at length about the different things we needed to
accomplish in that amount of time. The
moment the bus stopped, we had boys going every direction accomplishing their
duties in a very organized and efficient manner. #proudprefect.
We also officially picked-up Mary Jo here tonight. Her brother Bill and his wife Joann are the contacts here in Bella Vista and have hosted the boys on several occasions before. It was great to have a familiar voice around helping us out. It will be fun to have her with us for the next 3 days.
The host families for the next two days were prepared to eat
dinner with the boys, so we introduced the boys and they had about 20 minutes
to eat and converse with their families.
Then it was off to get changed quickly before warming-up in the
hallway. By 6:31, the boys were walking
in two straight lines onto a stage in a sanctuary most of them had never seen
before. They handled it like pros. While it wasn’t an ideal situation, it was
the only time on the tour they had to “make do” and they did great. The first half of the concert took a little
longer to get used to the space than we would’ve wanted, but the audience was
very appreciative and enjoyed the boys very much. At intermission, the boys knew they needed to
turn it up a notch and did a great job of resting and preparing for the second
half. They certainly stepped it up when
they came back on and ended on a very strong note. The “Salute to the Armed
Forces” was fun to watch with many Veterans standing to be recognized in the
crowd. The audience gave a standing
ovation at the end of the concert and proceeded to stand throughout “thank you
very much”. They simply adored the
boys. 
After the concert we enjoyed some cake before the boys
headed to the local fireworks with their host families. Apparently, that is the thing to do
here. We are pretty sure every set of
boys was headed to see the fireworks tonight, so we will have a full report on
those in the morning.
So that’s, that!
Another healthy, fun and energetic day for the Land of Lakes
Choirboys. Start working on your
signs! (Take a tip from the experienced
families: make one sign, then store it in the garage until next year. Make a game out of it and your boy will think
it’s pretty funny.) We will be home before
you know it. Before you do though, take
a moment and visit this site. We could
use the help.
-P.J.
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