The Salmon High School Show Choir and Savage Band had the amazing opportunity to go on a music tour to Seattle Washington at the end of April. I volunteered to help chaperone the trip because there were some junior high students in the high school band, including Ammon. There were 44 students in all and 8 chaperones that went. We were gone over 4 days--2 of which were spent just travelling back and forth! The first day was Thursday, April 24. We met at 8am at the high school to have our bags checked (by a police officer and the drug dog) and then packed onto the charter travel bus (which unbeknownst to us at the time was a terribly old, crappy bus!).
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We FINALLY were loaded up and on our way about 8:45!!!
I sat in the very front right seat with Darcy. I'm so, SO glad!!! It wasn't a pleasant drive--it lasted about 15 hours and we drove through a LOT of rain, and the front windshield kept fogging up, and the windows wouldn't open, and the front fan broke, so the bus driver had to keep wiping the windshield as she drove in order to see, and it was making me panicky and crazy. I hated not seeing out the windows, and it was disturbing to watch her wipe her windows as she was driving. The kids behind us could see movie screens as a distraction, but our screen didn't work the first day (and we couldn't hear it anyway). Darcy was awesome company, and we shared lots of stories and laughs. I sure love this lady!
We stopped for lunch in Missoula, and Darcy and her kids & friends, and John and Dustin and I all went to Fuddrucker's to eat. It felt so good to get off the bus and have some super yummy food to eat! We had to stop again for over a half hour at a weigh station after getting on the freeway in Montana. John took that opportunity to videotape some of the kids on the bus singing a song.
While the bus driver was gone inside the office at the weigh station, I started snooping around and found some anti-fog spray in a glove compartment. Darcy helped me wipe the stuff all over the windshield which thankfully helped the situation. After that we could see better, and the bus driver didn't have to wipe it down near as much as she was driving. Look--only half of it is covered in fog now! But it was enough to give us vision again.
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| "IHere" said the license plate in front of us |
We stopped again for dinner about 40 minutes east of Seattle. This time, Ammon chose to eat at the same restaurant as me (so I could pay for him--not because he wanted to spend time with me!). I had the cashier put his name on the ticket, and when we saw the receipt, we got a good laugh out of how she spelled his name:
By the time we got to Seattle that night, it was dark and past 10:00 (11:00 our time, because they're an hour earlier). We had really nice hotel rooms, and Darcy and I were so glad to be on solid ground again! We were hotel roomies, too. And we both loved our nice comfortable beds! We watched Jimmy Fallon each night together, then fell into deep beauty sleep!
We had an early start the next morning for a fun-filled day of touring the city. Everybody was really excited! We ate the hotel breakfast, then loaded back onto the bus. Ammon sat towards the back end of the bus, so I hardly ever saw him during driving time!
John did a lot of videotaping of the group (I will post a link towards the end of this blog series with the neat music video he created with the footage). Here's another shot of him walking towards the front with his video camera in hand. I love the faces of Simon (the hilarious boy who sat right behind me) and Emily (who always knew when people were taking pictures because she always had the most random funny faces in the background).
The bus was all abuzz when we could all see the skyline of Seattle for the first time that morning!
Our bus driver always relied on her Garmin to tell her how to get to places. Our first stop of the day was to this place--the famous Seattle Space Needle.
Well, her Garmin told her to drive to the front entrance--which is NOT for buses!!! She was in the left lane to turn in to the valet parking, but she stopped completely over the pedestrian walkway, blocking the crosswalk. As we waited for the light to turn green, an old man walked across it, and he had to walk around the front end of our bus, and he flipped off the whole bus the entire way! And that was our first experience in Seattle!
But the second experience was even worse...after she turned left into the valet parking area, a loud speaker started bleeping a warning bell. The guy who was standing in front of the office kept motioning his hands for us to back up. But the bus driver kept pulling forward, to see if she could just drop us off and then make a U-turn and leave. But the guy would have none of that; he started coming towards us, adamantly motioning for us to STOP!--because we were driving under a stop light, and our bus was TOO tall, and it was going to get stuck or break the stop light. So our driver stopped, but then she couldn't see to back up. So John and I both get out to direct her from the sides, and she proceeds to back up straight out of the valet parking into a 3-way intersection. The traffic was stopped for two light changes and everybody was honking their horns at us. It was SO embarrassing! Finally, after she backed up far enough, John and I got back on the bus, and she drove to the area around the other side of the block that was for bus parking. We were so happy to be off that bus again! And we had only been on it for about 45 minutes that morning, not 15 hours like the day before!
John handed everybody their tickets for the Space Needle, and they all started to make their way into the building to ride the elevator up to the top.
Right before we got on the elevator, there's a green wall and a guy that takes group photos. Dakota, the student in the yellow shirt, had opened the door for everyone as they'd entered the building, so he was lagging behind the group with the remainder of the chaperones. As we approached the photo op spot, I tried to tell the photographer that it would look weird if we were all together, but he said "this isn't a commitment or anything. Everybody get in!". So...this photo is of 7 of the 8 chaperones, and 1 student! I didn't like the actual Space Needle foreground choices, so I opted for this ferry one with the needle in the background instead. Doesn't it look like we've got this student surrounded?!!
We really lucked out with the weather. Seattle is known for being overcast and rainy. But we were blessed with beautiful weather and blue skies the most of the time we were there. The clear skies really made the views even that much better from the top of the Needle!
John directed the choir in singing at the top of the Space Needle, too, which of course he videotaped!
The sights were amazing!
This is to the North-West:
To the West:
To the South-West:
To the South:
And to the East:
Next stop: the neighboring Chihuly Glass Gardens.
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