It's been fun having friends and relatives from afar joining us on tour in some cities - and Bend was one of those! Aunt Monica and Uncle Tim and Wall cousins were there in full force Monday night for the concert, and Margaret's daughter-in-law's best friend and her family who live in Bend were there as well! Great to have our own groupies as we hit the road!

It was a pleasure this morning to sleep in a bit later as we did not figure we had to leave Bend until 9 a.m. giving our kids a little more time with their new best friends from Or-e-gun. Mixing up our hosts between other children's choirs and church families is a great opportunity for all of our young people to interact with our wonderful audiences and hosts. Additionally, we've found new friends and folks with whom to network and brainstorm and trade choir ideas with that is invaluable.

We headed down the highway for what we thought would be our easiest travel day, only expected to be on the bus for 6 hours (including the time change). We had a lovely, restful, relaxing lunch stop complete with Emma Birthday Cake and then resumed the drive.

SURPRISE! We came across no less than FOUR highway construction projects on the two lane "superhighway" (NOT!) through Oregon's desert that took us to a dead stop at each project for 10 minutes while the oncoming traffic got the go-ahead, plus a delay of about ½ hour for a semi-truck crash into the rock wall on a downhill slope through one of the passes. (We hope the driver was not seriously hurt!) Once we arrived in suburban Boise, there was another detour off the Interstate and back on. We got off at our exit, and headed west on Overland Road.....only to then be on East Overland Road - but wait! We are heading toward the setting sun and that usually means we are traveling west??? What???? So, yes, indeed, we headed the wrong way, called our hosts who were so patiently waiting for us with hot food to be served, and told to TURN AROUND and finally pulled into Whitney United Methodist Church to our fine, fine hosts where the kids hurried in, ate a delicious dinner, warmed up in the Sanctuary, got dressed and in their professional manner, put on a performance worthy of their reputation! We had another wonderful audience. It is amazing to have such nice people who have taken time to welcome us. All of us are so appreciative and feel lucky to have their support. One of our audience members: Jenna's mom! Wahoo!

Loving Boise's scenery where you look up from the relatively flat, valley city to mountains all around. Once again realizing we're not in Wisconsin anymore!
Captain Jim did a dandy job for us getting us where we needed to be, safe and sound! Hooray for that!

Now, once again, we're pooped, glad for another fine performance from these choristers who only get better and better, and happy for our rookies - all 9 of them - who are living up to their responsibilities and making us so proud of their growth! Warning: You may not recognize your child next Sunday!

Til next time,

Sue