Category: 2018 Journal

We’ve had two full days (and one painfully early morning) in New York City, so you’ll forgive me for not updating sooner.

On Monday we drove up to New York City. Traffic getting into the city was normal, which is to say it took us until close to lunchtime to get into Manhattan from Wayne, NJ. We went to the Battery area first, to board the boat out to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. It was my first time being on either island. The closest I’d been previously was a boat ride that went around the statue but didn’t stop. After Ellis Island we walked up to the 9/11 memorial. I saw it the last time we were in the city, but it is still very moving, of course. We tried to go to Trinity Church but it is closed for renovations and the chapel was closed for the evening by the time we got up there. The kids had a good day, if somewhat long. We got to the hotel by about 9:30p, but with a 4a call time in the morning, it wasn’t exactly a full night’s sleep. I was deep in some dream when Terry’s alarm went off and it seemed like to took me a *long* time to identify the noise when both of our alarms went off at once. Turns out Terry was already awake but wanted to wait until I turned off my alarm before he turned off his to make sure I was really awake too. 🙂 Friends.

Yesterday we got up early to go to the Today show, where we once again managed to get the group on camera. In the past they’ve sometimes let us sing for the show, but this time it was just for the Sirius Radio broadcast of the audio. We did get the choir on the one of their bumper clips, and made a star out of Ansleigh. After that we split up into small groups to explore NYC. My group went to St. Patrick’s cathedral and Central Park, did some shopping, ate lunch at Rockefeller Center, walked through Times Square, past the New York Public Library and Bryant Park and down to Grand Central Station, ate dinner, and wandered back up to Rockefeller Center through Times Square (again), before the highlight of the evening (for me at least) attending the Broadway performance of “Wicked”. I recommend that show even if you’re not a “theater person”. The music is insanely good, and the story moves well enough that you can easily follow it. Even though some of the choir were having trouble staying awake, I was pleased at the number of kids who are not involved in theater who told me that they really enjoyed it!

After two nights in the same hotel (!!) we’re now headed up to Montreal. Tonight we’ll sing at a church in Montreal and then head to our hotel/home for the next two nights. Tomorrow will be mostly spent at the Six Flags park in Montreal. 🙂 I’m starting to enjoy the tradition of hitting amusement parks on the off-year tours.

We’re past halfway through the trip now, and Thursday we’ll start to head back towards home in earnest.

We had a great time visiting with the Fulghams at their farm in Doylestown! The kids got to swim and play basketball and generally blow off steam, and we got fed well too. Everyone raved about their host homes and I heard nothing but compliments on the kids’ behavior. They really can be polite when they want to be. 🙂

The choir sang several songs as part of the service in Doylestown and did a great job, especially for a morning service.

Yesterday we rode to Packanack Community Church in Wayne, NJ. A good college friend of ours, Carol Campbell, is a music professor at Patterson University, and a member of that church. This is the third time, I think, that she has set us up to sleep in their church. Their sanctuary is quite small, so we actually performed at another church close by. Their sanctuary is beautiful, and had great acoustics! Again, all of our audience were very complimentary, particularly the pastors of the two churches! I think we are a bit spoiled by being able to hear God’s Light every day on tour. It’s amazing to see the reactions of people who are not privileged to see them every day.

The service last night in Winchester was great! The choir performed well, especially for the first performance of tour. Winchester First UMC is a small church, but it is very much like home since we’ve been there before. So far tour has gone very well!

This morning we stopped for some tourist time at Intercourse, PA (insert joke here, but trust me, I’ve heard them all). After shopping and lunch the choir sang a few songs for the folks there, who were very grateful.

We just left the Liberty Bell, where the choir sang the Star Spangled Banner, and sang one song for a nice lady who asked on the way back to the bus. Now we’re headed up to Doylestown to the farm of former SFUMC members Bev and Jeff Fulgham. It will be nice for the kids to have some time to be off the bus for awhile.

Bev, Jeff, Ed Whittington, Terry & I used to play as a group in church very regularly when the Fulgham were still in Smyrna. Bev is an amazing piano and French Horn player, and Jeff plays a great trumpet also. They don’t know it yet, but I’m going to try to con them, or at least Bev, into playing the prelude with us in the morning. It’s a Joseph Martin arrangement of “Promised Land” that was our favorite tune to play as a band.

It’s been a great trip so far! I personally got pretty good sleep last night. I’ve seen some kids that chose to stay up late last night and are paying the price a bit today. Tour veterans know that you have to pace yourself or it’s miserable down the stretch. The ride up to Winchester, VA has been fine. Tonight we’ll do our first service, at a church we’ve visited several times previously. It’s always fun to see some of the same people who hosted us over 20 years ago!