Thursday, June 16, 2016

Day Five - Raleigh NC to Midlothian Virginia

First off, a sincere apology from your friendly blogger.  I neglected to communicate the happy ending of the Wes Sawyer saga.  We had to reroute Wes to the New Bern airport, just outside of our Morehead City stop.  United doesn't fly there so it meant buying a new ticket on Delta.  For one leg only a first class ticket was available, but we couldn't ring another concert without him so we bit the bullet and Wes traveled in style.  Gina's mom Judy picked him up at the airport and we were joyfully reunited at the beach.

On Day Five we found lunch at the medical center across the street from the American Civil War museum.  The group was distraught when Miss Emma Allison, a delicate southerner, fainted away on account of the heat and humidity.  Bless my stars!  Fortunately there is a lot of medical expertise in this group and she was soon revived.  See the pictures below.  We then toured the museum and the White House of the Confederacy and saw the Tredegar Iron Works where the kids got to practice loading and firing (well, pretend firing) a civil war era cannon.    Much was learned about the Civil War.

We continued on to Midlothian and the kids played another great concert to close to 100 folks.  Gina had more family in the crowd as Chuck's brother helped arrange this concert.  The crowds and concerts continue to be strong on this trip.

A couple of additional notes on life on the bus.  First, the auction.  Everyone is required to keep their area clean and relatively neat.  Everything has to be up off the floor so the "inside crew" can sweep every night.  If anything is left on the floor it goes into the auction.  The next morning when everyone is back on the bus items are auctioned to the highest bidder.  Sometimes the original owner buys back their own possessions, sometimes they are outbid!

Another important bit about life on the bus is zipping on and off.  Every time a ringer gets off the bus they pull down a zipper that is mounted by the front door.  When they get back on the bus they zip back up.  This is one important way we keep track of everyone.  If someone forgets to either zip on or off, they are fined $1.00.  There is also a fine for any inappropriate language heard on the bus

All of the fines and auction proceeds go into an account and are used to pay for a senior lunch.  At some point during the tour Katie takes the seniors and super seniors out to lunch on the choir as a thank you for all of their hard work.

Here are some pictures from Day Five of the 2016 tour.



    


















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