The Wesley Bell Ringer 2022 Summer Tour Day 16

Boise, ID to SLC, UT.     Home Concert 7:30 p.m.! 

June 26, 2022

Day 16- Home Concert!

Today we journey from Boise, ID to Salt Lake City, UT for the home concert. Thank you to all of the families and members of CUMC who have given us your support and love! It was a very successful and fun tour and it was really fun to play at home for alumni and friends! Thank you also to Katie for her amazing leadership, directing, and love for the choir!!!

After a few pictures please see ringer final blog posts reflecting on the bell experience and tour below.

Rest stop break on the way home

Lunch stop

The bus is unloaded and departs

Practice before the concert

Our home concert!

Our guest of honor, Ed Duncan made it to the concert. It was great to see him!

Ringer Blogs Reflecting on Tour 2022

Tour this year was such a treat. I have made so many new memories with new people this year and it made my tour experience 10 times better. It also has been a couple years since we have been on the road, and it just reminded me how much I had missed EVERYTHING about tour and the choir. The food, the hotel nights, and host homes were amazing and just made tour more vibrant. I loved tour this year and all the people I went on it with.

Jasmine

I had such an amazing time traveling the west coast. I saw so many new sights and cities. My favorite part was the amazing Oregon tide pools where we got to see starfish, muscles, crabs, and other cool animals. These people make me so happy and I couldn't have asked for a better experience. This was a trip none of us will forget.

Natalie 

 

I was very excited to go on tour this year, but the west coast exceeded my expectations. I loved getting to spend time with some of my closest friends exploring this part of the country and getting to see such beautiful scenery. At the end of most days, I loved getting to perform and see the look on people's faces as they watched us. Every night I was able to pick out people gazing in awe or smiling at their favorite parts. It made me so happy to get to see the impact that the music has on people and hear our program get better as we performed.

Andi

Tour has been such a treat. We have made so many fun memories. Alcatraz and Pier 39 were awesome in San Francisco. MOPOP was cool in Seattle. Super nice, awesome groups of ringers, too. Friday Harbor was cool as well as so many fun things we did on this trip.

Carter R

After waiting through two years with no proper tour, it has been a blast to be back on the road, traveling to one of my favorite regions in the country. All the people were super nice and welcoming, and we played consistently good concerts, which was a great way to kick back into the tour spirit. By far, my favorite days of tour had to have. been the ones spent on the San Juan Islands. The beautiful scenery, the fun people, the spectacular animals, it was truly a paradise that I don't think I would have ever visited if it were not for tour. To anyone reading this, join bells! Go on tour! It is truly and unforgettable experience with some amazing people.

James

The Wesley Bell Ringer 2022 Summer Tour Day 15

Pendleton, OR to Boise, ID 

June 25, 2022

Day 15- Last concert before the home concert!

After sleeping at the church in Pendleton, OR, our hosts provided breakfast this morning with a warm send off as we began our travels to Boise, Idaho. Our first stop was at the Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial, an outdoor garden environment that explores different human rights issues and influential statements by influential leaders. After this visit we continued on and visited Freak Alley Gallery, which is a street that has many artist pictures on the walls. It was fun to see the varied styles of art. We were photo-bombed by Anna, the prior assistant director of the Wesley Bell Ringers, who the ringers were thrilled to see! It was great to have her join us and to have her at the concert, we have all missed her. We visited the Boise World Village Fest 2022 and ate lunch while we visited the varied booths. After lunch we arrived at our next destination, the First Congregational United Church of Christ. The audience included a former Wesley Bell Ringer and about six bell choir conductors, so it was a fun audience! The ringers played an excellent concert! We are all very much looking forward to being back with our families (and our pets)! Please remember to invite family and friends to the concert, you will be amazed at the music they are now producing!

Ringer Blog

Today we had a long bus ride to Boise from Pendleton, it was about 5 hours. In those 5 hours I spent most of my time sleeping. Once we arrived in Boise, we went to the Anne Frank Memorial Park. In the park we learned about Anne Frank and the challenges she faced in Nazi Germany. While we were in the park we voted on an award that will be given. Once we left the park, we went to a little alley way with many murals; including one with some Chinese characters and one with Jimmy Hendrix. We chose a mural to take our picture in front of, but while we were taking our picture Anna appeared out of nowhere and everyone was very excited! Once we finished at the murals, we went to the world fair to eat lunch and there was lots of delicious food. After that we headed to the church to prepare for our concert. Setup for the concert was very small, especially for percussion, Dinner that night was very good and our hosts were very kind. The concert went very well and everyone in the audience seemed to enjoy it. Then some people headed to host homes and others to the hotel. Overall, it was an amazing day!

Augs

Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial

Our Leader!

Freak Alley Gallery with Anna!

Group hug with Anna

Everyone explored on their own, so no pictures but it was fun!

The church hosting us

Ed joined us-the poster was in the back of the church!

A Wesley Bell Ringer was in the audience!!

Jasmine's second cousins Shirley and Steve Haumann and Mary McNeil were at the concert

Katie and her cousin Caryn

Rudy and Mike at the bus

The Wesley Bell Ringer 2022 Summer Tour Day 14

Leavenworth, WA to Pendleton, OR 

June 24, 2022

Day 14

The day started with breakfast at our hotel, the Fair Bridge Inn & Suites, in Leavenworth, Washington. We loaded the bus and then had some time to explore the German themed town because those who went to the senior dinner were not able to shop because we have found that stores close early. We all met at the blue and white May Pole to begin our trek to the next concert. After a group picture we hit the road for several hours, to Tamastskilt Culture Center. The ringers had an opportunity to learn about the Indigenous population and the history of the area. We knew we left Washington because the temperature rose and the vegetation changed. After a brief stop we continued on our way to Pendleton Oregon for our concert at the First Presbyterian Church.

Ringer Blog

We spent this morning wandering around Leavenworth. There were so many cool sights to see. They had a Gingerbread factory, a Danish pastry place, a nutcracker establishment, and every kind of shop in-between. After that we had a long bus ride to a Native American Museum. They had a history of natives that lived in that area. I've spent most of my life in Utah so I knew a great deal of the natives that lived in Utah, but not of the ones that lived in Washington. After that, we drove to our next church to perform. The church itself was lovely. They had a nice stain glass window and pipe organ in the front. Our performance that night went great. It had its mistakes but that's the beauty of live music. We then spent the night sleeping at the church. All in all, it's been a great day.

Vanessa 

Our hotel in Leavenworth, Washington

Breakfast before we went out shopping

Shopping is fun!

We gathered at the blue and white May Pole

Tamastskilt Culture Center

First Presbyterian Church, Pendleton, Oregon

Setting up for the practice and concert

It was a great concert!

First Presbyterian Church of Pendleton

Clayton, Angela, and Sophie, Jonas' and Chloe's Aunt, Uncle, and Cousin attended the concert

The Wesley Bell Ringer 2022 Summer Tour Day 13

Sedro-Wooley, WA to Leavenworth, WA 

June 23, 2022

Day 13

Today we woke up at Comfort Suites and loaded the bus. and headed to Burlington for lunch. The kids recharged by the Tesla recharging stations! We then traveled to Leavenworth to go rafting on the river with Orion Rafting. It was fun because Gina's daughter Kelly was one of the leaders on the raft. It was a fun trip for all and the only ones who landed in the river did it by choice, we didn't have anyone unintentionally fall out into the river! We have fewer pictures because we wanted to save our phones, so we will share what we have below. After rafting we went to our hotel and then had dinner. The seniors ate dinner with Katie while the rest of the group chose where to eat. Leavenworth is a small town that makes you feel like you traveled to Germany, so it is a lot of fun. A final bit of laundry was done in the evening. It was a very fun day for everyone!

Ringer Blog

Dearest Reader,

Today, the 23rd of June, in the year 2022, the group known as the Wesley Bell Ringers, which includes myself and 19 other ringers and several more chaperones woke up at a hotel to board the bus which has been affectionately named "Larry". Upon boarding Larry, we set off upon our adventure to the beautiful town of Leavenworth, Washington, which is a quiet little town that is themed to be in the style of stereotypical German culture, (no, not that period of Germany) which meant many jokes in intentionally terrible German accents. In Leavenworth, we set sail down a river in small inflatable floating vessels, an activity which the locals call "rafting", which was quite exhilarating and left us all quite exhausted. Upon concluding said activity, we headed back to our hotel, where we were allowed to wander the town, and the group of seniors in the choir had the traditional senior dinner. The dinner was quite good, and we all had quite an enjoyable experience.

Thank you for reading,

Conner

Recharging (lunch) at the recharging station!

The yellow sign is where we turned for Orion Rafting

Wet suits, helmets, boots, life vests, jackets, and oars....we were ready!

Kelly Williams, a former WBR member and one of our guides!

Welcome to Leavenworth!

Chaperones Jenn, Tracey, Mark & Carla

Leavenworth main street

The senior and super senior group went out to dinner together