Tour of the West: Day 4
Sunday, January 6

We spent the first half of today driving back to Anaheim. When we got there we had a few hours of free time...and then we went to the Crystal Cathedral. We were supposed to have an alumni reception, but it turned into supper for us when no alumni showed up. We got to sing in the Cathedral's main sanctuary because they accidentally double booked the smaller chapel with a wedding. The Cathedral was still decorated for their Christmas play. The set was amazing, but we didn't get to see what the sanctuary really looked like. We had a very small crowd for the concert and the space was so big we couldn't hear ourselves, but the performance went well.

This is our last night in California — tomorrow we drive to Arizona.

- Karen

(Don't miss the new pictures on flickr!)

Tour of the West: Day 3
Saturday, January 5

Our first stop today was Stearn's Wharf in Santa Barbara. Matt and I ate at the Natural Cafe, a small, mostly vegetarian restaurant. I had never had asparagus soup before, and thought it was very good! We also found a world market where we bought some presents and I found the nori I was hoping for.

Our performance was at Trinity Episcopal Church and was better attended than the first. But there was a catch — the home stays the music director was supposed to have arranged had been forgotten. The church paid for us to stay in a nearby hotel and 6 of us took our bus to the hotel that the Simmons were supposed to be staying in. What Dr. Simmons didn't know was that the hotel room he put the 4 girls in only had one bed. We got a rollaway bed...but they wouldn't give us anything else. We had to rearrange the tiny room to fit the rollaway in, and then took half the sheets off our bed to give to the girl who had to sleep on the floor. They wouldn't even bring us any extra towels — and we only had 2. But, everything turned out all right and we had fun anyway!

Tomorrow we drive back to Anaheim — see you then!

- Karen

Tour of the West: Day 2
Friday, January 4

We started off today by driving from Anaheim to Santa Monica. Before it started to rain, we walked down to the pier where there were shops and rides. But when it started to sprinkle we headed toward the mall, since we didn't have an umbrella. It turned out that about half the shops in the mall were either going out of business or moving elsewhere, so we only stayed until the rain stopped. While we were there we bought one thing: this awesome coffee maker. We're still working on how to get it back...

When we left the mall we went to the promenade where we quickly found an REI in which we stayed for quite some time. On the way back to the bus we stopped at an Apple store, and then we drove to Pasadena. Our first concert of the tour was at 7:30 at First United Methodist where we had a small crowd but a good performance. After the concert we met the families we were staying with and Fran, my roommate, and I decided to go to an Italian restaurant for supper. Before long several other singers showed up at the restaurant (including Matt), and we didn't end up leaving until after 12:00! Fran lives about a block from the street the Rose Parade goes down, so she pointed out all sorts of things to us along the way to her house. We even went around the infamous turn. Tomorrow we drive to Santa Barbara — see you then!

- Karen

Tour of the West: Day 1
Thursday, January 3

The start of a new year brings travel to new places — like California! As promised, I will try my best to give you choir tour updates whenever possible.

We left Martin early this morning just after 4:00am and arrived at the Memphis airport around 6:30. We hung around the airport for a while, got some Starbucks, and then left for Las Vegas at 8:30. Once we got over Nevada I pulled out my camera.

As soon as we got to Las Vegas and found out luggage, we hit the road toward Los Angeles. The rest of the day was free, and most of us opted to go to Downtown Disney. Matt and I surveyed each restaurant before I persuaded him to try the Uva Bar and Cafe, which served mostly Mediterranean style food. We ate outside, by the umbrella in the far right of this picture.

As soon as Matt saw the Lego store, I knew I couldn't escape. After much drooling over massive Star Wars Lego sets he found an (adult size!) shirt on sale to buy, and was at least partially appeased. I couldn't resist taking his picture with this blocky version of R2-D2, complete with bleeping noises.

Tomorrow we head to Santa Monica for more free time, then on to our first performance in Pasadena. See you then!

- Karen