Helena and I drove down separately from the rest of the orchestra. I decided I just did not want to endure 4 1/2 hours on a tour bus with 50 teenagers. There were 100 students on the tour, half in each bus. We were assigned to bus #2 for the rest of the tour, though.
Anyways, it was really nice driving separate! Helena got most of her homework done, and she and I got to visit one on one in a way that we haven't been able to for a long time.
When we arrived in St. George, the buses were still an hour behind us on the road (even though we left at approximately the same time from the high school parking lot), so we went to lunch at McDonald's while waiting for them. After lunch, we drove up to Dixie State College and waited for the buses to arrive. After they finally did get there, we had to wait another 30 minutes while the kids ate their sack lunches before going into the theater to hold a dress rehearsal with a master teacher from the college. He had some amazing advice for the orchestra to improve its performance. He is the person sitting alone in the seats in the picture above.
After the rehearsal (that ran until 3 pm), we drove to the hotel and checked everyone into their rooms. At that point I met my room-mate, Janeen. She was a quiet mother of a junior girl who plays viola. We were shocked to discover that, not only were we sharing a room, but we were also going to be sharing a BED! The room was a single king! We checked with the front desk about switching to a different room with 2 double beds, but the hotel was completely booked (I mean so full there wasn't a single unoccupied room); so we had to make the best of it.
Everybody did a whirlwind quick change of clothes before loading back onto the tour buses (Helena and I for the first time) to drive to dinner (at Golden Corral... yum. yum.), then 2 hours to Vegas to see the production of The Lion King being performed at Mandalay Bay.
Side story:
Just 15 minutes south of St. George on I-15 I happened to notice a strange site. I saw a woman standing on a hillock of scrub and cactus looking like she was trying to get phone reception. Moments later, we passed a white SUV with a blown left rear tire. I don't think anyone else on our bus noticed her, because they were all focused inward, to the movie playing on the bus DVD system.
There is a stretch of road just below St. George that winds (pretty severely) through a narrow and twisted canyon. There is no cell reception there. I had to wait until we had finally emerged from that dead zone before I was finally able to get through to 911 dispatch and report what I had seen. I have no idea if my call was really needed by that lady, or not. Hopefully she received help quickly, in any event.
So, back to my story!
LION KING WAS AMAZING!!! The singing, staging, and acting were all really excellent! Getting that large group of kids into and out of there was really much easier than I had anticipated and we all had a marvelous time. The photo in the bottom right corner is of Helena and her friend, Kim.
After another long ride back to St. George, we all collapsed into bed to sleep until the next big adventure in the morning... Zion National Park!
Stay tuned tomorrow!
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