Batting a thousand

Over the course of the trip, we lost several items. Amazingly, all were found in due time. The list includes, but is not limited to:

- a case of 3rd octave chimes that arrived three flights after the designated carrier
- Rich's wallet
- P.L.'s prescription medicine
- Rebekah's wallet
- Chris
- Chris' wallet
- Liesl's book and socks

And the final item, Liesl's sunglasses (not much need for THOSE!), was found yesterday at her first home stay. All is good!

Bye bye, Alaska. Hello, Seattle.

Well, we are all back in Seattle (or Cali, for P.L. and Rebekah) now, I think. I hope! The last crew landed at SeaTac about 2 hours ago. It took Alaska over an hour to deliver our luggage to the carousel - they said there was a malfunction on the conveyor belt, and we fear it was the 2 foot x 4 foot case of upper 5th, 6th and 7th octave bells that caused problems. FINALLY everything arrived and Patrice, Bryant, Liesl, Elliot and I headed home. It was sad to say good bye to everyone.

Everyone except us 5 had left or were in the process of leaving by this morning. We had some extra time so headed to Skagway from Haines this morning on the 8 AM ferry. We had about an hour or so to kill in Skagway before catching our fast ferry to Juneau (it sounds nuts, but this was really a logical plan based on the ferry schedule). We broke into smaller groups since someone had to stay behind a watch the luggage; we each got about a half hour in Skagway and with 4 cruise ships at dock, that was more than enough for me. The ferry left at 11 AM and we played a rousing game of Nerts which lasted over an hour, no one maintained a score over 30 and Bryant hit an all-time high (low?) of -109. After a quick lunch of snacks from the snack bar, we started a new round and folks fared a bit better. We arrived in Juneau at 1:45 PM and were picked up by Wendy's folks to head to the zipline excursion that had been arranged by Wendy's mom. We had to catch the boat by 2:30 and made it with literally a minute to spare.

OK - I really want to tell the tale of ziplining but my eyes keep shutting while my fingers wait on the keys. More to come later - I promise!

Concert in Juneau

As Chris indicated, we have been in Haines and have not had internet - or cell phone - access since Friday night. But so much has happened!

Thursday morning we all gathered at Northern Light Church to unload and set up equipment. We felt right at home - it was raining while we were unloading the truck, like it seems to do EVERY day we have concerts in Seattle. Here Catherine and P.L. are unloading while Liesl points out that no BOTS members are doing any work. Oops! Someone had to take pictures...


We had a quick rehearsal - OK, it was about 5 hours long. Crikey!!! During a break, we took some time for an arts and crafts project and made gifts for our hosts. Here Chris, Lisa and Liesl do their best Martha impersonation.


After the rehearsal, most of us went to a salmon bake and feasted on salmon, salad, corn bread and other tasty vittles. Others took a quick trip to the glacier or on the tram.


Then it was back to the church to rehearse again and get ready for the concert. An amazing concert!


Afterwards, we headed to downtown Juneau, which isn't so bustling at 11:30 PM on Thursday night. We ended up at the famous Red Dog salon for drinks and conversation. Then a very tired group of ringers headed home for a good night's rest. And a good thing, too. It would be 48 hours before we would see a bed again.

Wow!

I am too tired to write much about the day, but just wanted to say tonight's concert was amazing. The audience was fantastic - about 200 strong - and very enthusiastic. Juneau rocks! It was great and so much fun - we did 2 encores! Hope to write more tomorrow, although it is shaping up to be as busy as today. Off to bed so I can rest and be ready for it.

The caravan - 2 SUVs and a U-Haul



Traveling light... Unloading all of our equipment.

We're here!

The rest of us - 8, including Rebekah and P.L who connected in Seattle from San Francisco - arrived safely on probably the only Alaska flight to Juneau that left on time today. The flight was uneventful, and we even brought the missing case of chimes with us. So all people and equipment are accounted for - pretty amazing!

Here is Bryant at SeaTac with the pile of luggage for 6 of us. Travel light? What does that mean???


Here we are on approach to Juneau - so pretty...


Proof we made it...


And proof of the nerds that we are - turning our cell phones on en masse and searching for service. Yes, Virginia, there is cell phone service in Alaska.


It is time for bed - tomorrow starts with picking up even more bells and then a 3 hour rehearsal ... the first with P.L. and Rebekah. :-) It should be interesting! I have no doubt it will all pull together by 7:30 tomorrow night. We are professionals after all!

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

Looks like we will be feeling right at home as far as the weather goes - guess we need to make sure we pack an umbrella!

Juneau weather
Haines weather

Hmmm... will there be room in my suitcase for my rainboots?

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

There is a nice article about us in the Juneau Empire: http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/071706/loc_20060717007.shtml

Unfortunately, it requires a logon to view the article. But you might want to try freeport/me04032... it might just work. :-)

If this is Thursday, we must be in...

Our Alaska contacts extraordinaire - aka Wendy and her awesome family - have been working hard to not only ensure that we will have great venues and great audiences, but that we will have many opportunities to experience all that Alaska has to offer when we're not ringing. I don't know about anyone else, but it's been really hard to pick the one or two things I really, really want to do - it all looks amazing!! Here's how our itineray looks right now:

Wednesday, July 19
Arrive in Juneau

Thursday, July 20
9 AM - Noon: Rehearsal
Noon - 4 PM: Tour around downtown Juneau
5 PM: Rehearsal
7:30 PM: Concert at Northern Light Church

Friday, July 21
9 AM: Head out on various adventures (glacier trekking, glacier flyover to Taku Lodge, etc.)
6 PM: Dinner at the McPhetres cabin in Tee Harbor for a BBQ on the beach
Midnight: Catch the ferry to Haines!

Saturday, July 22
5 AM: Arrive into Haines
Afternoon: River adventure up Chilkat River
4:30 PM: Picnic at Rainbow Glacier Camp
8 - 9 PM: Go see the bears eat fish at Chilkoot Lake

Sunday, July 23
10 AM: Church service (we will play an ensemble piece for the prelude)
11:30 AM: Potluck at church
Noon: Rehearsal and prep for concert
3 PM: Concert at Chilkat Center for the Arts

Monday, July 24
1:30 AM: Some catch ferry back to Juneau to go home
9 AM: Tour of Haines by Wendy's brother, Sam

Tuesday, July 25
8 AM: The rest of us head to Skagway by ferry
9 - 11 AM: Explore Skagway
11 AM: Catch ferry to Juneau
2 - 6 PM: Explore Juneau some more
8 PM: Fly back to Seattle

Or something like that, anyway!! There's no sleep time listed on that itinerary - what's with that?????

Getting ready!

Yes - it's hard to believe that this crazy idea we first talked about months ago is about to actually happen! Bryant is frantically weighing bells, chimes and cases in preparation for the equipment to be shipped, the first rehearsal for the Alaska program was last night (it will get better, right?? :-) ), Juneau and Haines are being blitzed with PR... It's getting exciting - I can't wait to get there and see all the beautiful scenery and play for the amazing people in Juneau and Haines who have worked so very hard to make this tour a reality.

Wendy's Juneau PR blitz update

Yes!! It's been a very busy day. My dad and I plastered the town with posters. We put some up in both malls (by malls I mean glorified strip malls), the grocery stores, a couple businesses in town etc. I gave press releases and our picture to 2 newspapers in Juneau. Both were very receptive. I talked to a bell director from another church in town and she was way excited that we are coming to Juneau. Her bell choir is even planning to go up to Haines to hear us there as well!! She will do great PR for us too. And J Allan MacKinnon is creating some radio spots to run on the radio before our concert. We've had lots and lots of positive responses with everyone we've met today. Our concert is listed on community calendars etc., so the word is definitely getting out!! I even spoke to a couple tour coordinators and they were very happy to hear that our tour day is Friday because that is a very light tour ship day here. They are very eager to get you all on tours. So.....be planning what you'd like to do.

I head to Haines on the ferry that leaves at midnight tonight (arriving into Haines at 4:30 AM--welcome to SE Alaska ferries!). I will plaster Haines with posters and meet with people there to be sure things work smoothly. Phew!

Wendy

Wendy's radio interview on KINY in Juneau

Just had a call from Wendy - she just got done with the radio interview in Juneau. She was on KINY's Capital Chat progam (http://www.kinyradio.com/capchat.html) for about 35 minutes. I gave her a CD with some song snippets - they played Sabre Dance from our upcoming CD as well as Route 66 and Stars and Stripes from the Seattle concert. And they took a few phone calls from folks asking about where to get our CD and if we could march in the 4th of July parade. :-) Hopefully this will stir up some interestin our show!