Day 13: Busses East

Hey there, friends!  Today was a pretty good day and best of all, we were able to relax a little in the morning and do something totally foreign to us:  sleep in.  We started our day off with pastries from the local 7-11 and tall glasses of milk in our rooms.  Canada has been pretty expensive so far to feed the boys, so we have taken some short-cuts when we could.

Since the boys had already showered the night before, all we really needed to do was pack out bags and load the bus.  We took our sweet time doing it though.  Around 10:30, a local restaurant was bringing us bag lunches to take with us.  Our connection for this was through Scott Foster, one of our Board Members.  He knew a friend in Vancouver in the dining business and asked him to donate some lunches for the boys to take with us.  At first, they wanted to go pretty high-class with the meal, adding sprouts and other delicacies to the meals for the boys.  Aaron talked to them though and went the simpler route: bread, meat, cheese and mayo.  They were still pretty excellent!

With the bus packed and the lunches safely stored in the cooler, we checked-out of the motel (they were very impressed with this fine group of gentleman) and left Vancouver.  On the way, we were able to see a lot of the scenic beauty the city has to offer.  It is a very nice place to look at.  The traffic and hills are a little more than I like to navigate with 28 boys and a bus, but it’s still a very nice city.  The drive to Kamloops wasn’t real long, but it brought us through the first of two days of amazing driving.  (Amazing, assuming you are not the driver…)  For lunch, we found a wonderful little rest stop nestled in a valley with amazing mountains all around us.  The boys were treated to all the wonderful lunches we received in Vancouver.  Then we polished-off the cookies and bars we received two nights before.  (We collect so many extra cookies and bars – it is almost impossible to eat all of them.)  Then it was back onto the bus for a rest period.

That brought us most of the way to Kamloops.  The Kamloops United Church was our very excited host for the evening.  I can’t tell you how much they enjoyed having the boys there.  (They liked these boys so much that I thought I was going to need to rough-up some older ladies for trying to take them home with them.  Don’t think for a second I wouldn’t do it either…)  The boys had some time to get their jobs done before our spaghetti dinner.  Every boy came away from that kitchen with a heaping pile of spaghetti – more than I thought they could eat, but for the most part, they did!

After dinner, it was off to warm-up and prepare for the show.  About 40 minutes before hand, a good crew of people started showing-up and by the time the concert started, we had about ¾ of this good-sized church filled with people.  Once they boys started singing, the applause continued much longer than usual, with second bows needed for several of the songs, including “I’m going up a yonder”, which is quickly becoming a crowd (and boy) favorite.  Afterwards, the boys shook hands for what felt like fifteen minutes with the wonderful crowd and finished their jobs before heading to their host families for the night.  Tomorrow is the toughest drive of the tour, in my estimation.  I hope they don’t get too much sleep tonight, because I want them to sleep a lot on the bus tomorrow!  J

P.J.