Days 4 and 5

 These past couple days have been great. I never really realize how wonderful choir tour is until I'm on it. If you haven't seen my post about the first three days, you can check them out here. This post is on days 4 and 5.

Day 4:
   We woke up in our wonderful hotel in Grand Island, NE, had a warm breakfast, and were on the road by 7:30. We drove to Central City, NE and had a small mini-concert in the gym at the Christian school. Kids in grades K-12 were all there in the gym, and they were such a cute audience! My favorite part is when we have soloists do their thing- the kids all give these looks to each other as if to say, "These guys are good." After the concert, we got on the road to Colorado. Needless to say, it was a long bus ride.

She may have slept a lot, but she sure said some hilarious things when she was awake.

'Guys, is this mean to pay with this many pennies?"

Happy Birthday, Lisa and Jay!

Events/quotes of the day:
"I can't wait for the mountains. I just want to lay on one." - Krista Smith
"When I was little, I used to think my mom's tampons were fruit roll-ups."- Krista Smith (Can you tell I sat next to her on the 10 hour bus ride?)
"It's like fried paper, but yummy." - Krishana Dempcy (tortilla chips)
Leah won CMOD the next day for petting the waitress because she thought she was a member of the choir.
"LOVE YOU!!!!...I just yelled that in a restaurant." - Grace Lukens
"Love THAT." - Wes Mouri (soon to become the phrase of the whole tour)

  After getting to the hotel in Colorado Springs, a bunch of the students went swimming. I happened to forget my swimsuit, so I biked for a while. We had a surprise party for Lisa and Jay with lotsa cake. Yum.

 Day 5:
  Today was a wonderful day. Quite possibly the best day of tour.

  We started the day by going to Colorado Springs Christian School and singing at their chapel. This was very fun, but the altitude was getting to us. Almost all of us were having trouble breathing. Corbin even passed out during the concert. Whoops. My Aunt Cora Jean and Uncle Jerry even drove down to the concert!

This is what DJ looks like 95.7% of the time.

  After a wonderful morning, Jerry and CJ took me out to eat at Black-Eyed Pea, which was delicious. After lunch, we were going to meet the bus where they stopped for lunch. A bunch of people texted me and told me we were going to meet at Chipotle at 12:35.

  Turns out there were 3 Chipotles equidistant from Black-Eyed Pea. Guess which one we didn't go to?

 So they drove me to the Air Force Academy, where we met up with the rest of the choir, making it through security way easier than I thought we were going to...

  These next pictures are from our tour of the Air Force Academy chapel. It. Was. Amazing. Definitely was the highlight of my day.

A. Ma. Zing.

 

Who knew it had a basement?

Jewish Chapel

 These next 9 photos are of paintings depicting either actual Bible stories or fictional ones with messages from the Bible. The Jewish chapel had commissioned these 9 paintings by a guy (don't remember his name). The artist painted all 9 of them in 8 months. Oil paint on golf leaf. Everything that looks gold....IS gold. Each painting is valued at $1 million. Wowza.

"Justice, Justice shalt thou follow"

"Solomon's Judgment"

"Wilt Thou indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?"

"Ruth and Boaz"

"Jacob and the Angel"

"Deal Thy bread to the hungry"

"The way of an eagle in the air"

"The vision of Ezekial"

"Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven"

Buddhist chapel

Twas a little bright...

Oh yeah. I could live here.

Jeff wanted me to take a picture of him looking tough. I just think he looks creepy.

  After the Academy, we were able to go to the Garden of the Gods for an hour. A few of us ventured out and went climbing. Which apparently you're not supposed to do. Whoops. I got some GREAT pictures, though.

Actual wildlife. I think we stumbled upon their bedding area.

Corbin on the beginning of our illegal climbing expedition.

What. A. View.

Hey look! Bethel people on the ground!

I could definitely get used to this.

  Up next: Casa Bonita! I have no explanation for this. It's just something that everyone has to experience once in their lifetime. Unluckily Lucky for me...I got to experience it twice. Score.

I was very thoroughly confused by this whole process as the last time I was here, I was about 10 and everything was done for me. This seemed strangely like high school all over again.

At least the waterfall was pretty. (Photo courtesy of Melissa Bargmann)

"Guys, you're not ten. Or maybe you are."

  Then we spent a relaxing evening in the pool/hot tub/sauna swimming and playing "never have I ever." Little miss Grace Hanson kept winning. :)

Events/quotes of the day:
I was having too good of a time to write down stuff today, so I only have one quote from DP as we were walking to the AFA chapel:
"These guys fly airplanes. Really fast ones." - DP
Another highlight of the day was moving the tour guide to tears after singing "We Shall Walk Through The Valley in Peace". So amazing.

  Tomorrow is another day!