The Bus Ride - 17 hours of fun?

I typed up a whole trip log on a daily basis during our trip to California, but I decided it was a little much to put on here. So this is all the details with less verbage.  For those of you who know me, know that this trip was WAY out of my comfort zone.  However, it ended up being a very good decision and I am so glad I went. For those of you who don't know Jerika's choir group from her school went to San Fransisco for training and to perform. Ray was insistant that I go with her, so I got to go as a chaperone.  Michelle and Kayla (Mauna's new husband's daughter in law and granddaughter) also went with us and it was such a good chance to get to know them better. We left the High School at 4:00 p.m. on Wednesday and drove all night. We did stop several times throughout the night and we also changed bus drivers.

Jerika on the bus before we left.

Kayla

Michelle

I decided not to wear much makeup, since I knew we would just be on the bus sleeping all night.  We didn't have a whole bunch of kids on our bus (we took 3 buses), so we were all able to have 2 seats. But some of the kids slept on the floor of the bus, silly kids.

This was the next morning after getting ready. We pulled into Valeajo (sp) at about 7:00 am California time and got ready in a rest area and had breakfast.  The bus ride really wasn't too bad and I was able to sleep off and on. I did leave my headphones in most of the time, so that helped matters.

Michelle and I all ready for the day, minus makeup again. I think I may have frightened a few teenagers, but no actual harm done.  We stayed on the bus another hour to San Fran and then went to our first training with the Chanticleers.  That will be in my next post. We had a total of about 111 teenagers and 25 chaperones and it was so much fun. We got to meet amazing people and I was so proud of all the kids, they were so well behaved and we didn't have ANY problems with any of them. Some people have asked me about the choirs that we took. There is Bel Cantos, which is a boy and girl choir and then the all girl choir Jerika is in which is Musettes. You do have to try out for both of these choirs, so they kids are all very good singers. And it was such a pleasure to watch them throughout the week. I am just so thankful I was able to go with them.