Virginia Glee Club Pacific Northwest 2019

It's now Wednesday and we're on the highway, driving from Portland to Seattle. I've been having trouble posting pics to the blog, so sorry about the delays! Yesterday, Tuesday, we met up in the afternoon to drive to Salem, OR, less than an hour from our location in Portland. Some of us gathered a little earlier for another lunch at The Old Spaghetti Factory. While we waited for our table, Mackerel found a suitable throne on which to rest his weary bones. One nice thing about this place is that they don't mind (and are well equipped to host) large groups. Since we went to the legendary Voodoo Donuts on Monday, we decided to head to Blue Star, which the locals think is far superior. I like all donuts, so it was nice to experience two very different donut concepts up close! Voodoo has more of a circus atmosphere... While Blue Star has a much more high-end feel. They seem much more serious about their donuts. We headed for Salem and Willamette Universi

Yesterday was our earliest day of the trip. We had to be on the bus and on our way at 8:30 a.m., and I was shocked and pleasantly surprised that we actually accomplished that! We drove to Vancouver, WA (just over the Columbia River from Portland) to Union High School, which has an amazing music program, and which hosted us the last time we were here, in 2012. They don't look bad for 9:00 a.m. Each of our hotel rooms has an iron. Evidently no one knows how to use one... We sang (pretty darned well!) for groups of students from Union and Mountain View High Schools, and we got to hear three of their men's ensembles. Each school has a junior and a varsity men's ensemble! The Union HS Varsity Men evidently have to wear hoodies (as did pretty much all the other students we met!). 🤣 One of the men's groups from Mountain View HS wore their choir t-shirts under their hoodies. Quantum, our "official" photographer, doesn't seem to crave the other s

Sorry...yes, we made it! You probably know that if you're as connected to your singers as they are to their cell phones. ;-) After we arrived 40(!) minutes early in Portland and claimed all of our luggage, our trusty motor coach and driver were waiting to take us to our hotel. On Sunday, we lost an hour of sleep and were less than bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when it was time to head to Vancouver, WA for our first concert. We had to meet in the lobby, and, surprisingly, several groups of guys played analog (i.e.: board) games. They left all their controllers in their rooms.   Nice photo bomb by Shatter, who was enjoying his first time in a tuxedo! Fresco had a little trouble understanding the concept of an Objet d'Art. The weather was clear and cool, with unobstructed views of Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens (below, from the bus). Coincidentally, Mt. St. Helen's erupted on the day I graduated from college, so my class is called the St. Helensians. Our first c

So the guys departed UVa only about 15 minutes late. I asked them to take pictures of the bus when they gathered, but evidently they were too sleepy (at 1:00 p.m.) to get that done. Someone took a selfie on board. It doesn't look promising, but at least they all made it! So far, only one guys got stopped by TSA because he didn't bring a government-issued ID, But they let him in anyway. I'll be interested to see how he gets home. It was fun to run into Drew Lytle, a former Club guy and videographer extraordinaire, at the airport while we were checking in! And here's a carefully posed photo of some of the guys in the airport... Pray for us!