So......Hershey Park

Before the activities get under way, a heads up: this can, and will be an ongoing blog. There's too much to say in one sitting. So, Hershey Park began Thursday night. It really did. The excitement was too much for me not to mention anything. Dance flew by. Me and Cheyenne and Stephanie were talking about it, and being all excited: during crunches, in the air, the whole time. And as soon as I got home, it was basically dinner, shower and getting ready: I had a bag to pack, clothes to pick out, shorts to find, money to sweet-talk out of my dad, and sunscreen to get. So, by the time everything was ready, it was about 10:00, which, in hindsight, was not the best time to go to bed for a 5:30 wake up call. Lucky for me the adrenaline produced by my excitement was a natural exhaustion reliever. Bright and early, before anyone in the house, I woke up Friday morning, extremely excited and abnormally awake. (if that made any sense whatsoever) After throwing things in my bag and shoving down some Cocoa Puffs, while charging my ipod, I grabbed my trumpet and I was finally out of the house. Arriving at the middle school heightened my excitement: most were too charged up to be tired, and it increased the excitement in the room. I met up with Jess and our group (which wasn't that great, but it didn't really matter. we didn't have to stay with them.) After a highly disregarded attempt by Mrs. Hanson to maintain order, mutes and whatnot were handed out, and we piled onto public transportation buses; only slightly superior to your standard school bus. Me and Jess examined the content of our bus and became increasingly dreary of the outcome of the bus ride, as one after another piled on: harry, connor, anthony, sam, jeremy etc. But, as we rode into the sun climbing higher in the sky, all conciousness was abandoned and we just sat back to enjoy the ride. Well.....I shouldn't necessarily say "sat." We kneeled and lay and stood and jumped and fell...you get the point. 4 hours goes by remarkably fast when you're with your best friend, pillows, ipods and food. Oh gosh. Speaking of food. We had 3 bags of assorted chips each, AND two bottles of Propel each. Needless to say, we were labled as pigs, by ourselves and Courtney. But we agreed not to call each other fat until we had consumed half the chocolate content of the park. So we listened to both our ipods, we ate, we talked and talked.....and talked and talked, and laughed and saw really cool things: mostly beautiful lush valleys, and sweet little farms.... and a sign for Minnesota, apparently. So we (me, courtney, jess) formed the hypothesis that we were either going to Minnesota, the Arctic circle or Pangea. (its on video) However, the neatest thing in my humble opinion, was the line of wind turbines gracefully adorning a large hill. These devices were huge, not to mention magestic...for a hunk of metal, I suppose. So, the bus ride proceeded on in a relaxed, enjoyable manner- eating and music and whatnot. In fact, it was quite easy to forget that we were not going there just for the park. As the sun climbed steadily higher in the gorgeous, almost-summer sky, promises of a steaming hot day hung in the air. Our first stop was at a modern, very large church, situated rather oddly in the middle of a small, upscale residential neighborhood. We parked our buses, which we were quite ashamed of once we saw the caravan of coach buses. As we stepped of the bus, we were hit with a wall of hot air: and this was not even the heat of the day. So all of us filed into the (thank the Lord) air-conditioned church. Immediately, a horde of girls stormed the bathroom, me and Jess included. Then we took advantage of the plush couches until we were called into the practice room. I would like to say that it was all business when we stepped in there, but I would be lying: everyone was hyped up, which translates into restlessness and wandering minds. But, after being frowned upon by the coach bus riders, adorned in their superios concert dress, us, in our t-shirts and shorts, were able to get a semi-productive rehersal in before stepping into the large, resounding auditorium. There really was no stress: our minds weren't even fully on the competition- we had visions of roller coasters and ice cream swirling through our heads. It was very comforting to look out in the audience from atop the carpeted risers and see our band and orchestra comrades sitting there. (brian, sam, kerianne, meghan, katy, cate =) ) So we warmed up, and then we launched into our program of a resounding 2 songs. Steal Away was a little timid and slightly off, and the judges spoke into the little....whatever they are. A little intimidating, but not enough so to keep us from being on pitch in Charlottetown =) And just like that, the chorus portion was over. We loaded back on the buses, without the slighest notion of the frustration of what was to come (at least for Jess and I) The bus driver is supposed to know where hes going, right? Not ours. Not one bus seemed to know what was going on. We passed a sign that said Hershey Park 9 miles, only to turn around at a gas station!! And it gets worse. We passed the highschool that the band and orchestra was performing, not once, but twice! ( just a side note: the highschool looked like a barn, and it was situated next to a destroyed middle school) So we FINALLY reached our destination, and we had to get our intruments and run in. I only wish my rhodie ( sam barker) was a little more effective =) It was refreshing to be in an air conditioned school, and I was happy to discover that I had good high chops that day. And good thing too, cause we did get to the high part in our warm-up piece. The auditorium we were in was amazing. There were sound panels all over the ceiling and walls, and the bass drum was huge. So we played our program (again, two songs) which went very well. Unfortunately, or fortunately, we did not have the frame of mind to process our performance: we were on a one track mind-set- Hershey Park. Beleive it or not, it had gotten even hotter by the time we had gotten back of the buses. Which could only be expected: it was past 1:00. I was so warm, but me and Jess were so excited. So exctited, in fact, that we didn't entirely mind when the buses took a bizzare, unecesscarly route which didn't coencide with the roadsides: we just basically laughed at their stupidity. And we were on our way all the same......to be continued.


Stay tuned! We haven't even gotten to the park yet =)