Adventures in Boone

~Friday~

I drove a bus of 6 students from three schools to Boone for Western Regional Orchestra. This is always a fun weekend because I get to see my old Greensboro friends. It rained all day Friday and Saturday, so we were just stuck in the music building at App State.

~Sunday~ Concert Day

The weather forcast was calling for afternoon snow. Our fearless leader, Sabrina from Winston-Salem, called putting our concert at 12:00 instead of 2:00. Good call!

The snow started around 9:30am. The students were finishing their dress rehearsals. I hauled them back to the hotel to check out. We go back to Farthing Auditorium for a WONDERFUL concert. This was the best program and the best sounding orchestras that I've heard in awhile.

With the concert finished, we gathered our students, and hopped back onto the bus. There was about an inch of snow on the ground, and the roads were getting messy. I had a voicemail from my assistant principal to call him. A few phone calls later, we are headed back to the hotel! The kids were so excited... I thought I was gonna cry. I was so ready to go home, but what could I do?

So we went to the grocery store across from the hotel first. We got enough food for the night and lunch for Monday. It was funny to me, because in Boone, people don't panic and go to the store.

I couldn't get the bus all the way back to the hotel, so I parked it in a lot about 100 yards away.

We had all our luggage, the kids had their instruments, and we had our groceries. We had to make two trips, uphill, in the snow, both ways. :)

I get us checked back into the hotel, and the kids commence to having a snowball fight with a church group from Alabama (who was also stranded). They had a blast! There were three teachers, and we stayed dry and warm in our room.

We have a student teacher who goes to App, and he brought over some quartet music and the kids went into a meeting room and played for a couple of hours. I couldn't believe they wanted to play after such and intense weekend of rehearsals!

~Monday~

The outlook for going home was not good. I called the Sheriff's Dept. and was told unless I was an emergency vehicle, I should not be on the road (especially in a school bus). We really thought we were going to be in Boone until Wednesday. The kids talked to their parents, and it sounded like the roads in Hendersonville were pretty nasty anyway.

So we all went about our day. The kids were out and playing in the snow...again. We had lunch and walked across the street to Big Lots and the grocery. Upon our return to the hotel, we realize that the roads are melting. It's about 2:00pm at this point. I call the Sheriff's Dept. again and was told the road was clear from Boone to Blowing Rock! WOO HOO! I told the kids they had 45 minutes to get their stuff together.

I walk down to the bus. After kicking away some plowed snow in front of the doors, fighting the frozen door open, I cross my fingers as I turn the key. It cranks! I let it warm up for a minute, and I had no problems getting it up the hill the the hotel. The kids are totally bummed because they wanted to stay and they had just bought more food. They got over it.

We had a nice trip home. I forgot how pretty 321 through Blowing Rock was, and the roads were clear. We arrived back at school about 5:45pm. Yay! Home!

It's was a trip that we will all be talking about many years. When those students go off to college and come visit, we'll say, "Remember that trip to Boone?"

This picture was taken on Monday when we were going shopping. You can see the parking lot had been scraped and was evaporating.