This weekend was St. Charles, the first weekend event of the year for the Voyageurs, and my very first drum major event. I generally go through the days, so that's what I'll do:
Friday: Left home at around 3:30, didn't realize that Lafayette where everyone was meeting wasn't on our way, but we'd arranged to get Audrey from there, so we had to meet everyone=P Then I called Audrey when we were almost there and figured out that she was thinking of a different gas station than the one we were actually meeting at so her mom was rather upset. Left Lafayette at about... 4:45. Time changed on our way, so it was an hour earlier there and we stopped for dinner something around 6:30 our time, I think. Audrey, Rachael, and I all got things out of one of those quarter machines. First I got this huge ring, then Audrey got a bracelet, and Rachael got a ring. We decided to try again and see what else we got and I got this cool green bracelet, Audrey then got a ring, and Rachael got another ring... That was sad, so she tried again (it was a 25 cent machine, not 50 so it was ok. Lol) and finally got a bracelet. Anyways, left there and kept driving for a long time. We slept a lot of the way there and got in something around 9:45 their time. (All of this is changed to their time now, which is an hour earlier than our time. So we really got in at 10:45) Got all the stuff in, and I honestly don't remember what we did... We sat around, got Skittles, Snickers, and drinks from the snack room and sat around doing nothing until it was bedtime. They turned the lights off and we then decided to brush our teeth, lol. Audrey went to sleep pretty soon after that, but Rachael and I couldn't. Rachael sat there writing for a long time, and I just sat there looking at the light that didn't turn off and thinking. Then Kathy started snoring, and Mark and Caleb started laughing at her. Well Mark has this infectious laugh so it made me laugh too. I kept trying to listen to music or read to fall asleep but it wasn't working, so I wrote a letter and then read again until I fell asleep at something around 2:30 (3:30).
Saturday:
Woke up at 6 (7) and the showers were actually nice! Usually they're either freezing cold or so hot you can't stand in them for longer than two seconds=P Got dressed into uniform-ness, and had to put all our stuff in this other room because they were using the gym for something else during the day ("they" being other people besides us.) Anywho, went to St. Charles (we were actually staying in Godfrey, Illinois which is about... half an hour-45 minutes away from St. Charles) and Terry and I went to the officer meeting thing, which they moved to half an hour later without telling us, and then they had it early and I think I missed it... It was really confusing. Flag raising was at 9:30 and then we had a parade at 11. Nothing after that until we all had to be back by 1:30 for the show, so we warmed up a bit and then I went and watched the other shows. They were actually pretty boring... Lol. Highlanders always have basically the same show, Janesville hardly has a show, and I was kind of dead when I was watching Tippy. Everyone else... I didn't really notice. 1812 was alright, but it wasn't really a show. For what they had it was cool though=)
While we were there, sometime after breakfast Janesville got there and Nick was there. Nick is a snare drummer who I met like... Three years ago, maybe? -possibly- four years ago. Anywho, he wasn't at the feast with his corp so that was sad, but he was at St. Charles and that was cool. He's actually much cooler now than he was last year. Last year he wore girl pants and gross earrings. Anywho, he really was much cooler this year and apparently I told Audrey stuff about him before that made him sound icky so she thought she wouldn't like him but ended up liking him a lot. I told John he would probably hate him if he met him, but I'm not entirely sure that's true anymore. Anyways, we hung out with him most of the day that we weren't busy, which wasn't long.
The show was good. I might possibly be able to get a picture on here but probably not... I will attempt to put some on photobucket. By the time all the shows were over it was about 4 and closing was at 5 so we just sat around until it was time to go. It was kinda funny because one of the guys in charge asked me if we could play the French anthem for closing and I told him yes, then I asked Terry to make sure it was the song I thought it was, and he's like "no, it's this one!" and I'm like snap! So I asked Preston to run through the song with my drummers but they didn't know it at all, two never learned it and one didn't remember it so we kinda made an executive decision that we would play Ah Pres de ma Blonde instead of... Les Drapeux or something very weird like that. It's said like. "leh dra-POE" Anywho. Had dinner there and went back to the gym where we walked in and were nearly overpowered by the smell of sweaty boy! They were having a basketball tournament and it was still going on when we got back, so we had to wait around for like... half an hour before we could get our stuff so that was... ick. Plus the snack room was locked. I was -thirsty-, Audrey and Rachael wanted chocolate, and Dad needed to get something, so we went to this store "Shnucks" (Like Shnooks) and got stuff. Got chocolate to share with everyone else so that was nice. When we got back we looked for a place we could sleep that wouldn't be so loud (what with snoring and people not sleeping and talking instead...) and we thought we'd found a place, but that turned out to be way louder than we even thought. So we finally ended up in the locker room where we could turn all the lights off. That was amazing. Actually fell asleep at like midnight (1).
Sunday:
Woke up at 6 (7) again. We had all our stuff out and packed into the cars by 7:20 (8:20) and went over to St. Charles again. Sat around for a while, had breakfast, and church started at 9 so we went to that (on site thing, pretty little but they usually have them at events. It's cool.) but I had to leave early to get back and make sure my corp was ready for opening which started at 10:00. We actually jammed a little bit before which was cool, because we didn't jam on Saturday at all which is depressing. Opening was fine... Didn't have anything after that until 12 so we had to be back by 11:30, so Rachael, Audrey, Nick, and myself went to the ice cream place but it wasn't open yet. On the way back the funniest thing happened! There was this Indian on a balcony, and I looked up and laughed because I thought it was fake. So Rachael looked up and laughed, Nick looked and waved at it because he thought it was real, and Audrey was telling us to stop laughing at it because she also thought it was real and we were being quite rude to a real person. Then Rach and I are like "No, it's not real!" and Nick and Audrey thought it was real, for sure. So Nick yells up at it "Are you real??" which was hilarious, because he yelled at this statue. Audrey was like "How could it be fake, it's 3-D!" So we stood there for like ten minutes staring at this Indian trying to decide if it was real or not. Finally found that it didn't even have any legs and it looked much more fake when you got closer. Nick told me to run up and touch it and I was like "no! I might if I -knew- it wasn't real..." But now that I think of it, I probably wouldn't, because someone did live there and it was up a bunch of stairs. We jammed from around... 11:00 until 12. First it was just Rachael, Nick, and myself, then a couple other Voyageurs started, then some people from Janesville. Pretty soon Preston and some Tippy people, then this other random guy... So most of everyone was up on the stage jamming which is amazing=D It's funny though, because the drummers all play different things to the songs so like half the people would be playing one thing and half the people would be playing another =P We all formed up and did a massed parade during which one of the Tippy drummers jumped out and got a drink which he handed down the line of drummer and everyone drank out of, it was pretty funny. I ended up being the last one to get it so I'm like... Great, what do I do with it? So I held it for a little, then left it on a bench=P Nick broke his head during that parade, which is awesome. Lol, I told Nathanael that he broke his head and he was all "ow!!!" But when I say he broke his head what I really mean is that he broke his drum head, which is stinkin' amazing. It took him like five years to do it, but he did do it. Then he didn't have to play for the rest of the day because they didn't have any other drums with them and no extra heads.
After that we went back to the ice cream place which was actually open by that time. A couple people from Janesville ended up there too but at a different table and it was interesting... Janesville people are weird=P We went to play at the gazebo at 2, (3) but Janesville was playing at the gazebo at 2, and they always do... We'd been there for like an hour at that point (2 was when Terry told us to be there but most of them went at 1) so it was weird. Janesville always plays there, and we always play at the park so Idk why Terry changed it all weird like that. He got back though and he's all "What's going on?" and we're like "Janesville always plays here." and he's like " well, you know there's nothing saying that they get to play here and no one else can!!" and he was generally... Rather embarrassing, actually, but we ended up at the park. Voyageurs left at 2:45 (3:45) to go home, but Rachael, Dad, Audrey, and myself stayed. Mark wanted to stay with us but he couldn't get ahold of his dad=(
Rachael and I went back and talked to Janesville people for a while. I remember a couple names... Ethan is cool, Jason is cool, then there's... Bill and Josh we are there. I don't remember any other names though. Anywho, since my corp left they asked if I'd like to play with them and I'm like sure so we played with them for a little while and then joined in on the other massed parade which was actually quite lame. Sat around for a while until it was closing and Janesville asked if I'd like to march with them so I did. They have it rough, like their at ease is painful! Rachael actually I guess assumed I would play with her, but she was with 1812 and I didn't really feel that it was ok for me to play with them. So I did closing with Janesville and it was interesting because I didn't actually know their cadence or anything. Preston came over before closing and asked who I was marching with. He guessed that Rachael and I would play by ourselves, but she was with 1812. I guess he didn't think of that or something. Anywho, it was nice to not be invited to play with tippy because that would have been weird... Because I wouldn't have wanted to march with them but I would have felt rude to just tell them no=P
Finally got out of there at around 5 (6) and went home. I was supposed to make Audrey do her homework on the way, but she changed her mind and we slept most of the time. She got home something around 11 and we got home something around 12. (I'm back on Indiana time again) It was really cool of my dad to drive Audrey all the way home, because that was like two hours more driving for us than he thought we were going to do.
Yeah. That was really long. There are about a million more details and little things that happened during the weekend but I'm done writing. I would be impressed if anyone actually read this whole thing! Lol. So. St. Charles was good and I didn't feel like an idiot for all of it, which is good 'cause I thought I would=P
