LHS Choir went to Texas over Spring Break. Staffer Emily Gordon-Ross writes about what they did each day. Photos courtesy of Fred Frye.

Tuesday, March 14

We arrived at LHS at 6:45 a.m. to finish loading buses with luggage and separated into our bus groups. After getting loaded up, we left for Oklahoma City at 7:30, stopping only for lunch until we get to the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial to commemorate the bombing that took place at the federal building April 19, 1995. Our first performance was at 4:00 at the museum. We sang outside by the Survivors Tree, the last tree left from the original building’s landscape. We left at 5:30 for dinner at Golden Corral at 6:15. Then we checked into the Embassy Suites Hotel, relaxed and had a game night in the lobby before going to bed.

Wednesday, March 15

Today we got on the bus at 7:30 a.m., this time to travel to Dallas and take a tour of the former Dallas Cowboys football stadium, now called the AT&T Stadium. We stopped at a strip mall for lunch before heading the stadium. The stadium is 3 million square feet and has a jail that can hold up to 18 people on the grounds. Their press room is entirely soundproof and is twice the size of the one in the White House. After leaving the stadium, we checked into our hotel before going to the Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament. The building’s interior is built to resemble an arena and had six different sections, each matching the color of a knight you would be cheering on for the night. While the knights fought and jousted on horses in the sand pit below us, we were served our food and had to eat everything with our hands. Once dinner is over, we head back to the hotel.

Thursday, March 16

We went to the Dallas World Aquarium for two hours, and then we went to the Sixth Floor Museum. This museum is all about the assassination of President Kennedy, and half of us went there while the other half went to lunch at Spaghetti Warehouse. We switched after an hour and a half, and after we were finished we got back on the buses and made our way to Plano West Senior High School. When we arrive, we did an hour long rehearsal to prepare, had a quick catered dinner from Jason’s Deli, before performing for the students in the choir program at Plano West. Their auditorium had amazing acoustics and the performance went really well with only a few, if any, mishaps. An overall amazing experience.

Friday, March 17

On Friday, we went to a choir clinic with Dr. Lynne Gackle, the Professor of Ensembles at Baylor University. Each choir group sang a song and Dr. Gackle gave her feedback and helped us improve our songs.

Next was a tour of Baylor University, led by Lindsey Fletcher, who graduated from LHS last year. We learned about some of the history, visited the mascots of the school — live bears — and saw a campus legend in the form of a guy dancing while riding a bike and playing music.

We were going to visit the Alamo then go shopping on the San Antonio Riverwalk, but ran out of time and made a small stop at a strip mall before we went to dinner at the Magic Time Machine. The outward appearance of this restaurant is very sketchy; it’s halfway down an alley and has paint peeling off the front entrance and looks exactly what you would expect a run-down bar in the middle of a big city to look like. Needless to say, most of us were semi-apprehensive about this restaurant. However when we got inside, we were greeted by waiters playing as characters from popular TV shows and movies, such as Rey from Star Wars, Nacho Libre, Forrest Gump and Robin Hood. With none of them having any concept of privacy or personal space, it led to a very interesting and memorable experience.

Saturday, March 18

Instead of heading directly to Six Flags as we had originally planned, Dr. Dunn changed our schedule slightly so we could go to the Alamo and shop on the Riverwalk. We spent almost 2 hours there before heading to Six Flags, where we spent the remainder of the day. It was really fun, and the entire park had a superhero theme (mainly Superman). The only negative thing was it became incredibly crowded in the afternoon. We left at around 6:30 to have dinner at Golden Corral before settling in for the overnight bus ride back to Lawrence, which was just as long as uncomfortable as it sounds.

Sunday, March 19

The only thing that happened today was a 30 minute stop at a Dunkin Donuts 2 hours outside of Lawrence, before finally arriving back home at 10:30 a.m.