Going on Tour

Well, today we head out for Santa Cruz, for the marching band's annual 'tour'. It made me start thinking about all the past tours I've done with band, dating back to 1993 (before most of the current members were even born...). We've done everything from Utah to Portland, Oregon, to Disneyland and San Diego. I've been quite a few places just due to this band. In recent years, we've kind of gotten into a routine of always hitting the Santa Cruz band festival and playing a standstill on the beach. This year, for the first time, there's rain in the forecast...should be interesting.

But I've had interesting times before, and have learned a great deal of useful things. For example, powdered non-dairy creamer is in fact flammable, and will set off the fire alarm if you ignite it. That's a good one to remember. Also, you can in fact teach a parrot to say bad words. That came from San Diego. As did this: lighting random bonfires on the beach at night is apparently frowned upon by the local police. And course who can forget: if you happen to be wandering around the bad part of San Francisco at night, and some guy in a trench coat approaches you and ask if you want to buy a speaker, the correct response is not, in fact, "Well what do you have?". Good times.

Well the tours have certainly tamed down quite a bit since then. Or maybe it's just that I've gotten older and tamed down...or maybe it's that I'm on staff now and just don't see all the shenanigans anymore. Well, whatever it is, it certainly seems to have a different vibe. But we still have fun, and even though the band only does one night, I stay an extra just to try and enjoy being by the ocean a little longer.

And this year, being in the rain a little more...