Colorado Rockies with High School Choir
Plymouth Matins
10 - 17 June 2016
On Friday morning, June 10th, my daughter Alle
and I piled all of our bags in the car and drove to our church at the crack of
dawn. We are not usually morning people, but this morning, we were leaving with
about 70 other people for the week-long Plymouth Matins Choir Tour to Colorado.
I had been training to be a chaperone of 65 high schoolers for about four months prior. We learned how to lead our small group of eight
kids in discussion, how to address difficult issues that might arise during
tour and how fun and intense it can be to hang out with a large group of
teenagers for a week.
Each person had a luggage bag, a backpack for on board the
bus to help pass the 12 – 14 hour bus ride to Colorado Springs, and all of their
bedding since we would be sleeping on floors for parts of our journey. Piled
on the lawn at Plymouth at 6 am, our stuff, the kids and all of our sleepy
loved ones were a big group. Our minister blessed us as the sun rose and we
piled onto two large tour buses which took us everywhere for the week.
We slept, drove and watched movies. The chaperones were up
in the front of the bus, so that as kids came up for snacks we could chat with
people and ask the names of people we didn’t already know. We made a few food
and bathroom stops and arrived in Denver for dinner. We distributed money to each of our kids in
our small groups and they got to eat wherever they wanted along the 16
th
Street Mall. They scattered into groups of friends and the chaperone group went
to Burger 5208, getting lost a few times along the way to find it.
The only downside was that after dinner, we had another hour
or so drive to Colorado Springs to the First Congregational Church that was our
home for the first part of tour. We arrived there pretty late, in the dark and
had to set-up in a number of small rooms downstairs. I shared with about eight
to ten friends, including Alle and it turned out to be comfortable and fun --
Sort of a non-stop sleepover for about four nights.
After the driving, dinner, more driving and
setting up at the church, the chaperones met to talk about the next day and
then we met with our small groups. Everyone was exhausted by this point, so we talked
about the plans for the next day and went to bed at 1 am.
The next three days in Colorado Springs included hiking in
Garden of the Gods,
singing at two retirement homes,
and shopping downtown. Our
meals out included driving back to Denver to eat and bowl at Lucky Strikes,
eating in an airplane,
and
a lovely meal in Colorado Springs at Phantom Canyon.
We also took the buses up
into the mountains and had a tour of Cave of the Winds, which was a set of
inner tunnels through the mountains.
Some of the people on tour had headaches
and felt dizzy in these first few days of tour from the altitude changes.
The
best day for me was Sunday when the choir was part of the church service
and gave
an afternoon concert. They sang well and sounded great.
The service about
forgiveness was inspiring. Our small group discussed any person we felt we
needed to forgive in the evening and it was our best discussion topic for the
week.
On Tuesday of the following week, we finished up our
breakfast foods in the church kitchen, took turns taking the buses for showers
at the neighboring YMCA (which turned out to be about an hour round trip!) and
packed up at the church to make our way up to Boulder
and then the Rocky
Mountain National Park for the rest of our tour. We all piled onto the buses again
and drove
to Boulder for lunch. We enjoyed the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder for lunch and
shopping. Each group of kids ate at different places and everyone shopped for souvenirs.
It was fun to see what people came back to the bus with. From Boulder, we made our way up the
mountains to YMCA of the Rockies, where we were staying for the remaining three
nights of our week.
I loved YMCA of the Rockies. It is a huge complex of cabins
and buildings housing everything you might want at a summer camp. We ate at a
dining “hall” which held 1,500 people and there were three to four of them at
the camp. One night we made s’mores at a fire ring and we got lost trying to
find our fire ring because there are about twenty of them sprinkled around the
complex. There were probably over 10,000 people there along with us, but we
were always able to find each other. The hiking was wonderful and very
accessible. Each day, we were able to do a hike, do any number of camp
activities or just hang-out. Here's a group at the sand volleyball courts.
I could have spent many more days there. One afternoon hike,
we hiked up to a place called Bible
Point where you could leave your questions or issues in a message and mail them
to God (mailbox provided).
The view to the surrounding mountains was fantastic.
Another morning hike was up to a near-by (well, ten miles round trip) lake and
we watched a moose cross the lake.
One other positive about the trip was the other chaperones.
I really enjoyed meeting the other parents and staff who were on the tour.
Perhaps joining a group and trip like this is only appealing to certain kinds
of parent, but the other adults along were an interesting, engaged, competent
and loving group of people. It was a pleasure to work with them and be able to
interact with them during the week.
I wished that my small group could have met
more often, earlier and discussed deeper issues. We often met late at night and
sometimes we were too tired to talk as much as I would have liked to. It was
still worthwhile to hike together in beautiful scenery,
hear the kids sing
together, and to discuss spiritual issues in a separate and lovely place as a
group.
It’s a unique opportunity to pull ourselves out of our busy lives and
spend a week together as a group of 70!
