Posted October 12
The Lincoln Patriot Marching Band hit the road for their longest competition trip of the season and came home with runners-up honors at Valleyfest in Des Moines. The band wowed the crowd but not the judges enough, as they fell short to Irondale High School of New Brighton, MN. The Colorguard and drumline brought home caption awards at the event.
The day will certainly go down as one in the "spellbound" theme, and there was definately something in the air, which may explain why the Roadies encountered not one, not two but THREE flat tires on the weekend. Flats one and two occured within 10 minutes of each other - and on the same piece of equipment. While the pit was warming up, a tire blew on the PA cart. While we are trying to figure out what actually made the noise, Craig is trying to figure out how to work it into the show. Turns out a couple of the veteran Roadies were just having a little fun with Taylor (kid who runs the PA cart) with a little game called, "let's over-inflate the tires." Shortly after another exploded while the cart was sitting still! The final tire issue came on the uniform trailer, where the Roadies ended up changing a tire in the mall parking lot Sunday morning.
The challenges for the band began before they even left the parking lot. Problem #1: Sunset bus #8 is broken down on some interstate somewhere Saturday morning and clearly will not arrive at LHS in time for an 8:30 departure. So SBI gets a school bus (not a motor coach) to take the kids down to the scheduled rest stop (Onawa), where the plan is that Sunset will have another bus arrive, swap out the kids, and the SBI bus can head back home. Well Sunset bus #8 does arrive, and we swap kids, however....
Problem #2: Sunset bus #6 overheats and pulls into the rest area just south of Sioux City. Bus #7 waits with it. They figure something out and get it going and pull in to the Onawa rest stop about an hour after we get there. They say it's fixed a ready to go, BUT black smoke starts belching out the back end. Mr. C says enough; that bus is staying here; get the kids on the SBI #8 and let's get going.
All the while this is going on, kids moving buses, buses not moving, the chaperones are in true form and running around trying to figure out what to do. But the Roadies, never ones to miss an entertainment opportunity, kept themselves busy by making bets on whether or not some of the chaperones would be allowed back on to the 'no nut' buses. (insert rim shot here).
At the show the Roadies worked with their smallest crew of the year, which included a former junior Roadie-turned bandmember-turned Roadie. We survived the timed event by AGAIN beating the drumline off the field (4-0 in times events since 2003). We avoided the "cones of death" that marked the performance boundries and managed to provide the bulk of the horsepower required to get the pit the 4 blocks UPHILL all the way back to the buses. And we contained our exasperation when we found Pete Hansen's car blocking the pit trailer tailgate after the show.
