Boise, Idaho Special Olympic Winter Games Feb. 13th, 2009 Closing Ceremony!

Hello everyone! We just got back from a very fun filled trip out to Boise, Idaho to perform for the closing ceremonies for the Special Olympic Winter games. Speaking of sports, I’m sure you’ve heard of “Tour De’ France.” Well, we got to do “Tour De’ Airlines” on this trip! All I can say is “Whoa, what a weekend.”
Our fun started at the Nashville Airport around 4pm. We were actually pretty excited at the fact that that we were all traveling quite light! It was only a 4 song set, no ear rack needed, I only took one fiddle, Trenna didn’t even have a bag to check in! Our hearts were jumping for joy over this because it just made for such an easy trip in our mindset. Well.., I guess we were wrong. The kicker: We had one connecting flight to Chicago O’Hare via American Airlines. From Chicago, we would’ve continued onto Boise, gotten in around 10-11pm out there, checked into “Hotel 43”, a nice, swanky pad that the sweet people from the Special Olympics had booked us rooms for, gotten a good night’s rest, wake up refreshed, make production rehearsals etc.., what a beautiful layout! Uh...................Negative. May I pinch myself now?
For some odd ball reason, the flight that was to take us out of Nashville onto O’Hare was running late. All I can say is that regardless of the beautiful, sunny day that it was that day, the jet streams were just not working in our favor. Not much longer did we realize that because our particular flight was late, it was going to cause us to miss the one and only flight left out to Boise, Idaho out of Chicago.. or anywhere else for that matter! As the time ticked, we were slowly watching our possibility of us even making this major important show dwindle.

Eric, our tour manager was on the phone making calls left and right and we were all scrambling at ticket counters trying to grab what flights we could out of Nashville to at least make it to somewhere out West before the day was over! It turned into utter chaos! We literally watched seats on flights disappear as our tour manager Eric tried to work out the specs with the Special Olympic committee, travel agents that they were affiliated with, our management, our travel people, God.., etc!

Ultimately, a very sweet gentleman by the name of “Scott Reeves” who works for Southwest Airlines was able to get us some flights out. All I can say is Southwest, please give that man a raise! He so hustled for us and he cared so much to make things happen for us. Thank you Scott! So check out this layout - Nashville to Austin to Phoenix, to Las Vegas, to Boise. Can you tell we really wanted to make this show??!!
We did finally get into Boise around 3:30PM Friday. We’d traveled for 24 hours! We immediately hopped on a shuttle bus that was sent from the Special Olympics and we were on our way to the venue. It was kind of funny because we did get to the venue, but between security and various directions given we spent about 15-20 minutes trying to get to the loading entrance. It was kind of like the movie “Spinal Tap” when they get lost looking for the stage, except we were on a shuttle bus. Ha! We did make it and everyone was so kind to us! Thank you Gail!

The place was a huge arena and it was a full on professional production. They had cameras, jumbotrons, and stay tuned because we’ve heard that it’s going to be aired on national T.V.!! They had makeup and hair ladies who were assigned to us to powder our noses and fluff our frocks. They put so much makeup on us! In the regular light we looked kind of “clownish”, but once we were up on stage and I caught a glimpse of us on the video, it looked awesome!

The show was Awesome but not long enough! The arena was packed with thousands (literally) of cheering celebrating people and towards the back of the arena they had a huge fire torch lit. It was so cool! The sound in that place was amazing, and just the over all atmosphere was charging. To see and play for all of those people from all over the world.., cool!
Afterwards, the entire trip hit us like a ton of bricks. We were all so tired and spent. We left the venue and went on to stay with was left at “Hotel 43.” Once again, the time for the flights out for a few of us were staggered, but lobby call was 5:30am. I treated myself to the hottest lobster bath known to man. Trenna, my roomie for the eve disappeared with Eric, Bob and others for a hang down at the hotel club. Ha., well, all I remember is waking up once to use the bathroom around 2:30am and not seeing the girl. I finally heard stirring around 4:45a.m. and it was good ole’ Trenna coming in. I felt really bad that I had to stir her awake at about 5:15am for lobby call. Ha! Well, we all have different ways of “decompressing.” I heard that they had a good time and Lord knows especially poor Eric needed to decompress. Kudos to that man for all of his hard work! Eric: Fulfillment Director/Visionary/Travel Agent/Stress Reliever

Well, we all did make it down to lobby call, some present only in a physical sense, but we made it! Yay! Our trip back to Nashville was pretty easy., thank God. No problems really, just the usual coffee and 12 peanuts.
Thank you again everyone at the Special Olympics for having us! It was so worth all the nuttiness to make it to you. You really made us feel welcome and what a beautiful opportunity. We can't wait to do it again!

Renae'