Tuesday, March 10, 2009

St. Louis and Ohio

I begin with my usual disclaimer to Facebook readers that the blog looks better here. I'm just saying.

So on Thursday, we headed for St. Louis. Well, technically, Michael left on Wednesday night, but he arrived on Thursday, same as me. Or, I guess I mean same as I. Or, based on what the flight attendants say, I think I mean, "Michael arrived on Thursday, the same as on behalf of myself."

That afternoon, we played for a large group of area Lutheran students, that being National Lutheran Schools week. (Who knew, right?) I don't know that we were much help in "securing each student's future," but we were happy to play our songs for them, and they seemed to tolerate us just fine. Later that night, we played a concert in the same room, and some long-time friends from Spec and elsewhere.

The next morning, we headed off for parts east, driving across the On-Behalf-of-Myself states (Illinois and Indiana) and arriving in southwest Ohio. We were actually headed for Mason, which is Cincinnati adjacent. Continuing with our Lutheran theme, we were there to play for a Lutheran youth gathering, which we did. We were psyched to find that the speaker for the weekend was none other than our long-time pal, Bob Lenz. Had a great time, celebrating the pirate theme, but i never have been able to get the hang of those pirate eyepatch things.



Sunday afternoon, we raced off to the east, looking for a place called Crooksville, Ohio. Since we got to town early, we decided to make a stop at the National Ceramic Museum, which we saw in our Atlas, and which was right on our way to Crooksville. We realize that neither of us is exactly a big fan of ceramics, but, you know, it would be interesting just to see what kind of stuff one finds at the National Ceramic Museum. We figured there would be gift shop, and all sorts of interesting things.

We were surprised to find so much parking available.



We thought the entrance seemed a litte unkempt. But, hey, these are artists, not landscapers.



We wondered about the orange pieces of paper that were stuck in the door.



Perhaps some kind of brochure? An explanation of the displays currently on exhibit?





Um, so . . . It seems maybe the National Ceramic Museum isn't exactly operational just now. Possibly, if you're a fan of ceramics, you can help them out.

Anyway, we went on to the town of Crooksville, where we were playing. When we got to the church, we were a little concerned to see this sign out front, given that we were playing there in March.



Turned out, we had the wrong church. Our spirits lifted when we found the right Methodist church, where we found people instead of birds that had expired standing up, like this one at the ironically named "New Hope."



As I say, the real concert location was much nicer, and the hosts were fantastic. Had a good concert, but then had to race on north and west to the Toledo area, where we slept briefly in a hotel, before heading north to the Detroit Airport, where I dropped off Michael, parked the van, and then returned to the airport for my own flight home.

On behalf of myself, here ends the missive,

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

As always, I thoroughly enjoyed your post. Have you guys by any chance ever been to Camp LuWiSoMo in south Wisconsin? Bob Lentz (sp?) was a speaker for a high school week there last summer. I, unfortunately, was unable to be there that week, so I didn't get to meet him.

Anyway- glad things are going well for all of you!

Mark Daniels said...

I'm glad that you didn't affix a caption of, "His eye is on the sparrow" to the one photograph. I say that not just because the deceased bird wasn't a sparrow.

On behalf of myself and the bird of unknown breed, thank you for an entertaining blog post.

[The verification word is "teneist," which might be used in a sentence in this way:

"On behalf of myself and the crew, I confess to having only the teneist knowledge of the English language."]

Anonymous said...

Here's a picture of us:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30388218&l=5eb18&id=137900501

Great concert!

Brian said...

Bob Lenz spoke at our Senior High retreat back in January. He was top notch.

Orianna Laun said...

On behalf of myself, I enjoyed your concert very much. Thanks for playing "Alexander". I've gotten it stuck in my head many times since that evening.
P.S. I love the word verification for this--boodynxm--it seems like just the right word for your blog. Maybe that should be the name of your next album, seeing as how you can't name it "Something."