Saturday, November 6, 2010

St. George

My job is pretty  much the best thing ever.

This weekend, I was asked to take a high school marching band to St. George, UT, for a competition.  Sure, most of the driving is at night.  In fact, we leave St. George tonight at around 10:00pm, which means we get them home at about 3:00am, and me even later.  But really, they pay me to go to St. George, eat free food, stay in a nice hotel, and relax in 80 degree weather, and look at palm trees!  The kids do need to be shuttled around for rehearsals and competitions, but most of the time I am just hanging out.  I drive them for ten minutes, and then hang out for two hours while they practice.  Then when they are done practicing, they have lunch.  After the crowd dissipates, one of the staff always invites the drivers to eat some lunch too.  This is only the beginning too, they are planning on paying me to go to Disneyland in the future!

On this trip there are two buses.  The other one is being driven by my boss actually, Jerry.  We picked up the marching band at Lone Peak High School, in Highland, UT, yesterday before dawn.  We got on the road and headed south, to sunny St. George.  They are attending a band competition at Dixie State College.  We drove them to the college first.  They spent a little time getting oriented and eating lunch.  Then we drove them to the hotel, which was not designed to have even one bus at it, never mind the nine that are here for the other bands besides us.  That was a bit of a fiasco, but we got through it alright.  Later yesterday afternoon, we drove the kids back to the college for the actual competition part of the event.  In the evening, we picked them up.  This morning was similar.  We drove them to an elementary school for a few hours of rehearsal this morning, and then over to the college after lunch for more competition.  Tonight, when everything is done, we will drive them back to Highland.  While they are at the competition, we have a bit of down time.  I have used it to catch up on sleep, since I usually do not stay awake until 3:00am, and even when I do, it is not awake enough to drive.  I have been resting up, and the rest of the trip should go just fine.  It has been a great way to spend a weekend too!

...and to think they're paying me for this!