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Progressive Travels

The haphazard chronicles of a professional musician and his relentless pursuit of an otherwise boring life.

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Location: St. Jacob, Illinois, United States

If it ain't Baroque, fix it!

12 June 2006

Pipe Organs & Sweet Wine


Friday, 09 June 2006
One of the nice benefits about playing with BenWahBob is the fact that we don't play every waking moment. Generally, we only book about two gigs a month, with some exceptions during the summer. This past weekend was one of those off weeks. In a stroke of rare opportunity, Dawna didn't have her kids either. As part of the 100th anniversary celebrations at Wicks Organ Company, we had planned a chartered bus to take those interested to Kalamazoo, MI for an organ recital on what has become our premiere instrument at First Congregational Church.

Dawna had taken the day off, and showed up early to get the nickle tour of the pipe organ shop. We boarded the bus in the parking lot at 10:00 and were on our way. We stopped in Effingham, IL for lunch at Ryan's, gorged ourselves at the buffet, then headed up I-57 toward Chicago. We looped around outside of Chicago through some small towns in northern Illinois and Indiana, then back on Interstate Highway to Kalamazoo. An unfortunate occurance left us sitting on the road for about an hour-and-a-half -- a truck had crossed over the median and struck three cars, killing a 7-year-old girl. We called ahead to the church, and they were already aware of the accident and the subsequent traffic nightmare. When we finally started moving again, we were way behind schedule. We had planned on stopping at the hotel in Stevensville, MI to change clothes before going to the church. We were now going straight to the church, as the recital was scheduled to start at 19:30. We arrived about 19:50, and the concert began immediately. It was nice of them to wait for us.

The organist, Colin Howland, did a knock-down job playing a wide variety of music -- some writen for the pipe organ, some transcribed from orchestral music. He played everything from Bach to Mozart to Vierne (the Bach was outstanding), and even tickled us with an encore of a J. P. Sousa march that would have made any Monty Python fan proud. We even joked with him afterwards at the Meet-and-Greet about finding a suitable stop on the instrument for the big fart sound at the end. Everyone was also given the opportunity to crawl around inside the pipe chamber to see what an organ looks like from the inside. Dawna seemed to really enjoy that, as it was her first time inside a large instrument. It is an impressive three-stories tall, and full to the top of pipes and wind lines...including a rather chest-rattling 32' Double Trombone of 12 pipes. It's a nice instrument, to say the least. Wicks' pride in it is aptly justified.

After the concert, we adjourned to The Blue Dolphin, a Greek restaurant just a coupler of blocks from the church, and had dinner...at 22:00. They, too, kept the place open late for us. Very nice. None of us really ate too terribly much, as it was so late, but we did have a great time sitting around picking on each other and sharing "war stories" about Wicks and other places we had worked. We then took the hour-long bus ride back to the hotel in Stevensville. It was nearly 01:00 when we checked in at the front desk.

Saturday, 10 June 2006
Saturday morning rolled around way too soon. I had set the alarm for 07:00. I remember looking over at the clock around 07:04 and wondering why hotel alarm clocks never seem to work. Not that it matters...I can't sleep late even if I want to any more. We got up and showered, and headed down to the lobby for the free continental (as opposed to oceanic, I suppose) breakfast. We indulged in hot waffles and comparisons to other hotels with some of the other friendly travelers. We also found plastered across the front of the morning paper pictures of the gruesome accident from the night before. In a bout of hardcore journalistic sensationalism, I found the writer had not only named the company who owned the trailer (being hauled by another carrier), but had the audacity to even list their website in the story. Trial by media the very next day.

We all borded the bus around 11:00 for the journey home. It was nice to just ride for a change, and be a sightseer. I almost always have to drive when I travel anywhere, which doesn't afford me the opportunity to enjoy the scenery. This time I got to do just that. Dawna and I curled up in our seats and watched the countryside go by as the rest of the crew sat in the back of the bus drinking and laughing. We did occassionaly chortle at some of the stories they were sharing.

Lunch was to be had at a giant red barn known as Amishland, somewhere in the middle of northeastern Illinois. It is an Amish mall, of sorts, with a really good buffet. After we ate, we all went out and browsed the shops that littered the inside of this hug "barn." Once back on the road, we made the final push for home. It was a long ride that I only really remember as a series of naps interupted every so often by the odd outburst of laughter. The bus pulled into the Wicks parking lot sometime late Saturday evening. We all congratulated each other on a fine weekend, said our goodbyes, and headed for our respective homes. Even Dawna and I parted ways, as she said she wanted to sieze the opportunity to practice with her piano and violin. I went home and practiced my cello for awhile, then fell asleep on the couch while watching the lightning from a passing storm.

Sunday, 11 June 2006
Dawna and I rarely get the chance to spend copious amounts of time alone together, so we took full advantage of this weekend. We had decided to spend Sunday taking her convertable out for a spin, and settled on a trip to Mount Pleasant, a winery in Augusta, MO. This is one of those things we have talked about doing in the past, but never found the time to actually do. Of course, it was raining Sunday morning, but we went regardless.

She picked me up around 10:30 and off we went. We stopped for breakfast at the IHOP in North St. Louis County, then continued on to Augusta. During the drive along MO-94 near Defiance, we started to notice a fair amount of storm damage, some of the debris spread across the road at various places. We drove through Augusta admiring the old Missouri town's charm.

The winery was mostly empty when we arrived. There was a wedding reception in one of the far buildings, but little else going on there. I guess the threatening skies had held people back. We bought a bottle of Harvest White and a tray of cheese and sausage, and sat in the back patio area of the "grocery" building looking out over the river valley. There was a group of youngsters at the other end of the patio who kept us readily amused. More people started to filter in as the day wore on, including a group of women having a bachelorette party. They were a hoot, too. There's always good people-watching at these places.

We didn't stay too long for fear of drinking too much wine and having to wind our way back on the two-lane road (neither of us drink much anymore). In fact, we didn't even finish the bottle we bought. I'm enjoying a glass of it even as I write this on Monday night. Dawna stopped at the store in the front on the way out to buy a couple of bottles to take home, and we headed back to the city. She wanted to stop at an antique store we passed on the way there, but it was closed on Sunday. we did end up at an antique mall in Creve Coeur until they closed and threw us out. I resisted the temptation to rescue a couple of instruments I found there -- an old trombone and a nice silver bugle. As it was after 17:00 and dinner was now in order, we stopped at the Olive Garden for some pasta.

To complete our care-free, by-the-seat-of-our-pants Sunday, we decided to go see a movie. We ended up in O'Fallon, IL at their massive theater and went in to watch The daVinci Code. We had both read the book when it came out, and were eager to see the movie version. I must say, for as much as it has been maligned by critics, I thought it was a pretty good movie. It stayed pretty true to the book, and the acting was better than average.

OK...so its not a particularly musical blog. It does, however, point out that even those of us who have devoted our lives to the pursuit of music do occassionally do "normal" things, too. I guess riding a bus to Michigan to listen to a pipe organ is rather peculiar to being a musician, though, so it kind of all comes together around that.

Whatever.

Normal blog coming again next week.

1 Comments:

Blogger Deron said...

What was that? First time Dawna had a large organ inside?

Inside a large organ! Oh, never mind.

Thought this blog was taking a different direction for a minute.

Oh, saw your ex-wife at Shop N Save. We didn't have much to say. Imagine that! You should have married Dawna 20 years ago, but then, how do you take your wife to her prom? Too Granite City.

06 July, 2006 23:30  

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