Category: The Daily Grind

I promised I’d blog about my trip to Tyler so here it is. I am a woman of my promises (or try to be).

On Tuesday, I took our Drum Majors (Elyse, Jack & Aimee) to drum major camp at Tyler Junior College. I started out at 10 am and headed to the bus barn to pick up a school district suburban. I was really thankful they had one at such a short notice (I had requested one the Thursday before and this happened to be the week that the transportation department as well as several campus administrators went to various conferences, using almost all the suburbans). I went to fill it up with gas but the stupid gas tank didn’t accept the key fob swipey thingy that went with that suburban. Finally, someone came out with a master key fob swipey thingy and I was gassed up and on my way to pick up the kids from their homes.

After I made my rounds through the streets of Round Rock, picking up kids like a school bus driver, we were on our way! I had talked to Daniel Montoya about which route to take, since he had made that trip recently. Because he had various other people to pick up in other places, it worked better for him to go there via Waco. I decided to take the scenic route and go all the way on Hwy 79.

So, after about 4 1/2 hours, many little towns and a few stops we had arrived in Tyler. I’ve travelled with many sets of kids and AS a kid myself and with every road trip, there were always lots of observations of funny things (or things that just seemed to strike a group funny) made along the way. Not with this group. They chatted about all types of things and we listened to all types of music but most of the things they observed were the “Do not pass” then, not even a mile later, “Pass with care” signs. They found it ironic how close together those signs could be!

We got to Tyler and even without great directions, found our destination. Here’s a cute thing I noticed (maybe it was just cute to me) as I was leaving town: Elyse, one of our drum majors was named after the mom from Family Ties (with Michael J. Fox). Her real name is Meredith Baxter Birney (or was at the time). The dorm the girls were staying in is in between Meredith & Baxter streets! What’s really funny is, Elyse knows all about her name sake and she was navigating and it didn’t click to her. I’ll have to ask her later if it ever dawned on her….

So, I dropped them off, got them all checked in and situated in their room and headed back home. One the way out, I passed the school that Daniel Montoya does his annual camps at and recently blogged about so I decided to stop to see if their band director and my friend Bobby Castillo was around still. I figured he probably wasn’t (and he wasn’t) but how often is one in Tyler? While wandering around, looking for a door that might be open to the band hall, I found a spot that seemed very familiar and realized it was this spot:

Again, it was probably only funny to me but I chuckled a bit to think that my buddy Danny had just stood there only weeks before.

On the way to and from Tyler, going via Hwy 79, you pass through a town called Buffalo. The kids noticed the town on the way in but didn’t give much thought or observation to it. I guess they were really just anxious about getting to Drum Major Camp. On my way out, I realized it’s quite a ranch town and found shops they could have included the town’s name in. For example, they have a stock exchange there. I don’t remember exactly what it was named and I know a “Buffalo Exchange” exists as a company but wouldn’t that have been clever to include “Buffalo” as part of the name of the location? How about the feed store? Again, I don’t remember its name but including the name of the town would have certainly made it more memorable, don’t you think? I thought of some ideas (cheesy ones but still ideas) and chuckled as I drove through the town of Buffalo, TX.

I guess that’s about it for the Tyler trip. We had Music Camp 1 on Wednesday and Jazz Camp #1 on Thursday had a fairly good turn out for those (they’re optional). Connie’s birthday was Thursday and her party was way fun! Good food, good folks, good Pamaritas!!! I took my camera but for some reason it just didn’t make it out of my bag. I guess the party was too much fun to stop to pull out a camera, or something.

Last night was the 2nd Annual Texas Drum Corps Preview. Last year, it was held on the Riverwalk in San Antonio but this year, The Austin Stars sponsored it and managed to get the use of the Texas State Capitol grounds for the event. There were probably 150+ people there and lots of good music from the 4 drum corps from Texas. I was the announcer and was told I did a good job (I was nervous). What I really enjoyed (other than the corps themselves) was watching the crowd and seeing how enjoyable this art form is to folks other than us band nerds. I never see or hear people complain about a drum corps show. Pretty cool stuff. I had one of the kids take pictures so I’ll get them online eventually via the Austin Stars site.

And that was my week. 🙂