the lone star week

So, I'm sitting at my hotel waiting to fly back to Los Angeles. I'm going to be going back to train someone for two weeks, then I get to tour alone in California. Someone else who is more qualified to tour away from the company headquarters will be coming to take my place. To be honest though, I've had lots of fun this past week touring alone.

I spent the first two days up in the Dallas. Although the traffic was crazy, I liked going to the schools. These were only one school days, and I had help both setting up and tearing down. The only part that will take getting used to is having to move the equipment alone. It's not really that heavy, just awkward to carry and put onto the cart.

Then, I went to a town called Grand Saline, which I found out is the home of Chris Tomlin. It was an interesting yet random fact, I thought it was kinda cool. This school probably had the biggest and most pristine gym that I've seen. The setup and tear down at this school were quick and effortless.

The last two days were in the Houston area. My first school in Houston on Thursday morning was good, but the room where I was setting up was really hot. I assumed it was just the stage lights, but it turns out that the air conditioner was not only not working, but was also blowing hot air. I found this out after our setup was already done. (This is why training in the hot California sun is important, even this setup was cooler than that!) I had plenty of help setting up and tearing down yet again, then I went to my next school which again was effortless.

I then went down to the Lake Jackson area, which is a little further south of Houston. Not to insult the other schools, but these were probably two of the best schools I've been to so far. I had great help at the morning school, even as far as help with protecting the equipment, etc.

The final school is my favorite so far. I arrived a little late due to a delay at the last school, but once I met with the teacher we got a group of students together and got it set up. To my surprise, we got it set up in seventy minutes. We were in a hurry, because we wanted to try and get as close to the start time as possible. This was the quickest setup I had done by myself (or with my co-worker) with the whole thing. All of the students, and the contact, were very helpful and attentive and thus made it really easy and quick to setup. Everyone was really polite and helpful, even though I was late and had delayed the start time. Tearing down was fun too, and it made my entire week worth it. It was also the first time that I had alot of students coming up to me and telling me how much they liked the show and how it helped them, etc.

I know I'll miss Texas even more now since that happened, but I'm interested to see what California has in store. Hopefully I can return to touring Texas another time. I get to fly back out in about three hours, so hopefully all will go well there (I don't need anymore battle scars for my guitar case!)