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Week 10/11- Monday 13th March - Tuesday 22nd March
Written by CSgt Julian Kirk
Monday 13th March - Nashville, Tennessee
After the excitement of the previous evenings line dancing at the ‘Wildhorse Saloon’, our day off, for most began slowly! Personally I was most relieved to have a day free from bus travel. Waking in heavy rain along with the symptoms of a VERY late night, dictated that a day just pottering about was probably the best option. Most of our group had similar thoughts.
There was however, a small group who decided that a visit to the shrine of the rock and roll legend ‘Elvis Presley’ at Graceland was an opportunity too good to be missed. The three-hour journey to Memphis resulted in a tour of Elvis’s house and car collection along with two private jets he once owned.
The house was presented as Elvis had last decorated it back in the mid 1970’s and a collection of his famous Gibson guitars, gold discs as well as the elaborate costumes worn during visits to Las Vegas were on display.
It was a visit enjoyed by all and even led to a number of Elvis CD’s being bought!!!
‘Long Live The King’.
Tuesday 14th March - Jacksonville, Florida
Because of the difficulties of getting such a large group on small internal flights, we travelled today in two groups. The first group not only had to leave incredibly early, but also had one of those journeys where everything seemed, at times, stacked against them. We did however all arrive safely, in rain and thick cloud, at the Best Western hotel in Jacksonville on the north east coast of Florida.
This is the 27th and final state of our tour here in the United States, and exactly one week from today we fly home. Before then however, we have six more performances and the first one of those, on this final leg, was at the Moran Theatre in Jacksonville, where unusually for this tour, we played to a less than full house.
Wednesday 15th March – Sarasota, Florida
In warm sunshine and clear blue skies we left Jacksonville for our next destination, Clearwater on the west coast of Florida. As we headed south, our journey just short of 300 miles was broken at lunchtime on the outskirts of Orlando for a visit to ‘Belts’, the largest shopping centre in Florida.
This huge estate, full of designer/sports outlet stores was a recommendation by our Drum Major Stephen Staite who had visited here whilst on holiday a few years ago. All I can say is that the weight of our coach increased drastically due to people’s retail therapy efforts!!
After checking into the hotel in Clearwater, we continued south along the coast and over the entrance to Tampa bay via a number of bridges built high enough to allow commercial shipping to pass beneath and therefore, allow us fine views of the cities of St. Petersburg and Tampa in the North East and the Gulf of Mexico to the West. Our destination was Sarasota and to a venue which probably has the most beautiful setting for a stage door anywhere in the U.S.A. I do believe that at this point in our tour I can comment on this fact with a reasonable amount of confidence!!! Despite being late to the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, it was difficult to find any motivation to prepare for the show, and most of us sat by the shoreline taking photographs and watching Pelicans fishing as the sun set before us.
Thursday 16th March – Clearwater, Florida
Our hotel in Clearwater was described at the reception as being, ‘not particularly near anything, but not far from anywhere’! That just about summed it up, although without the use of a car I would particularly agree with the first part of this statement.
Our second day off this week gave some of the more adventurous (or damn-right fool hardy) a chance to experience the white-knuckle rides at the famous Busch Gardens Theme Park. Sheik-Ra is the newest ride that included a 900 vertical drop from 200ft. Any riders who might have doubted the height of the ride were given a brief moment to re-consider at the top of the ride before plummeting earthwards! Special mention should go to LCpl Nigel Coombes who decided to cure his fear of heights on this occasion, unfortunately Nigel claims it hasn’t cured his phobia but it was ‘the most frightening thing I’ve done in my life’. Other highlights included ‘Kumba’ a thrilling ride that included several 3600 turns. Apart from the exhilarating rides, Busch gardens also boasts a fantastic safari ride which gives those that take part a chance to get ‘up close and personal’ to animals such as elephants, rhinoceros, Tibetan tigers and numerous alligators and komodo dragons.
Ralph Brill, Nick Johnson, Simon Lloyd and Mark Stafford enjoyed a couple of hours fishing from a hired boat during the morning in the Gulf of Mexico. The spectacular surroundings were enough to make the trip worthwhile, on top of which both Simon and Mark were lucky enough to catch a Florida Grey Snapper each.
Friday 17th March – Naples, Florida
Driving south from Clearwater on yet another long coach journey, we travelled down the west coast of Florida to Naples. Upon arriving at the hotel, some of the band instantly found a poolside seat to catch the warm afternoon sun before the evening’s performance at the Philharmonic Centre for the Arts. We are fortunate that tomorrow evenings performance is at the same venue and so are blessed with not only a coach free day, but also with the majority of the day off as well.
St Patrick’s Day was celebrated for our two Irish Guard guests (Nigel Coombes and Kate Brown) by a formal presentation of shamrock from the Director of Music and Major Kemis Betty before the show, and then in time honoured traditional style at the bar by the poolside back at the hotel. Everyone who stayed into the small hours ended up in the pool through choice or otherwise!
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