“….to separate the parents from the children”. That was the announcement that ended our time with Kevin today as he finished up the intensive week at Blue Lake and boarded the bus to Detroit.
We arrived at Blue Lake at 11:30 to have lunch with Kevin. Dropped off a few last minute things….the fudge/cherries/thank you cards; the emails from Germany, four bags of hot and spicy Chex mix (a big-time Kevin favorite!). Lunch was in the cafeteria and was tacos…marginally acceptable and typical cafeteria food. Returned to his cabin to get his sleeping bag, pillow, and towel to take home. Kevin reports he had fun this week, he has been writing in his journal, and that his luggage weighed in at 29 pounds (one orchestra-mate weighed in at 42 pounds and had to ‘lose’ twelve pounds of stuff somehow!).
Soon enough it was 12:30 and time to board the bus. Kevin, up until this point had been fairly upbeat….about the most excited to head out on this trip as we’ve ever seen him. But, standing there on the basketball court, saying goodbye to Mom and Dad, the upbeat Kevin soon gave way to a sad Kevin…I remarked to Suzanne as he boarded the bus that you would think that he was boarding the bus to Shawshank! I’m sure part of this was a reaction to the tears of the Mom, but, that can’t have been all of it…I guess the realization that 24 hours from then he’ll be over 4,000 miles away from us must have hit him (hit Mom on the drive out as well….more tears as I gently laughed and smiled at her.)
a few minutes after this Kevin had to join the group behind us on the basketball court….
Luggage loaded, away he goes!
I’ll post updates here as we get them…..we have some hope that Kevin will have access to a computer on a few occasions on the trip and hope to hear from him.
