East Coast Tour Day 2

We awoke rested and ready for history, heat and the first official performance of the tour.  The boys ate in shifts filling up on eggs, sausage, bacon, fruit, cereal, juice and something that came out of an automatic pancake machine, allegedly a pancake.  We broke into three groups because the sightseeing venues were small and couldn’t accommodate large groups.  One of the stops was VMI, The Virginia Military Institute.  VMI was where Stonewall Jackson taught as a professor before the Civil War.  The VMI museum had an amazing display of guns. The exhibit was an evolution of muskets, revolving barrels, early machine guns, Olympic competition rifles, air rifles, and guns of silver and exotic wood that were hand carved.  There was also the oil cloth raincoat complete with bullet hole that Stonewall Jackson was wearing when he was shot in the arm behind enemy lines by friendly fire.  A wound he subsequently died from.  The museum was below an old chapel with great acoustics where Todd and the Allegro boys did a short version of Revelations for a few lucky people. These impromptu songs are one of the joys of being on tour.  Lexington is a small town with narrow streets and small shops.  Hard for buses to maneuver. Instead we walked around town in the “feels like 97 degrees” heat, had a little free time, stopped by the Stonewall Jackson house for a tour and ended with a picnic catered by Mountain Momma.  Back aboard the buses we drove four hours to Charlotte.  We were greeted at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church by Virginia Pfeiffer longtime friend and former Assistant Director of the choir.  There was a short warm up after which the boys and chaperones were treated to a huge and delicious buffet dinner.  We couldn’t have asked for a better start to performing on the tour.  The turnout was tremendous with the boys receiving a standing ovation and warm appreciation during the meet and greet afterwards.  We then went on to Christ Lutheran Church were we met the host families and were whisked off to their homes for a good night sleep and plans to return tomorrow for two worship service performances.