Day 1 at General Convention

I'm going to try and give you an idea of  what my day to day life at General Convention.  My first day was Wednesday July 4 and it was a doozy.  I have been the Master of Ceremonies at the Independence Day Parade in Mayville NY for 25 years.  The idea was that I would do the parade with my daughter  as co-MC.  So I got up that morning, finished packing, tossed my bags into the car and headed to Mayville.  So far so good.  Unfortunately once the parade began the sky grew darker and darker .  A rumble of thunder.  A distant flash of lightning.  A NOT so distant flash of lightning.  And then the heavens opened.  The downpour sent the crowds flocking to cover and e announcers to do likewise.

Amazingly a fair number of the units kept right on marching so we kept on announcing.  It was a lot of fun while being utterly uncomfortable the whole way along.  Our notes were drenched, units were out of order so it was a bit of a challenge.  But everyone was great about it and it will be a parade that will be talked about for years.

The problem was that I had planned to go directly to the airport after the parade.  But I was soaking wet!  So home quickly, clothes into the dryer and THEN off to the airport.  Gladly there were no adventures on either flights (Erie to Detroit, then Detroit to Indy).  It was kind of interesting that at one point I had people next to me speaking Norwegian, folks one row up speaking in French, and folks a row back speaking in German.  Very cool.

A quick ride from the airport to the hotel with a surprise at the end.  Indianapolis is the home of the AAA minor league team for my beloved (and at the moment fabulously successful) Pittsburgh Pirates.  I got a text saying that the General Convention Official Youth Presence (GCOYP) was at the game and there was an extra ticket with my name on it!  The game started early so it was the 7th inning by the time I got there.  It was big time hot but it was great time and the Indians won!  Even saw a home run!

We finished the day in a meeting and had fireworks right outside the hotel windows.  I finally got back to my room about 11:30 to unpack.  My lights finally went out at midnight.  Long day.

I have a step counting pedometer with me so I'll keep you up to date about how much walking I get in.  With airport walking and the like I had a fairly average day for me - 8,857 steps.  So that's about 4 miles.  I have no doubt it will be my easiest day for a while.