The AHQ Tour Update #2
6-18-01 7:00pm
Written by Tom Troyer
We're on the road again. I don't remember where I left off with the last update. We've been extremely busy the last three days. Singing, golf, singing and more singing, and golf again.
Oh, I forgot, eating too.
We pulled in to John Krabill's (Konrad's brother) house outside of Norwood, CO, a little before midnight Friday. Some of us stayed up way late, I'll let you guess who, and then we all got up way early Saturday morning. We had a tee time to go golfing in Montrose.
This is the Boehler's house, John lives in the bottom half.
This is their backyard.
Besides the four of us, John, his friend Karen, his boss Dean, and our friend Grizz all went along too. Grizz is a rabid golfer, and he also enjoys making golf clubs. Konrad, John, and I had him make sets of clubs for us last year. This was the first time I'd had the opportunity to go golfing with him though, and we had a great time. And John wouldn't even let us pay for it, he insisted on picking up the tab.
Here's David taking a whack at it.
John and Konrad.
We played 18 holes, so by the time we finished it was well into the afternoon. We grabbed a bite to eat, then went over to Karen's place to get ready to sing that night. We sang at the Mennonite church in Montrose, Sunny-something (view, side?) Mennonite Fellowship? Church? None of us can remember what the name of it was. But we really enjoyed being there, and the people were extremely friendly and generous. The pastor was Rich Burkey, who my Mom told me later is a brother to David Burkey. We really enjoyed meeting and being with them that night.
The mountains here are incredible.
After the service, we went to John's place again and porked out on pizza. A select few of us once again stayed up until the wee hours, you'll have to decide yourself who it was.
Sunday was a very busy day. We got up VERY early and headed for John's home church, Norwood Christian Church. We sang here last year, and were really looking forward to coming back. These people are very open and giving, and we love singing here.
We sang at the morning worship service, and afterwards they had a Father's Day barbecue. After we ate, they had us sing some more.
Here's an anecdote that gives you an idea of the generosity of our friends in Norwood. We were leaving the barbecue to head home for the afternoon and Konrad mentioned that we needed gas. Grizz said, "Come on over and I'll fill you up." He has a tank at his place, and he filled us up with premium totally free of charge.
Grizz at the pump.
We were once again overwhelmed by the Norwood Christian Church's friendliness and hospitality towards us, we certainly don't deserve the love they've showed us.
All this staying up late and getting up early was taking its toll on me, or wait, on those who were always staying up late. So I slept for a while that afternoon. And then Konrad came in and woke me up at six for our engagement that night.
John lives in the bottom half of the Boehler's house, they're a couple he met while in service in Russia. They were throwing a dessert party and we were supposed to sing. Last year we did the same thing with them. There were maybe 25-30 people there, and we sang for quite awhile. Many of these people had heard us that morning and afternoon, they are very longsuffering. We took requests, we sang old songs we hadn't sung in years, we sang new songs we had never sung in public before, we sang songs we had already sung several times that day. We sang a lot of songs.
Undoubtedly the topic of discussion here is golf.
And then after that some of us were down in John's house, and it was requested that we sing Duke of Earl to Allison (one of the girls from the church) for her absent boyfriend. So we did. And then we taught a tag to the group that was still there and had them split up into quartets and sing it. They seemed to really enjoy that. We're just trying to spread quartet cheer wherever we go.
My voice is shot.
Then this morning we got up very early AGAIN. Grizz came over and made breakfast for us, then we packed up the car and headed over to Fairway Pines golf course in Ridgeway!! Grizz had a tee time reserved for us shortly after eleven, so he and John joined us in played another eighteen holes.
This was one of the most scenic courses I've been on.
The Editor doing research for the updates.
This is a very nice golf course with an incredible view of the surrounding mountains. It is also a very expensive golf course. I think the bill came to fifty-some bucks a head. Which brings me to another anecdote.
Someone told John yesterday that they would like to anonymously pay for our golf game today. He wouldn't tell us who it was. But that was a pretty steep bill, and we appreciate them very much.
So after we finished our game, we ate in Montrose with John, Karen, and John's roomie Tyler, and then hit the road. Which is where we are now. We're planning on staying the night in Denver, and driving to our next stop in Billings tomorrow.
Some great self-portraits by a lead-bass combo.
Hopefully we can play golf again soon. Maybe even sing a few songs together again someday.
Life on the road is good.