THURSDAY, MARCH 23RD – PERFORMANCE AT CAMP ZAMA, JAPAN:

 Lobby call was 10 am and things fell apart pretty quickly.   I had talked to our POC at Zama yesterday to make sure he was picking us up in a bus with large bus bays.  When he arrived, he had a mini-bus with NO bays and he didn’t bring a cargo van for the suitcases.  He said both of their buses broke down and none of the cargo vans were available.  So, we had to pick up the heavy suitcases, put them through the back door of the bus, and lift them into the bus seats.  They took up so many seats that people had to sit next to each other for the 1 ½ hour drive to Zama.  Definitely not a good start to the day.

We arrived a few minutes later than anticipated.  When we pulled up at lodging, I realized it was not the same lodging we had when I was here with Kellie Pickler last November.  I was told that there are lot of visiting Generals and they took all the rooms in the DV quarters.  Where they put us is fine except there are no elevators and they couldn’t get us all on the first floor.   Some of the group are on 2nd, 3rd, 4th and even 5th floors. The guy that was supposed to help carry the bags upstairs was missing, too.

We dropped our bags and headed to the Golf Course for a nice lunch.  Immediately after lunch, we all went to sound check.  Tonight’s show is early – starts at 6:00 pm.

Sound check went quickly and we went back to lodging.  It’s been raining all day so I don’t think many of the group will be walking around off-base this afternoon.

We pre-ordered dinner and it was delivered at 4 pm. We have to eat earlier today because of the earlier show.  Food was great…especially for a military base.

The show was supposed to be held outdoors, but the right decision was made to move it into the theater.  It was still raining at show time.  We had a big crowd tonight which included 40 line dancers from Japan. I remembered several of them from prior Country Gold Festivals.  They danced almost every song and seemed to have a great time! I sure wish Charlie Nagatani had been able to come to the show, too!

It was another really great performance and afterwards, a very long Meet and Greet session.  But, we got back to lodging earlier than normal because of the early show time.

Tomorrow we fly to Okinawa to perform Saturday and Sunday at a two day festival.  Weather looks terrible for the last two shows and beginning to worry that we might not be able to perform!

Jude