To Pullman To Hear Tubas

This weekend is the Tuba-Euphonium Conference in Pullman, WA which is south of Spokane, about a six-hour drive from Seattle.  Clayton is performing all weekend and we had left about mid-day yesterday.  We rented a car, a sedan, to get better mileage than our van.  Andy and Clayton drove over after school. 

What happened: 


This is what the pass looked like
mid-day when we went over it

    At 5 p.m., Andy asked (texted) how the weather was in the pass (that’s Snoqualmie Pass over the Cascades.)  The road was totally clear for our trip (although there was snow along the sides of the road) and the Washington State DOT forecast and cameras showed clear all the way.  He left about 6 p.m. and texted at 6:30:  the pass was closed ... and he was buying chains  (yes, even though he had some in the garage.)  Clayton was making snowmen. 

      The pass was supposed to open at 8:30 p.m. Andy said it was good to have a lot of waiting time, since it took 1 1/2 hours to put on the chains.  (Ron said, Yes, it used to take them that long, too, on the truck when he was an OTR truck driver, driving coast to coast.)  We looked on the Web at the Washington State DOT cameras and saw the snow and all the cars stopped … oh, can we see his car?

      The pass opened at 11:30 p.m. and so they arrived at 3:30 a.m. this morning.  Clayton had a rehearsal for the competition with the accompanist at 9:30 a.m. so they were up, ate a bite and then came back to the motel to have a second breakfast. This place is really nice (Quality Inn by the WSU campus), breakfast is 6-10 a.m. but they left all the breakfast stuff out so that was really convenient. 

     This is the Tuba-Euphonium Conference .. so very specialized!  And very interesting....who knew those instruments could sound so beautiful in solos – we first really heard that when we went to Tucson to hear him play some years ago.