A grand tour (updated)

The nice weekend weather encouraged me to get outside and do some yard work. I still found time to visit the various art shows on Saturday. The big one was at the Fendig Gallery where the Prairie Arts people were selling many different things. I was impressed at how much was on display.

On Sunday the Saint Joseph's College Choir held its Italy Tour Kickoff Concert. The choir is leaving today (Monday) for a nine day tour. They will sing at masses almost every day, and they will not sing just one mass by one composer, but at least five masses by five composers, including Mozart, Haydn, and Schubert. They will visit Florence, Sienna, Rome, and Pompeii. It should be the highlight of the academic year for the roughly seventy members of the choir.

 For the concert the choir sang mostly religious music, most of it in Latin. The big exception was a homage to John Williams, which told about Star Wars using movie music that Williams has composed for Jurassic Park, Close Encounters, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and others.

The weather forecast is for a hard freeze tonight--time to get the last frost hardy veggies out of the garden. There are not a lot leaves left on the trees and some of them are dropping fast. A maple in Weston Cemetery was shedding last week, creating a pool of gold beneath it.

 The ash trees in the cemetery are bare. Are you ready for winter?

Addendum: What happened on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month?

Update: I watched the two buses getting ready to depart SJC this morning. One was headed for the Lufthansa terminal, the other for British Airways. The group will be on two separate flights on two different airlines. Not all of the choir members are going, only 52 or 53 of them. However, some parents and others are going, and the SJC group will join up with a group from a parish in Chicago to make a grand total of about 200 people. When they deplane in Italy, they will be on three different buses. Can you imagine the logistics of arranging all of this?