Morning in Anaheim

I awaken at my usual time, just after 6:00 a.m. Unfortunately, my body doesn’t yet realize we’ve switched time zones, and here it’s just 4 o’clock!

My leg is cramping, and I’ve started coughing a bit. I use my asthma inhaler to settle things down. I hope the cough doesn’t get worse – at the start of a singing competition is a bad time to be coughing!

I drift back to sleep. The alarm sounds at 7:30 (Pacific time, thankfully), and I snooze it until about 8 o’clock. As I dress and brew a pot of in-room coffee (convenient, but not that tasty compared to the fresh-ground Starbucks espresso blend I brew at home), I can’t find my room key/bus pass. I wonder if it fell out of my swimsuit pocket while I was swimming and Jacuzzi-ing last night.

The morning view from our balcony is just as cool as the day before, I’m happy to find. It wasn’t just a very pleasant dream!

Just after 9:00 we gather with the extended family and go downstairs for breakfast. I check the pool area for my card. No luck.

Bob & Linda, our early risers, have already eaten a Molly’s Kitchen, a breakfast/lunch-only establishment here in the hotel. They report that, like many hotel eateries, it’s good but a bit on the pricey side.

The remainder of the gang opts for going across the street to IHOP. I tell them to save me a place – I go by the front desk, where they cheerfully replace my room key without any hassle. That’s nice.

I’m wearing my new VM travel shirt, a black “bowling-style” short-sleeve shirt with two wide royal blue stripes down the front, with the VM logo embroidered in gold (what else) on one stripe. I know we’re officially debuting these shirts this evening at our first rehearsal, so I thought I’d just wear it all day. However, since leaving the room I’ve spotted 5 different VM guys, and none of them were wearing the shirt yet, so I go back to the room and change.

I then make my way to IHOP. I get a call on my cell phone along the way from Becky telling me that they have been seated on the second floor. Wow, an IHOP with two stories? That’s new to me.

I cross over Harbor, enter the restaurant, and climb the stairs at the back. Hey, my family saved me a place after all.

We eat a decent breakfast, but we pay a price for it. Compared to our IHOPs back home, this one is at least 30% more expensive. Our family of four can usually easily eat a similar meal for $40 or so including tip; this tab comes to over $60.

Ah, but this meal comes with music. There’s a quartet in the line for the cashier, and they start singing tags as we pay! I love how harmony just breaks out spontaneously all over when a barbershop convention is in town.