The Chattanooga Girls Choir

Day 8
Monday, June 28, 2004
[This report was phoned in by Tarbell Patton from Chicago on Monday night.]

We all met back at the church this morning after spending a restful night in the homes of our wonderful hosts--restful except for a minor earthquake shortly after 1 a.m.! (See news story below). We boarded the bus to go to Valparaiso University, and on the way we received a call from Sherry, our tour guide from earlier, who said she had had picnic lunches prepared for us! That was a pleasant surprise which saved our stomachs and our wallets from another fast-food meal. We ate the lunches when we arrived at the University and then had the opportunity enjoy the beautiful sunny weather and look around the campus a bit. The girls even sang a song in the University Chapel, which has impressive acoustics.

We all piled back on the bus to travel to Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, where the girls spent a couple of hours enjoying the sand, sun, and cool water. Many girls changed into bathing suits to enjoy the water; other girls just ended up with wet clothes as they waded just a little too far out in the waves! It was exactly what everyone needed to unwind after so many busy days.

After we returned to hotel, the girls cleaned up and got ready for dinner out. Most of the group ate at T.G.I.Friday's, but in keeping with a long-running tour tradition, the senior girls had a special evening out with the choir director. John Wigal took the seniors to a nice restaurant in downtown Chicago, but even better, the magic carpet that took them all there was a stretch limosine.

Tomorrow will be a relaxing day of shopping and games, which everyone seems to be looking forward to, especially Tarbell Patten!

See, there really are big sand dunes in Indiana!

Magnitude 4.5 Earthquake Rattles Windows As It Strikes Midwest
The Associated Press

CHICAGO June 28, 2004 - A brief earthquake struck the Midwest early Monday, rattling windows and awakening sleeping residents from Wisconsin south to Missouri and from Indiana west to Iowa.

No injuries were reported from the quake, which occurred about 1:11 a.m. CDT.

Brian Lassige, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Colorado, said the quake was magnitude 4.5, and its epicenter was about eight miles northwest of Ottawa in northern Illinois, close to the small village of Troy Grove. The rural area is about 70 miles west of Chicago.

Initial reports indicated no major damage from the temblor, although police agencies and radio stations within the quake area were inundated with telephone calls.

"It was mayhem around here for a while," said Pattie Burke, a dispatcher for the Ottawa Police. "We had more than 200 calls from residents in a short period of time, all of them wanting to know what had happened. A lot of them seemed to think a truck had crashed into their house. Here in the station, it felt like an aircraft was about to crash right here."

The quake was felt at three nuclear power plants in Illinois: Quad Cities, LaSalle and Dresden.

Craig Nesbit, a spokesman for the Exelon Corp., which owns the three generating stations, said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission declared an "unusual alert" for all of them, although there appeared to be no damage.

"All of them were operating 100 percent, and no problems were reported, but we did a check of all safety systems," Nesbit said. Nesbit said the three stations supply electrical power for several million Illinois residents.

Reports of the shaking came from at least as far east as Valparaiso, Ind., and as far west as the Quad Cities, and from Wisconsin in the north to the St. Louis area in the south.

Gary Spaulding of Marseilles, Ill., said he was relaxing in his mobile home when the quake struck. "It was like somebody shot off dynamite," said Spaulding, who added that his cat leaped out of his lap and would still not come near him two hours later. "I thought maybe a tree hit my trailer."

Joe Knapp of Delafield, Wis., just west of Milwaukee, said he was asleep and awoke when the bed began shaking. "Everything was just rolling back and forth," Knapp said.

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