Today, Sunday, November 4, 2007 is our last day here in sunny California! We were awaken at 4:30 AM! We had arrived home from Disneyland around 12:30 AM, got to bed around 1 AM and awakened at 4:30 AM??? I couldn't go back to sleep after that. After awhile I decided to get up and take a shower and get ready for the day, oh, and pack since we were going home. It was 6 AM when I heard some commotion outside. At this time I wasn't sure if my time on my cell phone was correct. I looked outside and saw the bus driver talking to some of the people and he had the door open and the compartments for luggage. I thought that it was actually 7 AM and the others were still asleep. So I told them that they were loading the bus. Boy never did I see three people jump so quickly out of bed. Jen grabbed her stuff and said she's taking a shower. I went outside to see what was going on and the bus driver said he was preparing the bus for us and not to worry. He said because of the early wake up call he couldn't go back to sleep and thought he'd take his time getting the bus ready. It was 6 AM. I went inside and told Lena and Lisa that it's only 6 AM. At 6:30 we got our wake up call!! So most of us were ready to go by 7:30. We boarded the bus and when Glen got on we asked why the early wake up call. He said it was a computer problem they experienced and it was because of the time change. Some people got wake up calls at 5:30, too. We were lucky to not get one! At 8 we were on our way to Forest Lawn, our last stop on the trip. We stopped at the statue of David for a few minutes. Then headed up the hill to view "The Last Supper" at the Memorial Terrace. It's a short program about Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece "The Last Supper." It's a stained glass recreation of the painting. After that we headed over to the Hall of the Crucifixion-Resurrection. Once we entered the building everyone gathers around to hear Lena sing. Just hearing her sing and hearing the echo in the building is wonderful. First time I heard her sing there, I thought the angels were singing along. She sang "The Lord's Prayer." Her niece, Jen, did the sign language. After that we went into the theater room and watched a program about the Crucifixion of Christ and the Resurrection. The Crucifixion is this huge painting, 195 feet long by 45 feet wide that was done by Polish artist Jan Styka. He brought the painting to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis in 1904 but was unable to display it because of it's size. Styka was forced to return to Poland without it because he couldn't pay the duty to take it home. He died in 1925 without seeing his painting again. Dr. Hubert Eaton (Forest Lawn Founder and art collector) and his colleagues located the painting at the Chicago Civic Opera Company in 1943. Forest Lawn purchased the painting and began to construct a building to house it. For 25 years Dr. Eaton searched for the epic painting to complete "The Sacred Trilogy." He created a contest for artists to submit their version of "the Resurrection.: They chose Robert Clark, an American artist, painting which was completed in 1965. After the show we were able to go through the small art gallery and bookstore. After that we boarded the buses and headed back to St. George. We arrived in St. George at 9 pm. It was a wonderful trip and I would do it again and again. This was my third art trip. I hope you enjoyed all the pictures I put up. Most of the people on the trip took more pictures than I did. I didn't take much inside the buildings because you can't use flash in there. I was so afraid that my flash would go off so I didn't try to do that. Maybe next time I'll be more braver!!!
