Flying to London from Los Angeles

We made it safely to Los Angeles around 3:10 in the afternoon on
Saturday, the 15th of April.  We drove up to Pasadena from LAX and
checked into the hotel.  Our rooms weren't ready, so we went over to 
the
Pasadena Civic Center for our rehearsals for the American Latino Media
Arts Awards, called ALMA 2000.  The first thing on the agenda was to
meet John Secada and rehearse the song we were going to sing together 
in
the dressing room.

It couldn't have gone better.  John is a very down to earth, sensible,
dedicated, friendly person.  I liked him from the moment I met him.  He
had his family with him and I got to meet his lovely wife and beautiful
14 month old daughter.    

Shelby had flown in the day before and was having a great time with my
friends Pam and Ken Keller at Universal Studios!  We planned to meet
Shelby, Pam and Ken after the rehearsals and go to dinner.  I was so
hungry to see Shelby.  It has only been 5 days since I saw him but I
sure have missed him!

John and I ran through the song "We're All Alone" several times.  
That's
the song off my "So Good Together" CD that I recorded with the 
Brazilian
duo, Chitazinho and Xororo.  The version that was released in Brazil 
had
Chitazinho and Xororo singing in Portuguese and I sang in English. On
the CD for the rest of the world, they sang in Spanish and I sang in
English.  The song was recorded in Nashville and the video was shot in
Sao Palo, Brazil; both went #1 in Brazil.  Chitazinho and Xororo were
beginning their tour in Brazil so they couldn't attend the awards show.
John Secada was nice enough to sing it with me and I loved every minute
of it.  He has a phenomenal voice and he worked with me on my Spanish 
so
I could sing harmony with him on a few lines.  

After the rehearsal, Narvel, Sandi and I went back to the hotel and
picked up Shelby, Pam and Ken.  He's still not too old for me to hug 
and
kiss in public, thank goodness, because he got a lot of that!  He 
didn't
even mind!  We found a great Italian place in Old Town Pasadena to have
dinner.  It was wonderful food and the atmosphere was a lot of fun!  
But
as the evening went on, we were all reminded that we weren't in our
usual time zone.  Narvel, Sandi, and I had been up for almost 24 hours
starting in Dublin, Ireland and London, and it was 2 and * hours past
Shelby's regular bedtime.  So back to the hotel we went.

The next day flew by with rehearsals for the show, lunch in between and
then getting ready for the show.  

Narvel and Shelby accompanied me down the red carpet for press, 
pictures
and interviews before the show began.  Our seats were great, real close
to the stage.  The show was taped for airing on June 17th on ABC and
will air in the US, South and Central America.  I got to sit in the
audience for the first hour and watch Christina Aguilera sing, in a
beautiful dress that looked like she hadn't had a bite to eat in a
month!  I think that was Shelby's favorite part of the show, along with
me telling him that Zorro was in the audience. Antonio Banderas 
accepted
one of his awards with his beautiful wife, Melanie Griffith, watching
from the front row with tears in her eyes and beaming with pride for 
her
husband.  We also listened to Jose Feliciano sing "Light My Fire".  The
audience went nuts!  They loved it!   It was a very entertaining show
with lots of very talented people.  

I changed into another dress for my performance and went on stage.  It
was exciting to perform in front of a group of people who weren't that
familiar with me.  The response John and I received made my heart feel
really good.  The Latinos are very warm, friendly and passionate 
people.
 I loved being on the show with them.  John was fun to sing with.  It
felt like we'd been singing together for years.

After our song, John and I went back to the press tents and took
pictures, and did interviews for both TV and print.

I said good night to all my new found friends and headed back to my
dressing trailer.  I changed into my street clothes and we went to a
great Japanese restaurant just above Sunset Boulevard.  The view of Los
Angles was magnificent, just like the food.

Monday, the next day, was the day to get packed up and ready to head on
to our next destination.  Shelby flew back home to go to school and
Narvel, Sandi and I flew back to London.  We departed Los Angeles at
5:30 PM and arrived back in London at 11:30 AM Tuesday morning to
continue promoting our tour in the UK and Ireland.

On our arrival back in the UK, we heard that Faith Hill and Tim McGraw
had arrived in the UK while we were in LA. We got to do something that
we rarely get to do when we're in Nashville because of our schedules. 
We arranged to meet Faith and Tim at a great restaurant for dinner.  We
told road stories, laughed and had a great time.  

Wednesday morning we were scheduled to do press in Scotland.  We were
scheduled to fly out of London, Heathrow at 9:30 AM and when we arrived
at the airport, they had discovered a hole in the runway.  All the
flights were delayed about an hour and a half while they patched the
runway. We arrived in Glasgow, which is about an hour flight, around
12:00 PM.  Since the delay, we were jammed on time because I was
scheduled for a live TV show and several radio and newspaper 
interviews.
 The team there in Ireland had it all under control and we didn't miss 
a
thing.  By 4:00 PM we were headed back to the airport for a 4:30 PM
flight back to London.

Once we returned to London we were scheduled to have dinner at 8:15 
with
all the folks at the record company. We had a great visit but we were
beginning to fade towards the end of the evening.      

It's sure a lot of fun getting to do the things I get to do.  Thanks to
all of you reading this, it has become a dream come true.  I hope you
enjoy reading about my trips and adventures as much as I like writing 
to
you about them.

Talk to you soon,

Reba