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All right, I guess I should get down to telling you about my trip, for those who waited so patiently.
We left very early in the morning after loading the bus at St. Brigid school. I was running on two hours of sleep (for only the second time in my life) because I stayed up the night before trying to burn a mix CD but mostly finishing the fifth book in the Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy that I borrowed from Pat. (I was successful!) I can't remember where we satyed the first night, but we did stay in Colorado Springs along the way. We stayed 3 or 4 days in Moab; it was crazy setting up our tents in the sandstorm, without a lot of topsoil for the tent stakes to grab. One great thing about camping out west: you really don't have to worry about water leaking in the tent through inner contact, even when it's pouring. Not that it poured anywhere on our trip. Anyway, every night we set up tents (except for the last one) it was storming of some sort. It reminded me of the time Pat called me a "rain goddess" (read So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish), and I laughed about it. In Moab we went rafting, which was awesome. We went to Arches National Park, where we went to Double Arch, (where part of Indiana Jones 3 was filmed- the beginning part) and Rae and I climbed up into the second arch and looked out at the park. BEAUTIFUL. STUNNING. WOW. We laughed at everyone else since we were the only two to see that view. (Sample: straight drop about 20 or 30 feet to a desert, high wall up to the left, more arch wall around to the right, blue sky, a few white clouds, desert and rocks stretching out onto the horizon, more arch wall on the right side of the horizon, and the rockies on the left side. GORGEOUS. (Oh, by the way, driving a school bus in the Rockies- since our max speed is only 55 anyway, we were only doing about 20 in the rockies, and we had to stop every half hour or so to let the engine cool down. We stopped once to load up on water for the radiator in our camping containers and buy a case (yes, a CASE) of antifreeze (I think?).) Anyway, we left Moab. On the way we went through Tuba City, where my dad stopped the bus, Jess and I ran across the highway, and my mom took a picture of us in front of the Tuba City sign. Don't worry, there's not much traffic on western highways like that one. So we finally get to the Grand Canyon, we set up tents while it's raining. It was nice, a little sprinkle, we were staying in a group campground, the whole camp is in a pine forest (pinyon pines. Let me tell you from Spain experience- pinyon nuts in ice cream are DELICIOUS.). It was beautiful. So we hopped on their bus lines and went out to the South Rim visitors center (we never went to the North Rim). Those brown squirrels are VICIOUS! One tried to steal a guy's hot dog while it was less than ONE INCH from his thigh! We saw a TON of ravens, and they woke us up WAY too early in the morning. Those are big birds! Speaking of big birds- we saw A TON of California Condors. Those birds are SO COOL! Anyway... the next day we went on a three mile hike out to a point. It was a nice pace because they let us walk back at our own pace. In all, we took three hours, so it wasn't too fast. That night we went to a ranger talk after watching the sunset from the rim. The talk was about park stories, but before hand the ranger was answering people's questions. This little kid must have been fed questions, because he asked, "If there aren't any cavemen, where are the cowboys and indians?" and "Are the vicious bunnies and squirrels in the canyon?" The second one made us crack up like NO OTHER. So, my dad had played a Dr. Demento CD on the bus earlier, which has one song, "the Bus stop." It's not really a song, just people saying funny sounding words. Everyone thought it was hilarious, which it is. We were reciting it all over. 13 girls doing that is hilarious. Even the parents joined in sometimes. We did it that night before the presentation. It was too dark to see, but I'm pretty sure we got weird looks when we all, loudly, said, "NO, THE ESKIMOS!" By the end of the trip, however, "ma-ca-day-mee-ah!" and "bulbous bouffant!" were VERY annoying.
AAAAANYWAY. The day after that (I think...) we went on a 12 mile hike. Not all of us, only those who wanted to. It was me, my mom, my dad, Jess, and Rae. We had to get up at 3:30 or so in order to start the hike at 4:30 so it wouldn't get too hot. We hiked bright angel trail, which goes 3000 vertical feet down, and six miles out, to a point called Plateau Point where you can see a lot of the Colorado River in the canyon (another 2000 vertical feet down). There are stops with water every 1.5 miles, and at 4.5 down there is a green camp area where we stopped and ate lunch on the way back. My dad and I played frisbee out on plateau point. The hike was awesome (though hard). We saw a little mouse while we were waiting for the bus in the morning, and we named it CoJack. We saw squirrels, ravens, california condors, millipedes, lizard, bigger lizards, and ALL sorts of other animals. Mountain goats, too. We finished up at about 2:30, so we took about 10 hours. Not bad! One thing about the Grand Canyon; you can't see it's big until you've hiked it, let me tell you.
The next day we were only a little sore, which was kind of surprising. As we packed up (slowly and sorely) I saw an Abert squirrel (kind of like a Kaibab, but those are only on the North rim). OH- two days before we saw mule deer next to our camp, and a coyote that had woken some people up during the night walked right through our camp! Poor little thing was awfully skinny.
On the way home, we had bus trouble; it was going slow. My dad thought it wasn't firing all its pistons, or something. Anyway, so we would start out at 55, but by the end of the day we'd be going 40 or 30. We stayed in Albuquerque, 10 or so of us under a tarp, the rest outside, instead of tents. It was very nice. Dry, no bugs. We played Weird Al's "Albuquerque."
Laura and her friends, a day or two later, were played a game where they would see who could hold water in their mouth the longest. Her friend made her laugh, she choked, and pucked. We stopped for 20 minutes or so while we cleaned the bus. Rae and I could only laugh at the people who wanted to puke at the smell, and we both had the same thought: if they want to puke at the smell, just imagine what would happen when they have their babies puking on their shoulders! Haha. Anyway... we stayed two days in Oklahoma City, where we saw the bombing memorial. That, my friends, is a tear-jerker. No one told me it was a National Memorial until after we left, so I didn't get a stamp for my "passport" booklet. Oh well, I'll probably be back some day. We planned to go to Oklahoma City's Six Flags park, but it turned out it was some small lame park they picked up that would be closed all day since it rained, and only had 21 rides total. We ended up going to a mall (and a lame one at that, although it was the "new" one... but there was a newer mall somewhere). Rae, Jess, and my parents and I saw Hitchhiker's Guide again at a dollar theater. It was still good, for the third time, heh heh. The next day we drove, and got pulled over going 30 or so in a 60 zone in Missouri. Gah. We had to get off the highway, and get service. We ended up staying in the suite rooms of a Motel 6 because we weren't going anywhere else that night due to the bus acting up. We had a Jacuzzi IN OUR ROOM! I didn't get in, but after 2 weeks of camping, a long shower felt good. We got up early again and got home on time. The whole trip rocked!
~~~
Ok, practice yesterday, my first marching practice of the year. WOW! The freshman can march really well! Hopefully they will continue to march well when we add music to the mix. My back and arms are kind of sore, of course, because my arms are weaklings. But anyway, I love this year's show. I haven't decided yet if I want to try for the solo or not.
Anyway, that's all for now, folks! =^n.n^=
We left very early in the morning after loading the bus at St. Brigid school. I was running on two hours of sleep (for only the second time in my life) because I stayed up the night before trying to burn a mix CD but mostly finishing the fifth book in the Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy that I borrowed from Pat. (I was successful!) I can't remember where we satyed the first night, but we did stay in Colorado Springs along the way. We stayed 3 or 4 days in Moab; it was crazy setting up our tents in the sandstorm, without a lot of topsoil for the tent stakes to grab. One great thing about camping out west: you really don't have to worry about water leaking in the tent through inner contact, even when it's pouring. Not that it poured anywhere on our trip. Anyway, every night we set up tents (except for the last one) it was storming of some sort. It reminded me of the time Pat called me a "rain goddess" (read So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish), and I laughed about it. In Moab we went rafting, which was awesome. We went to Arches National Park, where we went to Double Arch, (where part of Indiana Jones 3 was filmed- the beginning part) and Rae and I climbed up into the second arch and looked out at the park. BEAUTIFUL. STUNNING. WOW. We laughed at everyone else since we were the only two to see that view. (Sample: straight drop about 20 or 30 feet to a desert, high wall up to the left, more arch wall around to the right, blue sky, a few white clouds, desert and rocks stretching out onto the horizon, more arch wall on the right side of the horizon, and the rockies on the left side. GORGEOUS. (Oh, by the way, driving a school bus in the Rockies- since our max speed is only 55 anyway, we were only doing about 20 in the rockies, and we had to stop every half hour or so to let the engine cool down. We stopped once to load up on water for the radiator in our camping containers and buy a case (yes, a CASE) of antifreeze (I think?).) Anyway, we left Moab. On the way we went through Tuba City, where my dad stopped the bus, Jess and I ran across the highway, and my mom took a picture of us in front of the Tuba City sign. Don't worry, there's not much traffic on western highways like that one. So we finally get to the Grand Canyon, we set up tents while it's raining. It was nice, a little sprinkle, we were staying in a group campground, the whole camp is in a pine forest (pinyon pines. Let me tell you from Spain experience- pinyon nuts in ice cream are DELICIOUS.). It was beautiful. So we hopped on their bus lines and went out to the South Rim visitors center (we never went to the North Rim). Those brown squirrels are VICIOUS! One tried to steal a guy's hot dog while it was less than ONE INCH from his thigh! We saw a TON of ravens, and they woke us up WAY too early in the morning. Those are big birds! Speaking of big birds- we saw A TON of California Condors. Those birds are SO COOL! Anyway... the next day we went on a three mile hike out to a point. It was a nice pace because they let us walk back at our own pace. In all, we took three hours, so it wasn't too fast. That night we went to a ranger talk after watching the sunset from the rim. The talk was about park stories, but before hand the ranger was answering people's questions. This little kid must have been fed questions, because he asked, "If there aren't any cavemen, where are the cowboys and indians?" and "Are the vicious bunnies and squirrels in the canyon?" The second one made us crack up like NO OTHER. So, my dad had played a Dr. Demento CD on the bus earlier, which has one song, "the Bus stop." It's not really a song, just people saying funny sounding words. Everyone thought it was hilarious, which it is. We were reciting it all over. 13 girls doing that is hilarious. Even the parents joined in sometimes. We did it that night before the presentation. It was too dark to see, but I'm pretty sure we got weird looks when we all, loudly, said, "NO, THE ESKIMOS!" By the end of the trip, however, "ma-ca-day-mee-ah!" and "bulbous bouffant!" were VERY annoying.
AAAAANYWAY. The day after that (I think...) we went on a 12 mile hike. Not all of us, only those who wanted to. It was me, my mom, my dad, Jess, and Rae. We had to get up at 3:30 or so in order to start the hike at 4:30 so it wouldn't get too hot. We hiked bright angel trail, which goes 3000 vertical feet down, and six miles out, to a point called Plateau Point where you can see a lot of the Colorado River in the canyon (another 2000 vertical feet down). There are stops with water every 1.5 miles, and at 4.5 down there is a green camp area where we stopped and ate lunch on the way back. My dad and I played frisbee out on plateau point. The hike was awesome (though hard). We saw a little mouse while we were waiting for the bus in the morning, and we named it CoJack. We saw squirrels, ravens, california condors, millipedes, lizard, bigger lizards, and ALL sorts of other animals. Mountain goats, too. We finished up at about 2:30, so we took about 10 hours. Not bad! One thing about the Grand Canyon; you can't see it's big until you've hiked it, let me tell you.
The next day we were only a little sore, which was kind of surprising. As we packed up (slowly and sorely) I saw an Abert squirrel (kind of like a Kaibab, but those are only on the North rim). OH- two days before we saw mule deer next to our camp, and a coyote that had woken some people up during the night walked right through our camp! Poor little thing was awfully skinny.
On the way home, we had bus trouble; it was going slow. My dad thought it wasn't firing all its pistons, or something. Anyway, so we would start out at 55, but by the end of the day we'd be going 40 or 30. We stayed in Albuquerque, 10 or so of us under a tarp, the rest outside, instead of tents. It was very nice. Dry, no bugs. We played Weird Al's "Albuquerque."
Laura and her friends, a day or two later, were played a game where they would see who could hold water in their mouth the longest. Her friend made her laugh, she choked, and pucked. We stopped for 20 minutes or so while we cleaned the bus. Rae and I could only laugh at the people who wanted to puke at the smell, and we both had the same thought: if they want to puke at the smell, just imagine what would happen when they have their babies puking on their shoulders! Haha. Anyway... we stayed two days in Oklahoma City, where we saw the bombing memorial. That, my friends, is a tear-jerker. No one told me it was a National Memorial until after we left, so I didn't get a stamp for my "passport" booklet. Oh well, I'll probably be back some day. We planned to go to Oklahoma City's Six Flags park, but it turned out it was some small lame park they picked up that would be closed all day since it rained, and only had 21 rides total. We ended up going to a mall (and a lame one at that, although it was the "new" one... but there was a newer mall somewhere). Rae, Jess, and my parents and I saw Hitchhiker's Guide again at a dollar theater. It was still good, for the third time, heh heh. The next day we drove, and got pulled over going 30 or so in a 60 zone in Missouri. Gah. We had to get off the highway, and get service. We ended up staying in the suite rooms of a Motel 6 because we weren't going anywhere else that night due to the bus acting up. We had a Jacuzzi IN OUR ROOM! I didn't get in, but after 2 weeks of camping, a long shower felt good. We got up early again and got home on time. The whole trip rocked!
~~~
Ok, practice yesterday, my first marching practice of the year. WOW! The freshman can march really well! Hopefully they will continue to march well when we add music to the mix. My back and arms are kind of sore, of course, because my arms are weaklings. But anyway, I love this year's show. I haven't decided yet if I want to try for the solo or not.
Anyway, that's all for now, folks! =^n.n^=
