It's actually Saturday when I am finally getting around to posting our Thursday experiences. Yesterday Friday the 19th began with our bus pulling in to JFH at about 1:10 am. It took no time at all for our guys to get off the bus, get their luggage and head on home. We had all fallen asleep in the bus on the way home from the airport. Personally I did not get to bed until 2:45am and got up at 6:15. I caught up today though as I stayed in bed until 1pm. Friday was quite the challenge for all of us. Everyone had to come and check in with Mrs. Rhodes and myself during homeroom - we had some sugar (chocolate) for everyone to help them stay awake through out the day. The all grabbed handfuls and then headed on to get their make up work. Everyone made it to school and everyone made it through the entire day. We had a pep rally at the end of the school day where Madison and Desiree did cheers, Celena and Kendra represented the girl's 8th grade basketball team, Thomas, Jacob and Quintas represented the boy's 8th grade basket ball team and Drew, Jacob, Tristan and Thomas represented the wrestling team. As this was not enough our WS group also ran the consession stand during the dance that took place right after school. Everyone did well, BUT it was nice to be able to go home once it was all over. I think we can all agree on that. Hopefully everyone got to rest some today and can continue unpacking and resting up tomorrow.
So back to Thursday and our great day at Bush Gardens in Tampa. The day began with a 6:30am wake up call. Each room had 30 minutes to get themselves ready and packed up and be downstairs for breakfast. We decided the night before that we would have a "cleanest room contest" to make sure the rooms were left in descent condition. For some reason these guys managed to accumulate quite the bit of trash over the two days we stayed their. Mrs. Diaz, Mrs. Bowman and Kristin were our judges. Everyone really got into this contest and left the rooms looking great. What made the difference were those little extras. In 3rd place we had Drew, Brett, Jody and Jordan who decided to fold the dirt towels nicely for the maid. In second place were Kendra, Katie and Carrie who also made sure the dirty towels were left for the maid in a nice way. Our winners were Desiree and Shayla, who not only rolled the towels, but also left a nice note for the maid. Well done everyone!!!!!
We boarded the bus after lading up all of our luggage and headed for Bush Gardes around 7:40am. Once we arrived we were met by the educators that were going to take us through 3 different stations. We were together with Elkton and Montevideo today and were split into 3 groups. During the Safari - where we were all standing on a fenced in flat bed truck - we had the opportunity to see many different Serengeti animals such as Bongos, Zebras and Giraffes. The Giraffes had all been conditioned to come up to the truck when we stopped. We each received lettuce leaves and had the opportunity to feed the Giraffes. This was an amazing experience. Several of us also got to touch the Giraffes and be on an eye to eye level with them. We learned why the tongue is black - an adaptation that works as sun screen since the Giraffe eats for the majority of the day and it's tongue is outside it's mouth during that time. Giraffes also have 7 vertebra just like humans but they are just much larger. Each giraffe's coloring and patterns are unique and helps the keepers keep track of who is who. Zebras are really not black and white, they are brown and white. If you get really close you can see this. No Zebra has the same stripe pattern as any other Zebra and their coloring helps them to blend in - Zebras travel in groups and their stripes makes them look like one big blob instead of separate animals. The next station we visited involved learning about how to identify animals by using skull. Were you aware that you can look at an animals type of teeth, the size of and location of their eye socket and the size of the nasal passage to determine if the animal is an herbivore, carnivore or omnivore? A large eye socket indicated the animal is nocturnal and hunts at night. A larger eye will let in more light than a small eye. Sharp incisors and no molars tells us we have a carnivore. An animal with a large nasal cavity is one that can smell much better than one with a small nasal cavity. Finally we learned bout genetic diversity and how animals in Zoo's are breed to keep the diversity as great as possible. This was done by playing a little matching game - One bachelor and 3 bachelorettes and only one perfect match. This was very educational and funny at the same time. At this same station we met Safari a Hyacinth Macaw and she showed us how strong her beak was by cracking a walnut and eating it. Safari - a very beautiful blue bird - had been given to the park by a private individual who could not take care of her any more.
It was now time for free time which everyone looked forward to immensely. Kristin, who used to work at Bush Gardens, had told us all about the cool roller coasters, especially SheiKra (200 feet up, 90 degrees straight down). This was a very popular coaster and many of us road it several times. While the kids explored the park, Kristin guided the adults around the park and made sure we got to visit with all the animals - elephants, rhinos, Gorillas, chimps, snakes, tigers, and much much more. Kristin had a friends who took the adults to visit with the baby kangaroos, wallaby's and the cucsus (all marsupials from Australia). We also got to hand feed the flamingos. Wow!!!
2:45 pm came way to fast. We gathered at the exit, took one last group picture and loaded the bus. On the ride to the airport Kristin asked us all to close our eyes and reflect on our experiences this past week. She guided us through the different days and the different experiences and adventures we had had. What an awesome way to wrap up and end this once in a life time trip.
Check in went very well since AirTran had already printed all of our boarding passes and were ready for us. The line to security was quite long and it took us a while to get through. Mrs. Nicholas found out the hard way that snow globes can not go onto the airplane but must be checked in your luggage that go under the plane. So what to do? The TSA agent was great and instructed Mrs. Nicholas on what to do and within 25 minutes she had returned to the main terminal, located the UPS store and shipped her snow globes and joined the group after going through security a second time - this time she got to skip the line.
The first flight went well and we landed right on time. Our connecting flight to Dulles left from the exact same gate we left from to go from Atlanta to Orlando last Saturday. While waiting to board we had dinner and enjoyed some down time. We boarded around 8:30 pm and the flight took off right on time at 9:05pm. After arriving at Dulles and getting our luggage we had a final head count and headed towards the bus. Almost home. Tired but very pleased with this exciting week we settled in an went over a few announcements - Friday is an even day, wear green for the pep rally, come check in with Mrs. Nicholas in am and finally Mrs. Rhodes and Mrs. Nicholas expressed how proud we are and how amazing the kids had been all week.
Last announcement - Now sleep. And so we did.
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