Cali Trip Day #5: Running stairs, the Jumbotron, AND! We break the last bus.

What would a middle school trip be without a good PRANK!?



The story goes that several years ago on one of these trip, a very LARGE bra was found under the bed in one of the rooms during room inspections. It was obvious that it had been there a while but the counselors decided to have some fun with it. The tradition continues. One of the boys had a birthday, so his parents specially requested this for him. All of the students were already loaded up when Mr. Southern called out their room, had them line up and started to read them the riot act. They were obviously confused but pretty scared right up until he pulled out the bra. You should have heard the noise on the bus!

Once everyone figured it out we got loaded back up and hit the road for:







Universal Studios! Got a few pics on the red carpet and we were on our way.



The back stage tour was great- saw all kinds of cool sets, went through the King Kong 3D 360 which was incredible- and saw the courthouse from Back to the Future. There were a couple of shows in production and shooting at the time too... Only one I remember was the Mindy Project. We *did* get to go through a set that was used in an episode of Bones, which I thought was pretty cool.



Backstage bus tour all done, it was a race to Transformers 3D. We know how to pack 'em in.



I should mention that I managed to run ALL FOUR flights of stairs back to the top for lunch... Not that I felt like eating after doing it. Wow. Talk about elevation gain!



The kids then had the rest of the day to do whatever they wanted, and we quickly ditched them so we could try all the fun stuff.



Thats us in the back 2 rows...



And we even managed to take in a show or 2. Water World was AWESOME. Still can't believe how they launched the airplane over the wall into the pool...



Frankie was NOT impressed with my hat. Wish I had a set of his 6" platform shoes!



Well that was fun! Off to see the DODGERS! We had quite a hike from the parking lot, down, around and in to our section. We even got the all you can eat option. Who doesn't love free hot dogs and nacho's?!



The opening stuff was pretty neat- we even got to see Melissa Rauch throw out an opening pitch! For those of you who DON'T know who she is, she plays Bernadette on the Big Bang Theory- one of our all time favorite shows.

JUMBOTRON!



Our group was on the jumbotron at least NINE TIMES that night! Wish I could find a copy of the game somewhere... I was the second person on- apparently the camera guys could see my propeller hat from wherever they were cause that's all it showed at first!

Root, root, root for the home team!







We managed to wear several of 'em out...



In the end we left before the game got over. It went several extra innings before the Diamond Backs finally beat the Dodgers.

You'd think that's the end, right? You're wrong. We got all the way back to the buses, loaded up, and got on the freeway. The truck bus, which up until this point had been running fine minus a toasted electric fan, seized the A/C compressor and chucked the belt. We caught up to them, loaded half of their students on each of our buses, and trundled back to the hotel. Didn't get everyone back in their rooms and settled until midnight. Came up with a game plan for the next day minus one bus and hit the sack!

Cali Trip Day #4: In, On, and Around the Ocean!

Well, SOME of us played IN the ocean anyways...

This was my favorite day of the entire trip. We woke up, had another continental breakfast, loaded the buses, and headed to the "beach".



We spent the morning hiking along the shore at Dana Point. At first we thought we wouldn't see much because the tide was on its way in, but boy did we see all kinds of things!



Sea Anemone's,



Crabs,



Keyhole Limpits,



Sea Hares,





and Starfish!





Here is where the IN the ocean comes in to play. Tide came in, and lots of people were out on a bit of a rock. Some found a safe way,



while others went swimming. A few scrapes, bumps, and soaked cell phones but for the most part we made it back in one piece.

We got to play around the harbor while we ate a quick lunch- some cool tall ships sitting there.





After lunch we walked over to the Ocean Institute and got to take turns going out on the ocean and going through different modules on shore. I got to go on the boat first!



Right off the bat we saw sea lions at the edge of the harbor.



The water was a bit choppy at first and the boat was throwing a pretty good spray up every time it crashed down into a wave. Me and one of the other counselors went up on top to the lee side of the tower thinking we would be safe... Not so. We hit a rouge wave or something because all of the sudden we were DRENCHED. Like, someone just poured a 5 gallon bucket of sea water over my head drenched. You should have heard the kids scream at that one!

Just a little spray:



After a bit of a cruise we found some bottle nose dolphins!









Funny story (not really), we managed to break the boat. After following the dolphins for a while, they decided to try and do a sample of some kind for the kids to see. They dropped the thingy (real technical, eh?) over and it promptly got snagged on something, then the boat shifted and in the process the cable went over one of the crew's heads and jerked tight across the back of his neck. I guess it pinned him down and they had to pull the cable up and slide him out. He ended up being okay, but the cable then got tangled in one of the propellers and snapped off. I think we went all the way back to the harbor on just one screw. When we got back the captain dove in and checked it out, I guess it was okay because the next group got to go out!

Trying to dry everyones jackets out back at the institute after getting drenched on the boat.



The modules at the institute were pretty interesting. Students got to look at different types of sea animals, dissect a fish (as soon as I get a copy of Mr. Tayson Neff dissecting his fish, it will be right HERE!!!), measure water, and a few other things. Tayson about lost his lunch, but he tried so hard to be macho for the ladies in his group.



One group was working on testing the salinity of water... We'll leave names out to protect the innocent. Here's the story as I heard it. They had a water sample and were supposed to ad some other stuff to it until it changed colors. They kept adding, and adding, and adding, but nothing would happened. Their instructor had them get another sample of water and try it again. Still nothing. She finally came over and added the other stuff for them, and viola! It worked! The 3 students were sitting there with a disgusted look on their faces, having given up. One of our chaperones tried to get them going again but they were done. When asked why, the student said, "You know why it didn't work, right? BECAUSE WE WERE JUST ADDING MORE WATER.". They hadn't been adding the other chemical!

Much funnier to hear Ms. Pattee tell it.

Anways, after all of the fun and games at the beach we headed back to the hotel to get cleaned up and walk down the street to Mid Evil Times!

This. Was. AWESOME. You have no idea how much fun this can be until you go with a huge group of psychotic middle school students. I screamed myself hoarse cheering for our night!







You can just barely see our poor night in the middle, being mobbed by the students.



The dangerous part- souvenirs here were of the pointy variety.



And of course, almost EVERYONE bought one. It did, however, make for one of THE BEST ALL TIME videos I have ever seen.



Yes, that was all 110 students CHARGING across the road. What the video missed was the "RED! RED! RED! RED!" chanting for a solid 1/2 hour as we exited and made our way out to the road.

The best part? About half of them could hardly speak the next day. :)

Cali Trip Day #3:Like Herding Ducks, at the Zoo.

Have you ever tried to herd a flock of ducks!? Chasing 13 and 14 year olds through a zoo feels a lot like that...

We started the day off with a quick "continental" breakfast in the parking lot by the buses while rooms were checked and keys turned in. Once everything was good, we headed to the San Diego Zoo.

My flock of "ducks"...



Pretty cool zoo. We started out at the reptile house and things went downhill from there. Got to see all kinds of things.

Yawning pythons,





Turtles?! Not sure I want to know whats going on here...



Even got to see Momma Panda and her baby!





There was a bit of uphill as well, which the "ducks" were quick to take advantage of the free ride.



Thankfully, after all the downhill, we could ride the tram back to the top!





While we were all milling around getting ready to do the behind the scenes bus tour, guess who shows up!? A few players from the NFL Chargers!





The girls swooned, the guys... Well, lets just say the first words out of one of my ducks was "OOOOO, WHERE ARE THE CHEERLEADERS!!!?!?!" No joke.

Behind the scenes tour was cool, saw all kinds of things like a giant sleepy kitty,



(from the tour guide: why does he sleep upside down? because he CAN!)

Elephants,



More kittys,





and all sorts of other things. I also found THE COOLEST souvenir of the entire trip: A propeller hat!



Seemed like a long day but we actually left the zoo late afternoon for a couple hour bus ride to our new hotel. Got there without incident, got settled in, and had some pool time!





After the short break we loaded back up to eat at Shakey's.



Kinda funny- I think their capacity seating is like 130. We brought 123, and the 30 or so people that were in there sure cleared out in a hurry! Not bad food and a nice break from the days activities. EVERYONE slept well that night!

Cali Trip Day #2- Getting Wet.

So after a lllaaaaattteeee start from the Mcdonalds, we trundled off toward California. We were running a few hours behind so we were late for our next stop- Sea World!

First stop once we got there was to check and make sure I was tall enough for all of the rides.



Pretty sure I'm good.

I should mention here that our bad luck continued through the night... 2 of our students had siezures of some kind while on the bus. One was fairly severe but she seemed to be doing great. We kept her with us throughout the day in a wheelchair. One good thing did come of this- as her helpers we got to cut to the front of most of the lines. First ride we went on- Atlantis.

"Oh, you'll only get a little wet"...



We got VERY wet. Thanks a lot, Bonnie... Just remember that what goes around comes around.

Spent the rest of the afternoon trying rides and taking in the shows. The dolphin show was incredible and so was Shamu!



So many things to see- polar bears, sharks, penguins, dolphins, orcas, and on and on. Great place to visit, but plan on spending more time!

We stayed a little later than we had planned on because we were late getting there. Once it was time to go we loaded up and went a few blocks to Belmont Park to ride the 100 year old wooden roller coaster. Lotsa fun!

Thoroughly cooled after the roller coaster:



Pretty amazing feat to watch- we managed to get 110 kids OFF the buses in 90 seconds flat, all of them rode the coaster, and loaded back on the bus in I'm guessing under 1/2 an hour. Guess they were hungry! We at that night at a lovely restaurant called Ricky's just up the road from our hotel. Finally, we got to sleep in a REAL bed!