Day Two: Laying Flowers for Mrs. Schoenherr's Grandparents

One of the ways we were able to make this trip more personal was by seeking out and honoring the gravesite of CJHS teacher Heather Schoenherr's grandfather and grandmother at Arlington Nat'l Cemetery. Sammie, Autumn and Alina laid the flowers while another twelve or so Concord kids stood with Mrs. Jones and me in quiet reflection. The vid is here.

Day Two: Wreath Laying Ceremony

This was the second time Concord kids were able to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown. We learned a bit last year and thus this year the kids were dressed perfectly. Though I wish more than four could participate in the ceremony, we couldn't have been better represented. Alina, Kevin, Kristen & Kyle carried themselves with somber dignity. If you missed them, the vids are here, here and here.

Day One: Nat'l Cathedral & Zoo Shots

Though my group did get in trouble for roaming
unattended (only allowed for groups of 13 or fewer), I was happy to finally get to see the Darth Vader statue which Hannah B captured pretty well on film.

Day One: More Gettysburg Pics

These are a few of the Gettysburg pics that I wanted to make sure got highlighted on the blog. Also, I'm experimenting with blogger's video upload option. If it works, there should be two videos: One of the kids as tour guide Kavin details just how much damage some Civil War ammunition did, and the other is... well let's just say it doesn't matter how new the world-class museum and visitor's center is, most kids who are tired and just finished sitting through a two-hour-long lecture might find other ways to occupy themselves.

Pick Your Cliche

Time to tie up the loose ends... get my butt in gear... wrap this puppy up -- however you want to put it, I'm bound and determined to finish the DC08 blog within the next 60 hours.

What to say about this year's trip? I wouldn't have thought for anything that it'd take me three weeks to finally bite the bullet and finish the blog, though I know from experience that once back home it's hard to find the time to reflect properly about a trip. In fact, the only reason I'm able to spend time now reflecting and sorting pictures is that I'm traveling with my family to a funeral. Not a happy occasion, to be sure, but I'm glad for the chance to think back over this year's DC trip -- about what worked and what didn't.

Though there’s definitely still room to improve, in a number of ways I think we put together a better trip this year than either of the past two years. I'm especially glad that we spent minimal time in shopping mall food courts and gave the kids an authentic taste of the city of Washington, DC. As I've talked with folks over the last couple weeks whose students attended the trip at other schools, I've been a little amused at how surprised they are that we actually walked the streets of DC. At least two asked me, "Isn't DC the murder capital of the United States?" Um, not for about fifteen years. In fact, our midwestern neighbor of Flint tops the list of number of murders per capita. Kids are much more likely to be injured or killed in automobile accidents (and see here) back home with their families than exploring the areas of DC that we picked out for them. On the other hand, we chaperones were deeply aware of in parentis locos (no kids that doesn't mean your parents are crazy, but roughly translated I think it might mean we were crazy to take on the responsibility for 49 of you at once...) One of the reasons this trip was more stressful than the past two is that taking that many kids to outdoor venues like Dupont Circle, Adams Morgan, Eastern Market and Chinatown does indeed feel more risky than turning them loose in a shopping mall. I'm not actually sure if kids are statistically safer in shopping mall than, say, in the circle at Dupont. I imagine it depends on the time of day, etc. But at the very least there's less potential for kids to wander outside preset boundaries in a shopping mall than in a neighborhood. Without cell phones, I'd have to reconsider allowing kids out and about town, at least as young as these kids are.

So that's one major strength of the trip, in my opinion. I'll lay out some of the rest of my thoughts in the remaining posts, and I look forward to hearing more from all of you. Once school starts, we'll send out a survey for both guardians and kids that I hope you'll all fill out -- it's feedback from parents and kids over the last two years that has helped to improve the trip.

I've collected several dozen of my favorite pics and I've still got a few vids to put up on YouTube, so I'll spend the next couple days scattering my thoughts amongst the pics and vids.

Gettysburg vids

Slowly but surely I'm wading through the voluminous pics and vids. If you cross your fingers, I might manage to finish before the kids graduate high school. (-:

This year we took several vids of the kids in Gettysburg. I've embedded a playlist below, but if it doesn't work, try clicking here.

DC08 Pix Taken by Kids

It took me 9 hours to upload these yesterday.
Then only 30 minutes to accidentally delete them this morning.
And only 3 hours this morning to upload them all again.
Go figure.

Anyway, if I recall correctly, these are photos that I copied from Hannah, Kailee, Haley, Alina, Brumbaugh, Samuel, Miller-Boy, Sarah and Jim. Once I get into school, I'll add photos from Paige. Given the quantity, I did very little touching-up; some of them aren't even rotated. (I did do Samuel a huge favor by deleting the photo of him in the hotel room -- you owe me, buddy boy -- I can't believe I didn't even think to keep a copy to blackmail you in a couple years when you're aiming for a serious girlfriend. Miller-Boy, if I were you I'd keep a copy around for that day). If you see any that you'd like me to email the original, just let me know.

Kudos to the kids for taking a lot of noteworthy shots. I'll sprinkle some of my favorites into the blog over the next couple days as I write wrap-up posts.

Yikes What A Week.

If I could just indulge in one paragraph's worth of whining....

It's been two years exactly since my last sinus infection; I know the date well because it followed our first trip to DC. I blamed it then on the bus ride back to Elkhart, and, I gotta say, I'm inclined to do so again. Last year I didn't ride the bus home, and, guess what -- no infection. But it turns out this year I was fighting another infection as well. See I got this insect bite a couple weeks ago. No big deal -- spider, mosquito, whatever. Yes, I noticed that it wasn't going away and was in fact swelling and turning purple and filled with pus, but by this time we were running around like chickens with our heads cut off in DC, so I didn't really think about it. Besides, I'm a guy. What kind of guy goes to the doctor for a stupid little bug bite? I'll tell you what kind of guy: the smart ones. And if I'd have mentioned it to my doc earlier in the week I'd have been getting better faster. Turns out infected bug bites need a different antibiotic than sinus infections. Who knew?

Anyway, I started the second RX yesterday and hope to work on getting the blog wrapped up later today and tomorrow. The kids took some neat photos that I'm looking forward to sharing. So check back in a couple days for final posts.

I Know I'm Supposed to Upload...

... but i seem to have the same type of sinus infection i got coming home on the bus two years ago. give me a couple days, or at least a few hours, and i promise to upload a bunch of the pics and vid. now i'm going back to bed...

till next time,

cowells

A Big Thanks to our Guardian Angels

One neat aspect of this trip was the tangible guardian support for us and the kids while on the trip. Some of you sent positive comments via text, or email, or commented on the site. Others sent those words of encouragement through your kids.

I'm sure I'll forget someone significant, but offhand two families stand out for their contributions. The first is Andrew's mom, who took the time to home-bake dozens of cookies and prepackaged bags of homemade chex mix for everybody. At first, it seemed we'd neglected to properly appreciate the gift, as we forgot to dispense on the bus traveling east. But in retrospect, that meant we had nourishment and connections to home just when we most needed them. We handed out the cookies on Thursday, soon after resolving the wallet-stolen-by-Holocaust-Museum-employee ordeal. It was the perfect time for comfort food! And the chex mix may have prevented a student mutiny when they'd walked for several hours in and out, around and back-around, the 4th of July security fences as we toured the memorials around the reflecting pool. The kids were quite rightly hungry, hot and tired, and they needed to walk another few blocks for lunch. Just then we whipped out the chex mix and that gave them the needed fuel to keep going. Kathy, thanks very much from each of us!

The other guardian support that comes to mind offhand is samuel's parents, who sent along enough ponchos for all of us. Boy did we end up needing them. Once I get caught up on uploading pics and vids, you'll see just what I mean.

Till next time...

What A Difference A Day Makes.

I wonder if we should have a contest to see who slept the most once back at home? If we did, I think I've got good chances of winning: In the 24 hours from 7AM yesterday till 7AM this morning, I slept about 19 or 20 hours. And man did it feel good.

Now I'm working on the regular post-trip stuff: laundry, unpacking, etc. I started sorting through pics today and hope to put a bunch more up on flickr tomorrow morning. I also plan in the upcoming days to post more complete descriptions of the last couple days and upload more video to YouTube.

Tomorrow would also be a handy time for me to deliver the many unclaimed items off the bus. I've got a bag of souvenirs that belongs to Paige, a soccer ball of Nina's, a sweatshirt of Alexis' and a plastic gun with electrical tape of Eric's. But there are other items that I don't know who they belong to: A pillow with red/burgundy cover, a number of mp3 headphones, a pair of sunglasses and more. Email me at acowells@yahoo.com or call me if you think I have something of yours.

Short Saturday Morning Update

1. We made it back safe and sound to the hotel last night at close to midnight.
2. At this point, I've been unable to work out with the bus company a way to arrive later tomorrow at CJHS, so unless you hear otherwise today we need you to be at CJHS by 6AM.
   
3. Who knows what I'll be able to throw up on the blog today; I'll see what I can do. Thanks to those of you who sent words of support and appreciation. For those of you who were expecting more, all I can say is that we've done a far better job of keeping posting pics and videos to the web during the trip than either of the past two years. Keep an eye out for updates in the next week or two. We've got hundreds of pics and plenty more video footage to sift through and post.

What a week it's been! I look forward to reflecting and posting more about it. Right now, though, I've got to get my room cleaned up so I can supervise as the kids pack for the ride home.

Stay tuned...

Quick July 4 mid-day update

4PM: This day is always unpredictable, but despite the unexpected hurdles that we've encountered along the way it's unfolding nicely thus far. We'd planned to let the kids sleep in today; that was a good choice -- they needed it. And then we ran 'em hard. Vietnam Memorial, then Lincoln, then Korea, then W. W. II Memorial. What would normally have been a lot of walk was on this holiday a killer amount of walking because of all the extra security fences that we had to walk around. And we're lugging around tarps and blankets for tonight. But the kids have been troopers.

The rain is holding off, for now at least. But the clouds look ominous. Not sure how it's gonna play out but rain hasn't hurt our experience the last two years, so we're crossing our fingers. The kids are finishing a late, late lunch and now re-gathering around the camp we've set up.

Weatherholt has done a magnificent job of collecting video reflections from students along the way. They should be embedded as a playlist below, but just in case that doesn't load for you, here's the link.

Thursday Highlights

1. Starting by taking the elevator to the top of the Washington Monument, which is tends to be a part of the trip the kids enjoy.
2. Then headed over to the Holocaust Museum. Certainly not what I'd call super enjoyable for the kids, but that's the point, isn't it? At this age I think we're still mostly planting seeds; perhaps a few were able to absorb a decent amount of the horror, but most got just a taste of it and that's fine by me. They still have plenty of time to realize just how bad humans can be; and we were impressed and appreciative of how well behaved they were.
3. Just as we were leaving, the day took a turn into the surreal: One of our students had his wallet stolen by -- of all people -- an employee of the museum. It's a long story and in the end the details don't matter as the museum supervisors and security were terrifically helpful and apologetic and in the end were able get our young man his wallet back. But the bizarreness of the situation came through in a couple ways:
   

sorry, ran out of time (really, didn't intend to leave you hanging. if it weren't for all the kids on the trip, i'd have plenty of time to keep a splendid blog). i uploaded a bunch of pics from the washington monument here. To see the most recent pics, click on pages 4 and 5 down near the bottom of the page.

Wednesday Summary in Quick Fragments

7:45 = Departed hotel, headed for Arlington
8:30- 11:20 = Laying of wreath at Tomb of the Unknown, then split into two groups. Weathholt & Meagher & 30 kids visit many sites, including Challenger Memorial, Audey Murphy gravesite & JFK grave site. Jones & Cowells and rest of kids see JFK grave site, President/Chief Justice of SCOTUS Taft's grave, and visit Mrs. Schoenherr's grandparents' grave site where kids kids lay flowers.
11:20 = kids hot and tired of walking.
11:30 = bus won't start.
11:45 = bus jumped and starting
12:10 = lunch at Union Station
1PM = designated time to leave for Capitol Building tour. Where are Sam H & Preston M? Weatherholt stays behind to scoop them up, rest of teachers hurry with kids for scheduled tours.
1:20, 1:25 = divided into two groups to tour Capitol. Sam, Preston & Weatherholt run and just barely make it. Cowells promises to deal with the boys later.
1:20-3PM = Tour of Capitol Building. Always before were led by congressional staffers, this time had to take Red Coat tour. It's okay. Do have gallery tickets, though - teachers happy to show kids where State of the Union speech is given and so much important legislation is passed or voted down. Kids keep asking, "Why are we looking at this big empty room?"
Chaperones growl. Kids growl back.
3PM = All assembled on west side of Capitol Building ( where new pres. will take inaugural oath in January). All are hot. And thirsty. Kids keep hinting, "Are we going back to the hotel now?"
3:05PM = Chaperones huddle. Consider giving the kids a refreshing afternoon at hotel pool, but realize that hot days are still to come this week and the kids can't think we'll head back every afternoon. Veto hotel idea.
3:20PM = Cowells makes Preston M. and Sam H. stand on a sidewalk line in the sun. Kyle B & Brodie K say Cowells is softie. Cowells growls.
3:15PM = Offer kids a quick trip back to Union Station for cold drink break. All happy, and soon all are refreshing at Union Station.
4:30PM = Time to hurry from Union Station to Supreme Court building. Cowells psyches kids out on the way by saying they have to hurry for (non-existent) formal lecutre. Kids groan, but move with good speed.
5PM = Cowells makes "deal" with kids -- if they'll pay attention, we'll "skip the formal lecture" and instead he'll give quick lecture in shade. Kids take deal, pay attention. All happy.
5:20PM. Group tries to re-connect with bus to get ride over to FDR Memorial. Much of downtown DC fenced and blocked off for 4th of July fireworks. Some walking in circles. Some groaning. But soon everybody boards bus.
Traffic over to FDR Memorial is slow. Cowells growls that they could've walked the 2 1/2 miles faster. Kids groan, except Kyle B & Brodie K who again call Cowells a softie.
5:45-6:30PM = Relaxed tour of FDR Memorial. Kids like shade and waterfalls. Most happy. Kevin B. asks if they can stay longer. But soon growling stomachs reign supreme and all board bus for ride to neighborhood called Dupont Circle for dinner and Gandhi statue and bocce ball with Cowells' bro-in-law and sister.
7:10PM = Arrive Dupont Circle, everybody scatters for dinner.
8-9PM = Most start drifting back in the circle, all enjoying themselves.Meals for adults take FOREVER. Eventually, decide to abandon meals to continue evening plans. All enjoying fun people-watching in Dupont Circle.
9:45PM = Adults decide to push back rendezvous time to 10PM; after all, bus ride back to hotel will be short this late at night. Cowells' cell dies.
All happy. Several kids say they want to move to Washington, DC.
10PM = Back on bus for return to hotel.
10:15PM = Stopped in standstill traffic. Kids still happy. Chaperones tired; start transferring pics from cameras to laptops.
10:45PM = Get through traffic jam.
11:20PM = Arrive back hotel. Kids pretty good about getting settled down.
11:45PM = Chaperones work upload over 100 pics to photo set here, realize that some kids have done terrific job of hiding from the camera. Wonder how many angry parent emails will arrive tomorrow. Go to bed, promising to capture those kids on film tomorrow.
12:20AM = Shayne, Sam, Brodie & Preston M knock on adjoining wall to Cowells' room.
Cowells growls.

All happy.

Link to pics

I'm not usually the kind of person who says things like "I love to sleep!" Most of the time, I'd rather be getting something accomplished. But, man oh man, do I feel better after a few hours sleep in a bed.
Quick word before we head out to Arlington: I noticed that some of the pics I thought I'd uploaded on the blog yesterday aren't showing up today -- no clue what's going on there. But it's besides the point, as I won't have time to put them all on the blog, anyway. Perhaps you've noticed the slideshow coming through (hopefully) on the left of your screen? You can go directly to that cache of DC08 photos on my flickr account, here. Here's a sample of yesterday's shots.

9:10PM. All safe...

... here at the Comfort Inn, though not exactly quiet, yet, despite my most diligent efforts. It's amazing to me how the same phenomenon happens every year: Thanks to the lack of sleep on the bus, all day the kids are dragging and weary. One told me today that if he had to take another step his feet would fall off. I'm afraid my reaction disappointed him -- I said that would be interesting. Anyway, no matter how exhausted they are throughout the day, and no matter how sincere their intentions to sleep tonight, once their feet hit the hotel carpet it's like throwing a bunch of jumping beans into a jar. I've been trying to keep the lid on that jar the last couple hours. I think maybe things have finally settled down, but I don't want to jinx it by actually relaxing. Not yet, anyway.


This morning they seemed especially tired compared to prior years; I'm not sure if we actually got that much less sleep or if I was simply imagining the difference. For the most part, they fought off the fatigue and managed pretty well at Gettysburg. The first hour was a too-much-info-too-fast and that was especially hard as we all struggled to stay focused and awake. The second hour provided for some fun exploring of some of the memorials and battlegrounds.

Then we drove into DC. Our lunch today was one of the (regrettable, in my opinion) times when we were scheduled to eat in a shopping mall. Maybe I was mistaken, but it seemed to me that the kids did a better job than past years of controlling their spending when they walked around after eating.

After that we drove to the National Cathedral, where we split into three groups because we chaperones thought that would allow for more meaningful and interactive touring. It worked pretty well, until I got a serious dressing down by one of the staffers for breaking the rules (we hadn't meant to do so, though in retrospect I see why they were upset that we weren't going through as one big group).

Following the Cathedral, we spent the next couple of hours in various smaller groups of the kids' choosing. Some opted to skip the National Zoo and headed straight for the neighborhood of Adams Morgan, where they chose from a number of different dinner venues. Other groups chose first to spend some time at the zoo, then they headed out for supper. We four chaperones stayed spread out in the two areas, trying to be as accessible and helpful as possible. Cell phones sure are handy (until mine died, anyway). According to some of the kids, my skills as a cartographer are a bit limited. I contend that it's their map reading skills (and text reading skills) that were lacking. Anyway, whereas I had typed "go downhill," they had instead headed uphill, ending up on the opposite side of the zoo, but between our cell conversations and some competent re-routing on their side, they managed to find an alternate route and soon joined the rest of us in Adams Morgan. It was neat to see a number of kids try to stretch their boundaries beyond national chains when eating dinner. I don't recall offhand who all ate where, but I do know that Collin, Samuel, Nikki and Nikohl all tried falafel (and I think all liked it). We'd seen the same adventuresome spirit today at lunch when Josh, Kyle, Rob and Jim tried sushi.

I know that the other chaperones and I got some great pictures and videos today. I'm too tired to upload them now, but will do so tomorrow or as soon as possible. Tomorrow is our earliest day of the week -- we'll leave the hotel by 7:45AM and head to Arlington Nat'l Cemetary. In the afternoon we'll tour the Capitol building and hit some memorials before spending the evening in Dupont Circle, playing outdoor games like bocce ball. One of the draws for us to Dupont Circle is the statue of Gandhi just a couple blocks away. Since that was a pretty meaningful part of the curriculum for a number of the kids when they were in seventh grade, I'm looking forward to spending some time with them there.

Hopefully we'll get pics up soon. Right now I'm going to cross my fingers than the quiet will last a while and start getting ready for bed.

Till next time...

Time for the first big stop

We got to Gettysburg about 7AM. It was not a sleep-filled night, except for a few remarkable souls like Andrew N. who were able to curl up and sleep. The rest of us kept complaining about the pain of trying to get comfortable in those seats (or on the floor, where several ended up). I promised them suffering on this trip, and we delivered pretty quickly.

The photos I managed to snap here and there didn't come out very well -- I think in my sleepiness I was using some bizarre settings. My bad.

We sang Happy Birthday to Preston J. when he turned 15 last night at 9PM.

In a little while we'll start our tour of Gettysburg. I was happy to see that we're scheduled to have Kavin as our tour guide -- we had him two years ago and he was really engaging.

Till next time.