THURSDAY JULY 5TH, 2007
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 TWB DAY 20Welcome to Kansas and it's endless oil rigs.  Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, your newest bloggers, the Happy group, are about to present to you what could be, quite possibly, the most awe inspiring daily blog thus far on our Teens Westward Bound experience. Today, trip one ventured into and traversed across the great state of Kansas. As we journeyed across the great wheat fields, most of us took naps due to our early 6:00 a.m. wake up, only to awake to more wheat fields, and the occasional expanse of corn. We left this morning without thirteen of our campers due to the failure of the air conditioning on Miss America. We all know how hard it was for them to watch the movie Transformers, eat at the International House of Pancakes, and shop around in Colorado Springs while they waited for the repair job to be completed. They eventually left about seven hours after the main TWB caravan which delayed the receipt of everyone's sleeping bags. This morning our gourmet traveling breakfast consisted of blueberry and raisin bran muffins with near-green bananas and juice. After crossing into the Central Standard Time Zone at around 11:00 a.m. Mountain Time, we decided to have our great traveling lunch, peanut butter and jelly sandwich=). Riding miles and miles through the entertaining wheat fields, we had a special treat of watching Forest Gump for the third consecutive time, basically because it was the only movie that worked. Then to the most exciting part of the day, which was stopping and taking a picture at the TWB oil rig. Back onto the bus to view some more spectacular sights of wheat, again. Finally we where at the mosquito infested campground, where we were able to swim, take showers, call home (well that is if we can find a pay phone that probably doesn't exist), and wait for the arrival of Miss America. We are now on are way to eating our delicious meal of Ramen noodles with sweet tea. Now waiting for another early morning of more wheat fields until our next stop, the University of Kansas, as we work our way eastward through the Archway to the West. Tomorrow we say goodbye to Dorothy and Toto. LOVE, THE HAPPIES, Will Mack, Jennifer Crawford, Mary Grace Fraley, Justin Bowling, Owen Bruner, Haley Conner, Dustin Crawford, Jana Crocker, Morgan Gibson, Alex Haislip, Lauren Jenkins, Josh Kramer, Kelli Tyson, and Joseph Silvers A note from Kitch (Happy's favorite group leader): It didn't feel the same today with only a bus and one van as we traveled across the exciting state of Kansas. We missed our Miss America van but are very happy to announce that the air conditioning is finally FIXED! Driving through Kansas confused my van's steering wheel a little... after driving straight for eight hours, the van has forgotten how to turn left or right. Needless to say, we finally made it to Tuttle Creek State park where we enjoyed dinner, a little fishing (the guys are expecting to catch something throughout the night), swimming, showers, hanging out, and an awesome sing along. We even found a HUGE frog, in which I kissed!! What fun! The participants are realizing that this amazing experience is sadly coming to an end. They are already starting to pull all-nighters, in fear of missing one single thing. We are not ready to leave each other (everyone wants to take everyone else home with them), but we look forward to seeing our families in three more days. Three brave ladies on T-Dub (Kitch Deaton, Emma Nelli, and Anna Clark) kissed a frog to find their prince charming. Watch out, Grant!!    Sleeping Picture of the Day:  Miss America's Air Condition Adventure:  The unveiling of the 2007 13 passenger Ford Focus. Riders wanted. Do not try at home!   Waiting on the van's air conditioner to get fixed didn't turn out so bad after all. We dropped the van off and shuttled in groups to IHOP in a mini-van supplied by the Ford place. We were also served complimentary coffee while waiting for the shuttles. After eating a breakfast at IHOP, we all “survived the explosions that took place. The entire group had to wait for Bob to finish his 9 course steak breakfast before seeing how many people we could fit in our rented Ford Focus. Turns out, you can fit fifteen campers inside, but you have to get real close and personal. We then did a little shopping until we found out an approximate time the van would be ready. Turns out, we had until 2:30! So, we shopped a little more and somehow came up with the idea to make matching t-shirts to mark the great day! We sat in front of Michael's working on them until Bob and Lauren pulled up, telling us we could go see the 11:30 showing of Transformers. Afterwards, we finished our shirts in front of the theater where many people questioned what in the world we were doing. Bob and Lauren picked up the van and came back to get us so we could continue onto Kansas in a newly air conditioned van. Sadly, we were only 7 hours behind the rest of the group. In the van, we worked on our shirts, slept, and listened to music. At about 9, Lauren surprised us by buying us all ice cream at McDonald's-yuummmm! Then, we just continued our trip to camp where we arrived around 1 a.m. And guess what. We had the sleeping bags so everyone had to wait on us, hahah! I guess you could say this has been the best day of TWB for the Miss America van! MA Riders: Jana, Alexa, Lauren J., Ryan C., Joe-Pete, Marge, Morgan, Alex B., Meredith, Jack, Katie H., Nicki, and Nathan. MA Drivers/Co-Pilots: Bob and Lauren W. Note from counselors Bob & Lauren: Our day began at 6 a.m. and didn't finish till 1 a.m., but it turned out to be one of our favorite days of the trip. We were blessed to be asked to stay back in Colorado Springs in order to repair the air condition on the MA van. We wanted to make it a special day for those who were chosen and more than willing to go along for the adventure. We are still a little confused as to how we traded a fifteen passenger van for a five-seater Ford Focus. However, it made for a wonderful picture when we crammed all of the participants inside. The drive to Kansas is normally miserable but with t-shirts to sign, heartfelt conversations, dance parties, and free ice cream, the time passed quickly. We could not have asked for a better group of participants to savor every moment of the day. Our personal favorite counselor moment of the day: Lauren falling asleep, taking up five seats of the movie theater row, while lying on Bob's arm, which also fell asleep (think back to how many seats she took up). Our very own TWB Transformers.  Lauren, declared Counselor of the Year by Miss America, for treating everyone to ice cream.  You can't drive all day, all night, through Kansas without a dance party!  |
