Day One: June 4, on the road to St. Louie!
We left the small town of Hildreth June 4th, 2001 early in the morning. Departing with 14 team members, 4 sponsors, 2 extras, a luggage compartment full of necessities, and tons of food, the Eppely Express 36 seater was full to it's limit! Of course we were all very excited, and the bus filled with sounds of joy as we read the signs left for us wishing us luck on our way out of town. It was a long ride to St. Louis that lovely Monday in June. Unfortunately we were all a bit too excited to sleep, so it felt even longer. We immediately watched our video that we needed for our competition, preparing us for the next few days. After that was through we gave the TV's no rest and began watching our movies. I think we watched about all the PG-13 movies we could stand the first day! We all listened to our own music, or comedy a good portion of the way taking us through so many AA batteries! Time passed slowly, yet when we arrived at the Fairfield Inn in St. Louis, Missouri it seemed like the day had just begun.
Right away after unloading everything we heard the rules, and the plan for the next day. Immediately following our little lecture we all rushed to our rooms, and changed into our swimsuits. We were ready to check out the nice heated outdoor pool! It was a little hard to swim so late at night knowing that we had to be silent in order to respect the other guests, but we managed to have fun playing Alligator or freeze tag even without much talking! We had to be in our rooms by 11, so our swim was quick. Eventually we all made it into our rooms, some of us sleeping. Some of us stayed up all night talking to each other which we learned not to do again. Who would have thought that a sleepless night wouldn't prepare you for a full day at 6 Flags!
Day 2: June 5, 6 Flags then to Chattanooga, Tennessee
We all awoke early, well actually only about 3/4's of the class awoke early the rest of us remained awake, although we were growing a little sleepy, and went down to eat your typical Continental Breakfast. After filling up our tummies we went for a quick dip in the pool and went to get ready. Around ??? am we packed up our stuff and took off for 6 Flags. Fortunately it was about an hour drive, so a few of us got a little nap before starting the long day. Once we got parked and ready to go, we bought our tickets and began our day of fun! The Batman was ridden first by all of the roller coaster lovers, then we ended up splitting up and going our own separate ways. The lines weren't unreasonable, extremely short compared to other parks such as Disney World, so a few of us ended up riding every single ride in the park, however that didn't leave much time in the water park, so others just rode their top choices then spent the afternoon cooling off on the slides. I'm guessing that the favorite ride to the daring members of the class was Mr. Freeze. It was ridden multiple times by everyone that went on it once. It just went by so fast I guess, but it was a good ride to go on to dry off from the unexpected soaking on the water ride. The water park was nice, with lots of slides, a wave pool and other fun stuff like that. Eventually all of us ended up with dry clothes on and we got on the bus ready for the next wing of the trip.
I can't tell you much about the drive to Chattanooga because I, like many others were pretty wiped out and so we slept the whole way. I guess it was a nice drive fairly scenic, oh and I hear Nashville was a really really nice city! We watched one or two movies, but it was pretty pointless because everyone was sound asleep only waking at the rest stops. We finally arrived in Chattanooga after about 9 hours of sleeping, I mean driving. We stayed once again at a Fairfield Inn, which was a little different than the first. As soon as we got in our rooms and got the departure time straightened out most of us went quickly to sleep. I'm sure TV was watched for a little while in everyone's rooms like it was in ours, but it was already about 1:30 am, so most of us fell asleep quickly.
Day 3: June 6: Ruby Falls, Lookout Mountain, Incline RR, Rock City... arrival in Athens, Georgia
Once again we awoke early and readied ourselves for the day ahead. We loaded the bus once again and hit the road. Luckily we weren't on it for too long because we arrived in the scenic area of Chattanooga, TN and toured Ruby Falls. Ruby Falls is a cave that was opened up for tourism in the ????s. The tour takes you through the cave pointing out what some thought different rock formations looked like, such as the rear end of a donkey, a fish, or a chandelier. At the halfway point just before turning back there is a huge water fall, the longest underground one in the world. Dramatic lights and music enhance the tourists experience. After Ruby Falls we headed outside only to learn that we would be eating a meal in the rain. The hamburger I ate tasted delicious considering I was by this time used to lunchmeat sandwiches. The next part in the morning's activities was Lookout Mountain, which was right close to Ruby Falls. Because of the rain, not a whole lot of time was spent up on the tower overlooking the 7 different states. There were of course those machines where you put in a quarter and get a certain amount of time to look at the magnified scenery.
Next we took off and headed to Incline Railway. Incline Railway is the nations steepest railroad track, and it was steep, too steep for a few of the class (and a certain sponsor!). But the tour guide shared some encouraging words ensuring us that it was very safe. At the bottom of this hill we stopped for 10 minutes or so and had a snack of ice cream or funnel cakes. Then it was back up for us. At the top again Mrs. Fritz was reminded of the special occasion on that day, Stuart's birthday! She felt bad for forgetting and bought him lots of candy to make up for her forgetfulness!
Next stop Rock City.
Rock City was nearby, yet far enough that we had to get on the bus and drive. Luckily by this time the rain had ceased and it turned into a fairly nice day. First Class Hiking probably describes Rock City the best. With nicely maintained stone paths, it's hard to consider it hiking. The trails took you through so much beautiful scenery! At a few spots you could see seven states, and miles and miles of trees. It's extremely different from Nebraska! The vast amounts of trees is just amazing! They call it Rock City because in addition to having trees everywhere, there were also rocks lining the paths, and everywhere! Towards the end of the hiking experience is the Fairyland Caverns. Inside are hundreds of scenes from the most popular fairy tales. Along with the Caverns is the 1,000 ton balancing rock! It's been balancing on a little point for millions of years. It's quite fascinating when you walk under it and know that it won't fall on you, even though there's nothing stopping it! Of course Rock City is a tourist attraction, so we all spent a bit of time in the gift shop!
Then it was back to the bus. By this time we were all ready to get to Athens. It wasn't too far from Chattanooga but by this time we were all hoping that we could just be there in a few minutes. That wasn't going to happen though! A few hours later after an impatient bus ride we arrived at our destination! We were anxious to get to our rooms and unpack and relax, but we had to wait a while to get registered, and to distribute our keys, armbands and necessities like that. Eventually we were finally able to unload the bus and head inside Brumby Hall we were a bit relieved to see the four working elevators when we found out we would be a few floors up! Thank goodness we didn't have to haul all of our bags up four flights of stairs!!!!!!!!
We finally reached our dorms. After exploring a bit we unpacked all of our clothes, made our beds, and called our parents. Of course there were problems with a few of the phones, so it didn't go as smoothly as it could have, but it all worked out. Pretty soon we met in Mrs. Fritz's room to discuss our plans for the next few days. After a while we got ready for bed and planned on going to sleep (yeah right, we weren't sick of each other yet!). I don't think much of anything exciting happened the first night in the dorms. A few of the guys sat down in the lobby and watched a basketball game they had been waiting days for, but other than that we were pretty much in our rooms or the hallways fairly early. The excitement of our arrival and the knowledge that we would be able to sleep in a little the next day didn't encourage us to go to bed to early, so we ended up staying awake running through the halls, and socializing with everyone until a late hour.
Day 4: June 7th, Day 1 of the International Problem Solving Competition
About half of the class woke up bright and early and headed for breakfast, while the other half just slept the morning away! Breakfast ended about 9:30, so most of us girls woke up and headed down to see what the cafeteria food we'd be eating for the next few days would be like. Unfortunately we were discouraged from the start when some of us couldn't even find the place! At least we got to see a bit of the campus! Once we finally arrived at the Student Center we learned that it probably would have been smarter just to eat some of the snacks that we had! The line was really, really long, so most of us just ended up eating a small bowl of cereal, which wasn't really worth waking up early for! Oh well At least we were raring' to go for the day (NOT!). When we got back to our rooms we showered and tried to take a bit of a morning snooze, but because of the fact that by this time everyone had woken up and was getting their energy it was a little bit too loud outside to sleep. Eventually everyone woke up and got ready for the long day ahead of us.
We met in Mrs. Fritz's room about 11:30, and she told us everything she knew about the competition, which at this point wasn't a WHOLE lot, but enough to keep our minds thinking. Elyse had been taken to the clinic, due to illness, so we ended up heading over to lunch without her and Marge, but they met us halfway through our campus tour so we were all right. Our lunch experience was similar to breakfast, not extremely pleasant, but hey, it was free food (not really free, we had just already paid, so it was worthwhile), so we tried to enjoy it. Sometime after lunch we headed to Tate Center where we were to work on our competition board. We spent a good deal of time on the board, we wanted it to look awesome, but we had had no idea what to expect, so we hadn't brought everything we could think of to make it perfect, just the bare necessities to complete the board. Luckily there was a bookstore nearby that carried a nice container of potpourri which was a good addition to the reflective cardboard we had set out along with a couple framed pictures of Celeste. We remembered that the yellow rose was her favorite flower, so we ended up sending George with a kind lady working in the center to a flower shop to pick up a few yellow roses which would be set out, then presented to our judges. Along with the yellow roses he ended up picking up a few dozen extra red ones. When he got back each of us presented Mrs. Fritz with a rose, making it a true Kodak moment! She loved it and we all loved the fact that she did!
Soon after our rose presentation we headed over to the field where the memento exchange was taking place. We were just a few minutes late, although already hundreds of people were gathered around each other trading souvenirs from their hometowns for others from everywhere else! I think about everyone was satisfied with the trades they made, and although we still had tons of leftover pins, we also had TONS of new things to look at and show off! After a little short of an hour we all rushed to find some supper. Most of the class headed back to the cafeteria to get a meal, but the rest of us just went back to the dorms and ordered Papa Johns pizza, which we really enjoyed! It was a wise decision on our part because we later found out that the lines were out of the cafeteria they were so long! We were glad we hadn't gone there to eat, because we would have ended up eating a second meal of cereal!
The next thing on the day's agenda was the opening ceremony. By the time it finally got started we were ready for it to be over! It took a long time for the flag carriers to get rounded up and ready to go. But when it did start we were glad to be there. The costumes on the flag people were cute, it was fairly entertaining to watch some of them make total fools of themselves! The elderly man who started the whole thing gave a speech which was cool because we realized that if it weren't for him we wouldn't be there! The only thing was that he was old, and his voice was a little too soft and slurred to understand very clearly, but it was all right. A few others spoke about problem solving and the days to come, and then the flag bearers processed out with their state's/country's flag, and we all loaded the campus busses to go back to the dorms.
Overall the day was rewarding. Through our board work we relaxed quite a bit about our upcoming presentation. While working we had met our two judges, and realized that they were SOOO nice and since they loved our project, we were assured that we would do just fine in our competition. Although we weren't too thrilled about things like the campus food, it all worked out and we were excited for the rest of our time at the University of Georgia!
Day 5, June 8th... Day 2 of the International Problem Solving Competition
We woke up early and prepared for the day ahead. Today was the big day. The day we had been waiting months for. We were finally going to get to present our project to our wonderful judges! Of course we were nervous, but it wasn't too bad. If we hadn't met our judges the day before, and were anticipating mean judges, it would have been worse. In the morning we had a lecture about "green space" so we had to get up fairly early in order to get breakfast and get to it on time. The lecture was intended on giving us the information we would need to solve the problem in Athens, Georgia. It was our spontaneous problem. We were supposed to figure out the problem, possible solutions and whatever else. The problem we had with solving the problem was that it was only about 8 in the morning when we began, so well, we were all sleeping throughout the entire thing! Okay so we probably should have just gone to bed earlier the night before, but we were making friends and meeting new people! It was humorous though because during the whole presentation there were tons of kids sound asleep, a few snores were even heard!!!! The funny part was that none of the speakers seemed to care, all except for one. It must have bothered him severely because he like shouted or something to wake us up then he got us standing up and moving around. Right when he let us sit again though we all went back to sleep! Our whole row was sound asleep through the entire thing! Luckily the quality of the spontaneous booklet didn't affect our placings in the competition, it was just required that we do it, so Mrs. Fritz and Marge volunteered to do it for us!!!!
After our nice little lecture that lasted a few hours, so I guess it was hardly little, we headed back to the dorms, for the rest of the morning and early afternoon. Somewhere in there I guess we ate lunch but mainly we just killed time around Bruby Hall. Of course we, Sarah and I (Andrea), decided it'd be fun to do hair, so in our dorm time I did Amber, Sarah, Marge and my own hair, and Sarah beautified Mrs. Fritz. This would get us started in the fun we would have later that night! Sometime in our few hours that we had of free time we met and thought about our speech and presentation. George, being a speech professor at UNK came in handy for this preparation!
Soon we headed over to Tate Center to give our presentation to our wonderful judges.
The judges were running a few minutes behind schedule so it gave George a few minutes to talk to us about our presentation. Once we got in, and introduced ourselves to the judges it was time to begin. We were all excited, yet at the same time extremely nervous. Hey, we were getting it over with in the middle of the trip, early in the day. In a few minutes we would be through, anxious for the award ceremony, wondering if we would win. Because of our nervousness, and the fact that we didn't really know what we were supposed to talk about and share with the judges it took us a while to get into good conversation with our judges. But it didn't really matter that we didn't share everything with them because they had been sent our booklet and video so they already knew everything there was to know about Project Celeste. We ended up talking about simple things such as our parents' occupations, and quite a bit about the town of Hildreth. We shared our personal experiences from working on the project, and little things like who wrote the booklet, and similar topics. We never ended up sharing what we as an individual did on our project, which was the question we thought for sure we'd be asked. After our "speech" was done we joined the judges in watching our moving video which nearly brought them to tears! Then we presented a yellow rose to each of them and finished up. As we left they had a treat for each of us as well. They gave each of us a small container of bubbles for us to blow during the talent show the following evening. We weren't the only group that had a new toy, but only the groups that they judged received bubbles, so we were one of the few that had them. We left the room with not only bubbles, but smiling faces and the knowledge that our judges had LOVED our project, and the knowledge that they were so moved by it.
During the afternoon we mainly just killed some time around the dorms, and the rest of campus.
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