We survived another Girl Scout troop field trip (it took an extra dose of Provigil and three cups of coffee, but we got home). This one was to the Imax 3D theater in Chattanooga, then the Tennessee Aquarium, then Ruby Falls. We didn’t get back home until after 10 pm. My girls and I left earlier than the others, even, because they had decided to go find somewhere to eat seafood and none of us wanted that. By the time we got back here, I was at the “beat but too tired to sleep” point. After attempting to catch up on reading the many, many pages of LJ entries by my friends, I think I can almost get to bed now. Our two girls were absolutely wonderful on the trip, and I’m proud of them. They were, in fact, far better behaved than three of the parents.
Oh—the leader’s schedule showed us getting back to our meeting place at 4 pm. Um, what? We were to meet at 8:45 am and hit the road at 9. We waited for a latecomer while one parent went home to get (slightly more) appropriate clothing for her teen daughter (got decent walking shoes but left her braless in the too-tight tank top, claiming “well all her shirts are like that”—I nearly said, “so what’s her hourly rate?” Maybe this is a sign that I shouldn’t be a leader next year!). We got on the road closer to 10 after the head leader finally called the late child’s mother to see where the heck they were—and the mother just said, “Oh, we decided not to go.” Without calling? Without a word to anyone? For a trip that’s been planned for months, and tickets that the troop already paid for? Happily, we had a “spare” show up hoping to go despite having thought she’d be out of town when we did the planning, so the tickets weren’t wasted.
So anyway, leader one says we’ll be in Chattanooga by 11 and made reservations for the IMAX for 11:30. That didn’t work. My car pulled in at 11:30, and I don’t exactly drive slowly. Two more vehicles arrived 15 and 20 minutes later. She did manage to change the reservations for noon. But personally, I would have scheduled the aquarium after the drive (sitting, then walking), then lunch, THEN the Imax, then Ruby Falls. As it was, the girls were fidgety through the movie (although it was WAY cool) because they’d just spent 1.5 to nearly 2 hours sitting in cars. I couldn’t blame them at all, either—that’s just too long to sit after such a trip. Then they were all pretty whiney and tired by the end of the Ruby Falls hike (which took about 2 hours rather than the scheduled 1 hour). But hey, I wasn’t in charge, I was just the official Certified First Aider for this trip. But no, nobody was at our meeting place at 4 pm unless some poor parents were hanging out there (they had been told that leader one would call them when we got back in town, so they shouldn’t have been waiting—I hope nobody was!).
One of our Daisies, a real sweetie, attached herself to Katie, so she and her father rode up with us and came back in one of the vans. I think her father was a little weirded out about the Moxy Fruvous and TMBG CDs, but when I asked him what he liked he said “anything but rap” and didn’t want to choose a CD. Since he was talking about some book series called “Raising Children God’s Way” I did refrain from putting in the Gaia Consort CDs, just to keep the peace. Or even the Circle Round CD, although I think his daughter would have loved it. Heck, I didn’t even play the Dar Williams CD that has “The Christians and the Pagans” on it. I was being a good girl.
G & R weren’t finished packing for the trip tomorrow when we got home—G had said she was finished last night! I knew she wouldn’t feel like doing it tonight! I THINK they’re in bed now. EEEP! The downside is that it’ll be hellish to get them out of bed in a few short hours. On the happy side, they might sleep through most of their flight.
Please forgive the lack of comments on your entries today. I’ll attempt to go back and do some tomorrow if I can, but I don’t know that I’ll get to do so.
