Heeeeellllloooooo people of the Carolina’s! Happys here with
a special 4th of July edition to the blog J
Today we woke up at
6:45am and began frantically trying to gather our still wet (and now smelly)
clothes/sleeping bags! As we left, we
said our goodbyes to our new friends from New York who were also traveling out
west this summer (however, TWB is better of course). We left Cody, Wyoming in
style: decked out in our American gear!!! Our outfits included American Flag
leggings, shirts, hats, socks, headbands, and almost any other American attire
you can think of because we LOVE America!!!
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| Matt Harkey and Maddie Cabe! |
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| Nate Craven and John Gray Blount! |
We headed east to go to the great state of South Dakota to
spend the 4th at Mount Rushmore! Name a more patriotic place to spend the 4th
of July… I’ll wait… On the way, the cooks treated us to croissants with various
jams, even Wal-Mart brand Nutella, and half of a banana for breakfast! Many of
our TWBers spent the drive looking out the window at Shell Canyon while others
caught up on some much needed rest! It was a beautiful drive! Between breakfast
and naps we got even more patriotic with our face paint and tattoos (temporary
of course).
The vans spent their time jamming to patriotic songs like “American
Pie” and “God Bless the USA” to pass the time! The people on Miss America even
played Family Feud and Heads up to pass the time until lunch! It didn’t help
that we weren’t allowed to eat snacks on the bus/van since we made such a mess with
them the day before and all the previous days... Tristen Brock even got busted
for snaking on the bus! (It’s ok though--mama Dallas handled it)
We ate a nutritious lunch of sandwich sliders made with
Hawaiian rolls, chocolate animal crackers, and whales (which are better than
goldfish btw). On TWB we have now experienced every kind of bread--muffins,
tortillas, Hawaiian roles, bagels, doughnuts, etc! Carbs across the nation! Not
long after that we stopped at Wal-Mart and got questionable looks for our
patriotic attire (like the people at Wal-Mart have room to talk).
Then, we loaded back up and went to a park in Custer, South
Dakota, where we separated into our groups to work on our next competition-–the
dance off!!!! We each were given the task of making up a dance to “Party in the
USA” to perform tomorrow night! The counselors chose “Party in the USA” because
that was the song that brought us all together on the first night and still
continues to whenever we have sing-a-longs!
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| Griffin Law, Andrew Prachar, Jada Prichard, Rylee Gaus, Tristen Brock, Tyler Sellers, Caroline McCrorey, Mary-Anna Chewning, Nick Richard, Sarah Royster, Katie Bowyer, Logan Mantooth, and Caleb Mann at Custer Park! |
Scattered storms caused us to spend the first 15 minutes of
our work time in the vans/busses waiting out the rain. The drizzle finally
stopped and we were able to get to work. Each group worked at their own pace
until all our attention was drawn to the playground where a couple of TWBers
had started a game on the playground spinner (we have no idea what it’s called).
In the game, the lucky victim would hold on for dear life as the spinner gave
them a whirl. When the spinner would stop, the participant would attempt to run
as far as they could—normally ending up on the ground! Most of us didn’t make
it far at all. However, our fearless counselors tried and conquered the
playground spinner toy...minus Dallas who fell in a puddle! Actually, really none of them did very
well. After a few more rounds, we were
pulled away from our game when the cooks called for dinner. We enjoyed a tasty
meal of hotdogs, mac-n-cheese, beans, watermelon, and cupcakes (patriotic
themed of course).
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| Crispy going for a spin! |
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| Jon before.... |
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| Jon after... |
After we finished eating we got on the bus and headed to the
Custer YMCA where we placed our stuff down and shared research from California…
yeah, we’re not the best at this research thing. We had a very entertaining rap
from Bailey Sloop about California, followed by the performance of Jordyn Burrell who sang to us about Disneyland
(we had some catching up to do). Jessica Turney taught us a little about South
Dakota, while Rylee Gaus shared about Mt. Rushmore, and Tristen Brock on
Custer, South Dakota.
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| Jessica Turney presenting her research on South Dakota! |
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| Tristen Brock telling us about Custer, SD! |
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| Bailey Sloop spitting the baddest rap about CALIfornia! |
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| Jordyn Burrell singing about Disneyland! |
After research we loaded
onto the bus to head to Mt. Rushmore! When we first got there we took a group
picture and many ran to try the ice cream that had been hyped up to us by the
counselors--it did not disappoint! After some more picture taking, we met in
the amphitheater at 8:30pm to watch a 4th of July presentation about
the monument! The short film unfortunately lacked audio, however there was a
great ceremony at the end honoring our veterans!! The audience then poorly
attempted to sing the National Anthem (pretty difficult task considering there
was no audio). After that we loaded back
into the bus and came back to the YMCA to tuck in for the night.
Stay HAPPY my friends!!!!!!!!
