Grumpy’s here for the final night of blogging…and sadly TWB
Trip 1 2017. This morning we were awoken
by Dallas and her “Good Morning Sunshine’s!” at, yet again, 6:00 am.
Making our way back East, we left Illinois and drove through
Indiana where we enjoyed some NAME BRAND “Pop Tarts”, in numerous flavors
including strawberry, blueberry, cherry, s’mores, chocolate fudge, and cinnamon
sugar (Thanks Cooks!!). As a joke, we
like to do that a lot on TWB, last night our own Griffin Law was to get
everyone to ask Jon Alliss where the lost and found was. Needless to say, he was not too happy about
that, but to continue the joke we all asked stupid, irrelevant questions about
the state of Indiana. As Jon’s response
for the next ‘2 hour stretch he read as many Indiana facts off of the Internet
as he could just to annoy us all!
After a few hours of driving through Indiana, we stopped at
Churchill Downs in Kentucky! At our arrival, we had two amazing families greet
us at the gates! We had Sarah Whalen’s family and friends join us with the
tour. Unfortunately, we also said goodbye to Erin Sherrill as she had to leave
early for college classes in St. Louis! In the tour we were able to see the track,
stables, Twin Spires, and the Paddock. After the tour, we watched a movie about
the Kentucky Derby, toured the museum, and visited the gift shop!
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| Group picture at Churchill Downs! |
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| On our tour of Churchill Downs! |
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| Barbaro (2006 Kentucky Derby Winner) Memorial and Tomb |
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| The Twin Spires |
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| The Paddock |
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| The Stands |
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| The boys watching a race, betting on a winner!! |
Once leaving Churchill Downs, we had to play some musical
seats in our vehicles so that we could practice for our upcoming competition.
We sat in our groups, and came up with a special and unique method of our own
to describe the past 22 days and 89 people! As we were on our way to the Original Kentucky
Fried Chicken, we made a quick stop to wash our vans and bus (the splash from
the water was the first “shower” some of us had in a few days). While we had
some downtime, we were able to practice our skits for the upcoming competition
later this evening!
After patiently waiting for many days for the original KFC,
the time had finally arrived! After the wonderful cooks “prepared” our KFC for
us (including KFC employee Seth McCachern, who felt very at home), they came
out to greet us with KFC buckets on their heads! Jada Prichard happily pushed
her way to the front of the line (just kidding, they called us by groups…and
her group, the Dopey’s, were last) We all were able to get two pieces of
chicken and two sides. Our side options consisted of mashed potatoes and gravy,
green beans, and mac ‘n’ cheese. We were also able to get a biscuit with a
choice of sweet tea or lemonade (After having to buy sweet tea in jugs at Wal-Mart
for the past 18 days, most of us were excited to be closer to the South). Many
people also bought dessert and shirts as souvenirs!
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| Abby Copeland trying to catch the KFC bucket on her head! |
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| Griffin Law... just look at that concentration! |
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| Lillie Griffin! |
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| Camryn Bernhardt! |
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| Rylee Gaus has the best faces... |
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| And she was SUCCESSFUL! |
After our long, torturous bus ride of five minutes, with our
bellies full of grease and food for the first time in weeks, we arrived at our
campsite for our competition. When we arrived at Levi Jackson State Park, we
all gathered in our groups for a quick meeting before the competition.
With all of the groups performing touching,
heart warming (**cough
cough** not the Grumpy’s)
and roast worthy skits,
we waited with
anticipation for the results. After the results came in, drum roll please… the
Bashfuls came out with the win, earning 12 points for this competition, since
the last competition is worth double points!
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| The Bashfuls! |
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| The Grumpys! |
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| The Happys! |
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| The Sneezys! |
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| The Dopeys! |
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| The Sleepys! |
To everyone’s surprise, including the winning group, the
Bashfuls also won the overall competition!!!!! Hannah is so proud!! The Dopey’s
also came out on top, winning the cooking competition! Following the results,
we had a short sing along, preparing us for tomorrow… our final day! With
tonight being the last night we all have together, we decided to cozy up for
our last night under the stars (the Eastern sky will never attest to that of
the West).
We are incredibly excited to see our wonderful families and
friends tomorrow, although we are also very sad to have to say goodbye to the
delicious PB & J sandwiches, “Van talks” and amazing friends we have met on
the trip! This is the Grumpy’s signing off for the last time. We promise we
aren’t grumpy, we are just anxious to finally get more than 6 hours of sleep
and real food. See you tomorrow!!
