TWB July 14th 2018 Experience: Day 20- Kansas

Day 20: Kansas

HEY GUYS IT’S THE GRUMPYS!! Get your popcorn and settle in because this is going to be a wild ride through the corn fields of Kansas. The Grumpys include Kelsey Smith, Wyatt Austin, Virginia Griffin, Claire Irving, Baylee Bonner, Ben Campbell, Casey Kellogg, Aidan Spelbring, Logan Trotter, Emily Beck, Anna Mitchell, Holly Skipper, Sarah Binkley, and Annagrace Gibson.

This morning, we woke up at 6:15 to our sweet counselor Dallas screaming that she was going to turn on the lights. We packed up and walked down the flight of stairs, carrying our overflowing duffle bags. We all got on our vehicles and prepared ourselves for the long drive through the “scenic routes” of Kansas. Our first stop of the day was at our favorite store… WALLY WORLD!! Our eyes filled with excitement as we entered under the industrial glow of the McDonalds’ golden arch. While the cooks (the Sneezys) bought the traveling breakfasts and lunches, most of us got coffee and snacks for the day. After leaving Wal-Mart, we got back on the bus and vans and the lovely cooks served us a gourmet meal of Yoplait yogurt PLUS granola, as well as a variety of bagels with cream cheese or peanut butter.

After our breakfast, we stopped at a rest stop, where we flew paper airplanes (that were made by the employees) and waited in the long lines for the bathroom. But it was worth it because they had complimentary coffee! Today, the bus was #blessed enough to watch movies for the first time! After voting between several movies, we narrowed it down to three: The Incredibles, RV, and Night at the Museum. The winner was RV! It was a movie about a dad who took his family on a RV trip to Colorado, which was ironic because we just left that state! The movie was very funny and everyone had a good time. The vans spent the morning chatting it up, playing games, and singing with their counselors and friends. The two vans took an interesting turn to Park, Kansas, because the gas tanks began running low. Daniel and John led them to an “Andy Griffith”-like gas station (according to Daniel) to find out it was closed. We finally found a working gas station on our third attempt!

After the vans caught up with the bus, we continued to trek through the plains of corn. The time change occurred at around lunchtime, and now we are even closer to North Carolina time! Speaking of lunch, the cooks provided us with a yummy meal of ranch wraps and pretzels. We passed time by sending our journals up and down the aisles of the bus. In people’s journals, we wrote about our favorite memories spent together and ways to contact each other after Day 23, like our Instagram and Snapchat usernames. We were so excited when the counselors announced that we were stopping at our main attraction of the day… the most famous OIL RIG in all of Kansas!!! TWB stopped there to take a couple pictures, and we barely had time for that. To distract us, the counselors told us to turn around and point at the oil rig while they slyly snuck away on the bus. We thought they were going to leave us in the middle of no-where because they started to move while we were still 50 yards away. No worries though because they only moved the vehicles a few feet to make us rush back to the bus.

Time passed quickly by watching more movies, napping, and making friendship bracelets. After what seemed like minutes but was actually hours, we arrived at the best store in the state for a second time. Wal-Mart welcomed us with open arms and a Subway. While the cooks shopped for dinner, the other groups got more snacks and Kansas apparel, because who wouldn’t want to remember this incredible state?! We soon loaded up again for the last time, and made our way fifteen minutes down the road to the bug-friendly Tuttle Creek State Park. We had a quick meeting before we all bathed in bug spray and got to doing our jobs. The Sneezys prepared us a dinner of tacos, the Bashfuls unpacked our luggage, the Dopeys cleaned the bus and vans, and of course the Grumpys began blogging! Those who didn’t have a job were able to unpack and relax.

After unpacking, we began to eat our delicious dinner of beef tacos with toppings and chips. We even had dessert from Matthew Whalen’s family who brought popsicles and ice cream treats, YUMMY and THANK YOU!! The Happys vigorously washed the dishes while the cooks cleaned up the aftermath of cooking 25 pounds of meat. Shortly after was competition time! We all gathered in a field for the “Hug It Out” challenge. The teams have one hugger and 13 runners. Each runner blew up their own balloon and raced to the hugger to pop the balloon. The winners of the relay race were the Sneezys.

We had an hour of free time where people showered, swam in the lake, played games, and hung out before the sing along. We closed out the night with our favorite songs and finished with our classic TWB song “Today.”