Day 5- Painted Desert

Day 5: Painted Desert and Petrified Forrest 

Hey hey hey!! We’re back to tell you about our amazing day, full of driving, laughter, and our 2nd, 3rd and 4th National Parks of the trip!! We started our day with another 5:15 "Wakey Wakey" from Dallas. We left from a chilly, windy, and wet night in New Mexico at the New Mexico Military Institute and started our trek to Arizona. Our first stretch of the day was a three hour drive. Many of us chose to take a nap since we are still adjusting to the early mornings! 

Dexter making sure we leave our campsite better than we found it 

 We had a 5-star yogurt parfait with granola and an apple and oranges…Our head of Dopeys, Caleb really munched down on the granola. Our first stop of the day was at a Flying J. We are really starting to love these gas stations stops. Many people were excited to buy a Cinnabon! We loaded up the vehicles and made our way to the Petrified Forest, another National Park! We unloaded the bus quickly took a group photo in front of the sign. Grant let us know that it was good luck to kiss the petrified wood. So we all did this before loading back up, be we want nothing but good luck on TWB!

                                           

We then got to take in the amazing views of the Painted Desert! We were blown away by the sights that was saw at the Vista Point! We had a few people share research to learn more about the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert. 

Olivia Owens giving her research on the Painted Desert

Emma Palmer giving research on the Petrified Forest

Caleb telling us about Schriner University (just imagine you’re there, sometimes we get behind on research)

 We loaded back up into the vehicles and headed to Wal-mart! Our favorite! We had our biggest cooking run yet with the most meals to buy for. A lot of people were buying things to prep for our big hikes tomorrow morning. We loaded the vehicles one more time and made our way to the Grand Canyon! On the way to the Grand Canyon, we had a traveling dinner. We had a super awesome meal of chicken bacon ranch wrap with a side of carrots, and fudge striped cookies for dessert. Seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time absoltutey took our breath away and even brought some of us to tears. 

We then made our way to our campsite to learn more about where we will be sleeping for the next two nights. After a quick meeting, we celebrated the birthday boy Hollister with a singing celebration and giving him his card and gift. The Big 18!!! It was then time to unpack our sleeping stuff. Then we walked as a group over to Mather Point to enjoy one of the most amazing sunsets we have ever seen. More tears were shed, not just from the amazing sights but about the friendships we are already forming! 

The Dopeys are signing off tonight to get some much needed rest before our early morning rise. 

See you soon! - Reece, Andrew, Grace, Davis, Scott, Addison, Bayla, Olivia, Hannah, Aiden, Lily, Bryant, Liz, Rylei, and our Birthday boy, Hollister.

Day 4- Carlsbad Caverns

           Day 4: Carlsbad Caverns

DO-PEYS! DO-PEYS! DO-PEYS

Hello everyone!! We're thrilled to be here and share our adventures, your hosts are Bryant, Liz, Grace, Olivia, Lily, Hollister, Reece, Scotty, Andrew, Addison, Rylei, Bayla, Davis, Hannah, and Aiden.

We woke up in the Great State of Texas under the stars for the first time outside. We got to wake up 15 minutes later than yesterday at the ripe time of 5:15, how lucky are we?!

First thing this morning we drove to the gas station where we couldn't buy anything. Only being allowed to pee or glitter NO SNACKS (aka glitter fuel). 

Today the Grumpy's served breakfast… we had to let the Happy's go. We enjoyed delicious bagels with swagalicous cream cheese and jelly options. 

Caleb shared his life stories and campers shared glitter stories. Glitter dust was all over the bus. Asher went on a killing spree…. Don't worry it was only bugs!

We drove through the great state of Texas, and landed in New Mexico. We hope to see Aliens in the UFO territory. 

Happy's

Sleepy's

Dopey's

Bashful's

Sneezy's

Grumpy's

Group Photo Time!

We had many amazingly fantastical presentations from Grace, Liz, Parker, Bridget, and Brooke doing their respective presentations about Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico, the New Mexico Military Institute, and aliens. We took multiple fantastic group photos at the Carlsbad Caverns, the different dwarf groups also took photos inside the caverns

We had chicken sliders for lunch included with chips as a side, but a lot of campers opted to get lunch for the gas station which a buyable point of access that Dallas offered to us!

Say Cheese Zack!

We walked 1.5 miles deep into the cavern just to glitter 900 feet below the Earth. Post cards were a huge hit or everyone, along with stickers, ice cream sandwiches, and even golf balls! Asher shared his cactus candy, it tasted like wax…… Thanks anyways!!

Taco Papas (Greensboro reference)

Tonight was TACO NIGHT!!!!!! They did amazing, we'll see how the next 3 days go!

We set up for camp at the New Mexico Military Institute out on the field. We had a great talk from the colonel and got access to their super nice showers and bathrooms to let out glitter.

We had a good amount of free time to hangout and settle down in our campsite. After dinner, we had a little singalong and we sang Iris, Wonderwall, Wagon Wheel, and of course, it ended on Today.

While we were settling down, the campus sprinklers unexpectedly went off on half of our stuff. RJ, Asher, Liz, Dexter, and Hannah were in the sprinklers and their stuff got soaked. We relocated them and we all eventually were able to settle back down, until... the New Mexico winds came howling in. The wind kept us cool but some of us had our personal items blown away. Hopefully we can find it in the lost and found.

Tomorrow we will be on our way to the Grand Canyon, see you all later! - The Dope Dopes