Jamboree Pack Up and Return

5:00 am. It's not raining!   Hondorous woke up to go to get on their bus for Washington. Thu are going tour before returning home. I found out last night that one I the leaders is a lawyer and that Honduras currency is $20 for our $1. So American money you can be rich in ther country.   We found out because they wanted to buy some of our pants. So with Americanlmey our pants are $55. Their money they would be spending $1,100 for the same pair of pants. That's crazy math. We bid them farewell. Then Gallermo one of the Hondorus boys that stayed and did activities with us came crawling out his tent 10 minutes later. The group did not notice that they were missing one. Lol. 

The ambassador uncharged of their group did a head count and noticed on the bus that he was missing. They waited for him. Lol. 

5:30 South Carolina and our group awakened. We all packed our bags and tents in the dark. Then we all are breakfast as we waited on our call for the bus pick up with our representative. The kids played frisbee game wihike we waited. 

8:00 we got our call to go wait for our bus. We all sat under the pavilion until our bus arrived. The bus left the ruby welcome center and was picking up the other boys before getting us. 

9:30 our bus came to get us. As each bus leaves the campsite you get a farewell wave from all the campers. The kids were not ready for the good byes. 

12:30. We stopped at the Kentucky rest stop. We all slept the whole time to this stop. We were exhausted. We had a bathroom break and a box with a sandwich and snacks for a lunch.  We were on the road again by 1:00. We eating on the bus. 

4:30 new time (5:30 Virgina time). We are in UA Upper Alabama switching drivers. 

6:00 eating in Birmingham AL. Half the bus went to the Panda the other half wanted to try out the Steak N Shake. Lyla and I got Newks Pizza and soup to go and went eat it at the Steak N Shake with the others. 

12:30. We arrived in Monroe.  The parents awaited anxiously for their kids to get off the bus. I was very proud of a lot I the boys as they gave us adults a big hug and a thank you for the trip. I hope they know it was much appreciated. 

1:30 we arrived in Olla to drop off 3 more scouts

3:30 We arrived in Bunkie. I wasn't in the greatest mood. I was tired and startling to feel awful. I grabbed my things and told the kiddos goodbye. 

4:30 visited with my mom and ate a BIG bowl of gumbo and went to bed. 

12:30 pm up and feeling crappy. 

July 31, 2017. Update. I'm almost recouped and feeling 50% better. 

Jamboree Day 9

6:00 we were up. Not as cold as yesterday. Hondorous cooked French toast. After breakfast we packed all of our kitchen cooking gear. Then we gave the Hondorous people some of the festival shirts that were donated to us by Bunkie, Moreauville and Marksville chamber of commerce. They were very excited to get a T-shirt.  

9:00 the adults and 2 kids hiked with us adults to the summit. Vinson wanted to do the handicap games. The 2 kids went to the god and country tent to see about the different religions.  Kaia, Lyla and Tanek went hiking to do a zip line. 

11:00 As they showed up to their gear tent it started to rain and lightning. After the lightning stopped they opened everything up even though it was still raining. But the zips never got reopened. Everyone just went back to camp. 

12:00 we made it back. It was not a wasted afternoon. The kids visited at pavilion and in their tents. Some pulled out slip and slides and kiddie pools and played in the rain. 

5:00 we ate supper and headed back to the summit for the finallie show. We walked and sat in the rain till the show started at 7:00. The rain finally stopped for a little while. We had a guy from the Wearher Channel Show S.O.S. a survival show. The kids really enjoyed his speach.   The kids were ready for their finallie show band. When they announced that the national band Plain White T's was going to sing for them the crowd was absolutely silent. See before the announcement they gave a list of singers to guess the band. The choices were. The magic dragons, justin beiber, Miley Cirus and a couple other ones. They were all hoping for the Magic Dragons. The Plain white T's played them 5 or 6 songs. The first 3 no one knew them and people would just kind of sway to the music. The next song a few knew it and was singing. The last song the band played "Hey Delilah" and they all knew it. In the end the band was good. But the other choices would have been better one for this crowd.  Just my thoughts. After the band played they announced the next big event. Them there was a 25 minute fire works and laser show. Just as the fireworks started it began raining again. We walked in the dark and rain back to camp. 

11:00 the kids are visiting one last time as we all have to start leaving before daylight in the morning. They all traded snap chat accounts and numbers. Around 12:30 we all went to bed. 

Jamboree Day 8

Last night was the coldest night at 51 Degrees. 

6:00 We were all up for breakfast. We relaxed a little and walked down to do scuba. 

9:00 Scuba with our scouts and Hondorous. We waited in line for only a few minutes. They made us take a shower before entering the pool. We got some pool briefings and safety then we all got in together. We had 20 minutes to swim underwater with our scuba gear. I have issues at work with face masks and such. But this did not effect me one bit. One of the leaders had a go pro and took some under water footage for us. We were not allowed to bring our phones in to take pictures. They threw us some booty (coins) in the water that we coup trade in for a patch.  Lucrecia is the only one that had a hard time with it. She said her brain said it's not normal for her to breathe underwater.  When we got out just about everyone wanted to go back in for a second time.   

12:30 was lunch. We barely had time to eat before we headed to our bus for our afternoon adventure. We are not allowed to bring anything, only our clothes and a water bottle. The leader with the gopro was with Lyla and I. He was allowed to bring it. 

1:00 We meet at the Delta camp for our rafting adventure.   All of our campsite people from Foxtrot was there which consisted of 500 or more people. They moved us through in groups. They checked our forms and we watch a video. We managed to keep all our people together. Went went for a 30 miniite ride. At the river site there was all the raft guides and our boats. We had 9 people in out boat. Only 2 of the 9 we did not know. This adventure was an advanced course just for Venture crews. I was toward the back and Lyla was towards the middle. When we all got in the boat we practice paddling skills. Then we were on our way. The mountains we're enormous. The rock formations were beautiful. Our first rapid was a class 4. It was great the water was flowing over a waterfall. When we got the bottom of the fall water splashed everywhere. Then the guide gave us some history of the area. That there were cities all along this part of the river that logged trees. Each city paid it's residents in their cities currency that coup only be used in that city. They said people were so poor there that most people never left the river. They said the residents were terrified of the river. The logs were sent off by rail. As we flowed through the beautiful mountain rock sculpted landscape you coil see reminants of the old city. Pretty cool an beautiful to see. We got to swim 2 times in the river. The first time I went in but I had no strength to pull myself back in the boat. There was this man in the boat and he used all of his strength to get me in lol. The second time I said I'm good, that couldn't put that man though that again. Lyla did the second swim. She had gotten to the front of the boat to ride the nose. They gave her the helmet. So whenever I get copies I the videos you will know that the second swim is from Lyla's point of view. All the rapids we went on were class 4 & 5's. We went through each rapid forward, backwards and even spinning in all directions. It was a great ride. Earlier in my blog I took a picture of the gorge and the mountain view. Our rafting adventure ended at that bridge I took that picture from.   The bridge was way up in the air. Also there was a bridge that was a lot lower. It was the old bridge that those old towns used to travel on. The picture below I stole from the internet so you could see the view.   At the bridge is where we gr off the river. It was a recreational area. There was a lot of families there letting the kids swim in the river.  We were the 3 to last boat coming out of the river. Also the sends to last bus back at camp. 

6:00 we returned to camp. We all just relaxed and the kids went around camp visiting and hanging out at the pavilion for the talent show. 

Jamboree Day 7

5:30 we got up early to get ready for our 2he hike to adventure section so we could be first in line at the canopy tour zips. 

6:30 we left and walked towards the zips. We made a few stops. A few of the kids went before us and told us at 7:30 the big canopy tour zip that opens at 8 already had a 6 hour waiting time. OMG so we kept walking but changed our plans to go to the second canopy tour zip. The difference in the 2 was the longer one gave you some geology lessons. But we were not going to wait 6 hours. 

8:30 we made it to the second canopy tour. We were first in line. Lyla and her friends went right in and began their zip tour. Lyla said she was scared but was able to go though and at the end found it very fun. Only the tallest boy in the pic down below was not so thrilled. As we left that ride to advance to the next area there was an 1 1/2 hour wait time on this one. So we made good time. 

10:00 The next ride we took was right next to the canopy tour. This one was called Challenge Course. Ok so this one they harnessed you up just like the zips. Except for zipping you use lobster claw clips to attach yourself to a guide wore while you go through obsticle about 3 stories in the air. First we got our training lesson. The. We headed up the ropes to the top. We were separated into 2 obsticle a. On my side you had a rope beige to cross on something that looked like a high wire. The other side had the high wire with just a rope to hold on to.  The second obsticle was the sale on both sides. It was about 20 logs for the bottom.  Each log was suspended by a wire on each end and not attached to each other. So we balanced our way through that one. Then the next obsticle on my side was a high wire with logs attached to the wire alternated V like positions. I don't remember the other side. The next to last obsticle was a high wire with 2 ropes in an X position. The thee side had a high wire with many ropes hanging over your head to hold on to. Then the last obsticle was to jump for your death 3 stories to the ground. When you jump this harems activates and slowly lowers you to the ground. All of is were shaking so bad with adrenaline and fear that we had to take a lunch break. The boy. Who didn't like the zips wanted to do this one again. The rest of us said once is quite enough. Lol 

12:30 lunch

1:00 we walked to another area and the kids went rock climbing. All the kids advanced in the climbing except Lyla and one other boy. They had a hard time mastering repelling down. Three of the 8 kids advanced all the way to the repel only course of this section. The ones who complete this last obsticle could get a stamp in their book that let's them go to a real rock climbing area next to the barrels and archery area. Well Lyla didn't make it. 

2:30 We walled towards camp in another direction.  There was some booths e had never seen before. National geographic they looked in microscopes and learned about a few things on nature. Next do to it was the NASA space ride. Lyla was all into doing this ride.the next booth was Jacks Links and we for free need jerkey. 

4:00 we made it back at camp. We took a bath and wash clothes. We found out that 3 of our kids haven't washed clothes the whole 11 days we've been away. So we had to hunker down and make them all wash some clothes so we can have clean smelling children. 

7:30 the group from Soith Carolina made chicken and sausage jambalaya. It was one of the girls birthday. So we had chocolate cake and the Hondorous folks  sang their happy birthday song. It was quite long but very different.  

8:00 we all started singing chants to learn some new things. The we taught each other line dancing. The Hondourus girls taught our girls how to do traditional dancing  I took some video that I won't be able to add till later. 

11:00 we finally made it to bed.

Jamboree Day 6

Just a little bit of information. Several of our kids have fit bits to track our steps. It appears we are walking approximately 13 miles per day.   Wow

5:00 we were up for breakfast. We are heading out for our day of service project.  Day of service project is where we do a project in the community. 

6:30 we headed down the mountain to the busses.  The pictures of the people and busses are the hundreds of people  going on this work day project.  Guatemala and Hondorous was in our group. We all chanted songs all the way down the mountain. 

7:45 on the bus headed out. 

9:45 arrival to Bluefield State College where we walked up a steep hill. At the top was a building that needed landscape assistance. We all basically cleaned out all of the flower beds and re-applied mulch.  We walked down the mountain by the tennis courts where we we watched a police K-9 demonstration. 

12:00. We changed our clothes to leave for stadium for President Trumps visit. 

2:00 we arrived at the stadium. They were supposed to start getting the campsites through secret service security. But when the bus dropped is off the stadium was empty. At the bus drop was 3 trailers for us to put our back packs in. We tie them together 6 to a string. They steered is towards the stadium. We were the first campers there behind the workers. We sat outside in the sun till they started screening is at 2:30. We all made it through except for Vinson he was wanted and patted down. They saw through the scanner a bulge in his pants. It was his raincoat. See when we went to briefing they said we were only  allowed to bring in ourselves, a belt that we can take off and a phone but it had to be working so they can see it's a working phone. Some of the many things on the do not bring list included no apples, oranges, metal drink bottles, cara beaner, pocket change, battery packs among a few of the things.  We won't be allowed to leave the area till he speaks at 6:30 tonight. No trees and no canopy's for shade. 

4:00 The other people at the camps that stayed behind have been going through screening since we got here. Our but partners from the Monroe area said they didn't  get in till 4:30. 

5:30 we are still sitting in the sun waiting. Amazingly we were blessed with a light shower and some overcast clouds. Then we see the massive plane for the president do a fly over.  

6:00 he made it to camp. The secret service was staged well before he arrived. They were everywhere. You could see their scopes sparkling in the mountains. They were on the platforms on the zip line rides. They were around 50 of them all around the stadium.  Then the president came to the stadium with a caravan of vehicles. There was a large media presence also. The tv stations already had their equipment set up and also broadcasted to the campsites and mainstream for the people who couldn't make the hike and the world audience. The president made his speach. The kids only booed one of his rants. But mostly cheered. They were thrown back on 2 things he stated in his speach. One was he said that he was not going to talk politics. The other was when he said supposedly messed up the word success and said sex. 

6:50 the speach ended. We couldn't leave the stadium until the president left. So they threw massive globe balls in the crowd for a game. Then they threw a bunch of T-shirts and hats. Lyla caught 1 hat. 

8:00 we were able to leave. We visited a couple people on the way back to camp including the Polish people. We had lots of fun asking questions about their Polish lives. We didn't make it back till 10:00. By the time we cleaned up it was 12:00.