Thursday, August 16 – When things go beep!

6am Departure!

Today started super early for some of us... At 12:55am as we were sleeping at St. Peter’s I was woken up by Drew who started explaining that an alarm was going off. She had tried to get to the bathroom and then the whole building started to sound like a swarm of crickets had taken over.

It took at least fifteen minutes for the security folks to show up at which time the alarm had ceased. But as soon as the door was opened it started again. Thankfully parishioners on the security phone list showed up shortly after and 

they shut off the alarm and we explained who we were and why we were there. The whole building is set with motion sensors from 12am to 6am… so even if someone hadn’t gotten up and set off the alarm we would of at 5am when we all started to get ready to leave for the day.

Lunch Stop

It took some time for sleep to take over again but it eventually happened, as soon as my anxiety around every sound stopped. It will make for a fun story to tell everyone at home though.

The biggest question… why were only four out of the twenty-eight of us up and out of bed wondering what was going on. Were they terrified or actually sleeping?

Peter, Alex and Mathias - lunch stop

The real morning started for us at 5am and I’m super excited to report that we had the bus loaded by 6:07am with us pulling out of the parking lot at 6:12am. We were on a role this morning!! It may have had something to do with the fact that we told the group that they could go across the street to Starbucks when it opened at 5:30am if they had all of their stuff packed and by the door ready to be loaded. Looks like that was quite the motivator.

Sleeping on the bus... the main activity for the trip!

The travel today has gone smoothly. We stopped for lunch at what we were told was a rest stop… Well, it was a rest stop indeed… A rest stop with two outhouses and no picnic tables. Just another chapter of our journey to check off for the day. The group boarded the bus very soon after eating, either they enjoy sitting too much, they’re far too excited, or they were terrified that we’d leave them in the middle of nowhere!

We’ve now arrived at the hotel and have had just enough time to unload the bus and get what we need for the evening ahead.

We have made it!

Let CLAY begin!!