Ok, I know that I've been MIA for the past couple of days, but I promise that I have a great story to make up for it. Along with being an assistant cross country coach and an assistant track coach at the school I teach at, I also somehow got suckered into being a co-adviser for the prom committee with my friend Jessica (who is also a teacher/swim coach at the high school). You might ask why we agreed to take on as big a commitment as prom when we have so many other things we do at the school, and the only possible response I have to give is that we are stupid! So, at the end of last school year, the ASB adviser came to us and said that we could have our own block of time to meet with the Juniors to get a head start for planning prom this year...if we came along and chaperoned the back to school ASB Leadership Retreat. Now you might be thinking to yourself, they already do so much, they wouldn't give up a weekend in their summer simply to have a couple hours to talk about an event that technically isn't happening until sometime in May/June. Well, as I mentioned before, we're stupid!!! And so our story begins...
Friday, I showed up at school with all the items from my packing list (oh yes, there was a packing list...I was heading to freaking summer camp) trying to conjure up a positive attitude despite the fact that I was spending one of the last weekends of my summer heading to the middle of the woods with 22 high school students where there was absolutely zero cell reception for miles. The smile was a little easier to plaster on my face when I saw Jessica, and knew that I at least wouldn't be alone in my misery. The big yellow school bus showed up, we loaded up the kids and all their stuff, and away we went.
The Leadership Retreat was being held at Cispus Learning Center near Randall, WA, and we got to drive through some beautiful spots along the way, with Mt. Rainier in sight for a good chunk of time. But as we got closer and closer to our destination, we started to get into some densely wooded areas, and that was the last of our cell phone reception. It was at about this time that I pointed out to Jessica that the whole situation seemed like something straight out of a slasher movie...we were headed to summer camp in the woods with a group of high school students and there was no cell phone service; all we needed was for the bus to break down and we'd be goners. Be careful what you joke about, you just might jinx yourself...
When you take school district transportation, you expect your bus driver to have looked up the place that they are taking you to so that, I don't know, they actually know how to get there. Not so much in our case. It wasn't until we were five miles past the road we should have taken to get to Cispus that the ASB adviser, Cozette, asked the bus driver if she had missed the turn. Obviously, she had, and so she had to turn the bus around...easier said than done on a narrow, winding road. While attempting to back the bus up into a small turn-off so that she could turn around, she snagged the pipe for the engine coolant on a rock and tore a hole in it, causing coolant to leak everywhere. Since we were so close to the camp, the bus driver tried to keep driving the bus back down the road toward the correct turn off, but with coolant racing out of the pipe, the engine started to overheat, and both the yellow and red check engine lights went on, and she was forced to pull the bus over. So we were in the middle of the woods, with no cell reception, and our bus had just broken down...bring on the slasher!
While the bus driver and the other chaperons were doing their best to try to fix the bus, I flagged down one of the lone passing motorists we happened to see, and asked if he would mind giving me a lift to Cispus so that I could get some help. Now I know what you're thinking, umm, hello, that's how the slasher gets you in the movie, he picks you off one by one. But since the driver was an adorable, friendly little 75 year old man with his adorable, friendly big chocolate lab, Hunter, in the cab with him, I figured I was alright. He dropped me off at Cispus (safe and sound and not slashed) and I was able to procure a van to go back to start getting loads of kids. In the meantime, the bus driver had been driving mile by mile down the road on a red engine light, stopping every so often to poor water (uselessly) into the coolant tank, and then getting going again. So I was only able to get one load of kids from the bus to Cispus before the broken bus putt-putted its way into the parking lot. Who knows how much damage was done to the engine by driving it for over five miles on a red engine light, but not my bus, so not really my problem. My problem was realizing, once we got there, that the female chaperons had to share a dorm with the 18 high school girls along on the trip...meaning we were bunking in the same huge room as the students. At that point, I was kind of wishing it was a slasher movie and that I'd been the first one killed off, just so that I wouldn't have to go through the misery of experiencing high school summer camp as an adult.
To add insult to injury, not only were we staying in dorms, but the showers gave me horrible freshman year of college bathroom flashbacks.
So, the main problem in bunking with 18 high school girls is that they come with 18 high school girl voices...and no off button. Between the shrieking, screaming, laughing, yelling, stomping and slamming, the girls easily kept Jessica and I awake until 2 or 3 in the morning. We were then woken by the same amount of noise at around 7 am because the kids had to be up for breakfast and meetings. Needless to say, I was not a very happy camper that morning!
I was not in a good mood, and nothing releases aggression like running, so I went for nice trail/road run around the camp before heading to breakfast. The run put me in a much better mood, and after a little bit of fruit for breakfast, I got to shower in peace and take a nice long nap since the students were off in meetings and we didn't need to meet with the Juniors until later in the afternoon. And after a fun-filled day of playing cards out in the fresh air with Jessica and Bob (the token male chaperon), we even got to build a campfire and roast marshmallows!
Jessica and I triumphing over amazing fire we built all by ourselves!
Sunday morning finally came around, and a new (as in different from the bus we came out in, but it was actually an older bus than the first one) bus shows up...with the same bus driver (bad omen). We were able to get everything packed up without incident, and we rolled out of the Cispus parking lot, right past our original bus, that was still sitting in the parking lot waiting to be fixed...yet another bad omen. On our ride home, because we were going through the mountains and the bus we were in was a significantly older model, the engine started to overheat and, low and behold, the check engine light came on...AGAIN! I don't believe in curses, but I do know that some things are just too freaky to be coincidences. We were able to make it back to school in one piece (even though she kept driving with it on, luckily the check engine light eventually went off after we came out of the mountains), but I know that if that particular bus driver is ever scheduled for another field trip/sporting event that I'm supposed to go on, I'm getting off the bus and travelling to the place in my own car!
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