I Found the Trip Out West Diary!

By a stroke of serendipity, I found my Trip Out West™ diary while looking for something else.  In fact, I found a bunch of my GS stuff while looking for something else.  Funny how that works out.

Instead of unpacking from the canceled leader weekend, I typed this up to take my mind off my disappointment.  So I present to you the diary of Amy Moore from 1987.  Keep it mind it was written by a 13 (almost 14) year old at the time.  It’s amazing the things I found interesting enough to comment about and the things I didn’t.  ::shakes head::  My 42 year old comments are in [italic brackets]. 

————————————————-

6/20/87 –  Left at 5:45am.  STATES:  GEORGIA, ALABAMA, MISSISSIPPI (Mooreville), TENNESSEE, ARKANSAS.  Traveled 600 miles.  Saw Elvis’ Birthplace and Graceland.  Stopped at Little Rock, Arkansas

6/21/87 – 5:45am.  STATES:  OKLAHOMA, TEXAS.  Traveled 600 miles.  Stopped at Amarillo, Texas.  Went to Big Texan and ate Dinner.  Saw Oklahoma oil fields.  Beth bought a $30.00 Rattlesnake. Strange. [Yep.]

6/22/87 – 5:45am.  STATES:  NEW MEXICO, ARIZONA.  Traveled 600 miles.  Went through Indian Reservation.  Saw beginnings of mesas, buttes, and deserts.  [Apparently I had studied these in school to know those terms].  Went through Alburquerque [sic].  Went through Petrified Forest and Painted Desert.  Went to a rock shop [and laughed a lot].  Stopped at Flagstaff, Arizona and had pizza.

6/23/87:  Left at 6:36am.  Traveled 88 miles to Grand Canyon.  We had a BORING [underlined two times] bus driver!!  He took us on a tour bus all over the park.  He kept telling us about his life.  Who really cares?  Perveen and I counted sixteen people that were asleep!

Then that night we saw the sunset over the canyon.  After that, we went to a campfire meeting.  The park ranger got on my nerves.  He kept using descriptive words, adjectives, similes, and metaphors [must have actually paid attention in English class] about the Grand Canyon.  Good grief!

6/24/87:  STATES:  UTAH, MONTANA.  Traveled 600 miles.  We left at 5:50am (I’m getting sick of this) and are going to Salt Lake City.  Ah-ha!  We didn’t make it!

6/25/87:  STATES:  IDAHO  We left at 5:50am AGAIN – Ugh!  We were going to go through Salt Lake City and go to Yellowstone, but our van broke down.  We had to wait a few hours before it was fixed.  Then I lost my black pencil, but Beth had it all along. [This is funny because I am still OCD about favorite pencils and pens and track down people if they accidentally take them.  Apparently this started very early.]  We’re going to Yellowstone and I just found out there are no bathrooms! [?????]

6/26/87:  We went to Yellowstone and saw the Porcelin Basins [sic.  It’s the Porcelain Basin Hot Springs], Old Faithful, bison, black bear, elk, mule deer, chipmunks, and prarie [sic] dogs.

6/27/87:  Our trailers came off! [This will be covered in a later blog post.  It’s one of my favorite stories from this trip.]  We drove under something too low and they dropped off.  We got everything ready for Wyoming.

6/28/87:  We arrived at Wyoming Camp GS [trails off into something I can’t read].  Planned schedule, saw a yellow-bellied marms [again, trails off and I’m assuming marmot]

6/29/87:  Did Wildlife, Wayfinding, Bare Necessities w/ MARVIN!  He has such a monotone voice! [I have no recollection of this Marvin person.]

[At this point, I didn’t write anything for a week.  Dangit.]

7/7/87:  Left NCW at 5:30AM!  I SAW A FOX!!  Went by Mount Rushmore and stopped there.  I LOST MY PEN!  [again with the pen!]  Oh well.  Stopped in Mitchell, SD and took a long [underlined two times] shower! Thank goodness. [You were limited to two minute showers at NCW – no joke.  I’ll cover that in a later blog post too.]  STATES: SOUTH DAKOTA

7/8/87:  STATES: IOWA, MISSOURI  Left Mitchell, SD at 6:00.  Went through Sioux Falls.  Went through Kansas City.  Stopped in Forton.  Called parents.

7/9/87:  STATES: ILLINOIS, KENTUCKY  Went through St. Louis and saw the arc [sic].  Stopped in Chatanooga [sic].

7/10/87:  THE VAN BROKE DOWN!  We are a few hours from Athens.  Arrived.

———————————————-

Well, there you go.  I’d give anything to have Marla’s diary, but I’m sure it’s somewhere next to our troop’s scrapbook which is next to the Ark of the Covenant where top. men. are working on it.  Maybe it’s IN the scrapbook.  Next to the lost pen from the Trip Out West™.  Oh well.

Addendum 12/26/2015:  MARLA’S JOURNAL HAS BEEN FOUND!