Maybe my I-Pad just got confused because it was 1 AM on Wednesday when I finally posted Tuesday's activities. I understand that Baylee did an out-loud dramatic reading of the post in the student bus this morning, so at least my efforts were not in vain. Someone is reading along. I also got a text from my daughter at home. She reported that she had read yesterday's post and her comment was, "You stayed up too late."
For those of you who missed the Mo Brooks' interview that our group witnessed last night, the link has been posted on the Athens Bible School Facebook page. When you watch it, look for the slightly out-of-focus ABS seniors photo-bombing the congressman!
Olen spent the night at a Days Inn not too far from our hotel. His flight back home was delayed this morning, but he finally got off the ground and headed toward Atlanta and then on to Huntsville. That was the plan. As it turned out, due to a flight delay, he missed his connection in Atlanta. Atlanta was in a scheduling nightmare with the heavy rains in the southeast. At the time I posted this blog, he was still in Atlanta hoping to get home tonight! We got reports from home that they had monsoon-type rainfall today. In our area we had peeks of sunshine occasionally, but basically we were in fairly thick cloud cover.
In other family matters, Barbara Jo flew to Washington last night to join our group for several days of the tour. She faced delays on her trip also, but finally made it.
Today was a little less-busy than yesterday. We began the day by touring some of the many monuments in the DC area. Our first stop was at the WWII memorial, where we made another class photo. There is a wall at the memorial filled with gold stars...one for each soldier who died during that war.
From there we went to the Lincoln Memoral where the group posed for another class photo.
The students made good use of selfie sticks at this location, and a group of girls struck a Charlie's Angels" pose....however, they were too young to know who Charlie's Angels were!
Finally the students themselves requested a class photo...the jumping-together kind. It looks like not everyone got the "jump on three" message, but it was fun anyway.
We stopped at the Vietnam Memorial and looked at the sobering list of names of those who gave their lives in that effort. A helpful and well-informed park ranger explained the meanings of the marks beside each name that indicate whether that person was missing in action or deceased.
The memorial to the Korean War veterans is simple, but extremely effective.
A memorial pool is in the area, and Anna and Anna stood near it and were reflected in the still water, giving us not two, but four "Anna's".
The last memorial we visited was the one dedicated to Thomas Jefferson. After viewing the memorial and taking photos inside, several of the students sat on the steps to rest and to look at the photos they had taken on their phones. I will have to admit that this was more-or-less a posed photo. These students have used their phones for taking photos, but otherwise they have been looking, learning, and not spending unnecessary time on their cell phones. So far, this has been an exceptional group of young people! This photo was just for laughs.
We made a brief lunch stop at the food court at the Ronald Reagan Building before boarding the bus to head north. On the four-hour ride to Secaucus, NJ the group on the unsupervised bus used most of the time for napping. Meanwhile, on the student bus they watched two movies and sang silly rhyming songs. They were even able to convince Jessica to join in at one point. They chanted for Steve (bus driver) when he expertly maneuvered in bumper-to-bumper traffic or negotiated a tricky turn.
As we got closer to Secaucus the sun had set and it was dark. When we passed over an elevated area in the highway we had a nice view of the skyline of New York City lit up in the distance. This inspired the students to break out in their own rendition of Alicia Keys' "New York". After checking in at the hotel we had an hour to eat at one of the surrounding restaurants before leaving for Wednesday evening Bible Study, some of our group ate, but many waited until after Bible Study.
It took about 45 minutes to drive the short distance to the church building, thanks to the rush hour traffic. The congregation was in East Orange, and the preacher, Wes Gossett, is an Athens Bible School graduate. The auditorium class had been studying Ecclesiastes, and Wes did a review of Ecclesiastes through comments and appropriate songs, which was extremely well done.
Apparently the wonderful weather fairy has decided to take a day off tomorrow. After checking the forecast, Jessica advised us to bring our ponchos, umbrellas, and all rain gear with us tomorrow. We still have confidence that tomorrow will bring adventures, regardless of the weather. But, now it is time for me to call it a day and make up for last night's lost sleep. Goodnight.
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