The Canadian trip went splendidly and we had many adventures through out. The trip out went easily and many of us caught up on some of the sleep we had missed during the week, myself especially. Upon arriving at the church in Canadian, we were promptly fed a nice dinner of pizza, salad and girl scout cookies. While we were eating, the church members who had pledged room in their houses for us arrived and we were nicely grouped up and assigned hosts by the end of the meal. I got to stay with five other girls on a farm that had a nice house with carpeted bathrooms, two horses, two cows, and an energetic grandson. The had two guest rooms, so we had two girls in each room and then Angie on the couch and me on a blowup mattress. Mr. David, our host, let us ride on the trailer of his pickup on the way to to house and we took pictures and laughed the whole way. Upon arriving at the house we found they had such a nice backyard that we had to go outside and take lots of pictures(which resulted in a lot of laughter). We also played with our hosts' grandchild who had us laughing nonstop. I'd like to say that we went to bed early and got the best sleep of the year, but in truth we ended up staying up talking and laughing. We did a lot of laughing.
The next morning, after a nice breakfast from a local cafe provided by our host, we met back up with the rest of the AIMers for a mini-seminar given by the preacher from the church there. Then we were fed a fantastic lunch of hot dogs before being released for free time. They gave two options, we could go to one of the church-member's farm to play in their pool or we could go to town and visit the old fashioned drugstore for sodas and then walk down the historic 1 mile bridge to play in a shallow river on the other side. I choose to go to town and the river, which proved to be quite an adventure. The drug store was cute and antique-y and served good ice cream for a fair price. I got a Strawberry milkshake(my favorite) and helped Angel(our Mexican student) to order his own. A couple of the kids mentioned going down to the cities museum for a look-and-see and though I meant to go with them, I missed their departure and decided to stay at the drugstore. Kris Smith then drove us down to the bridge once he decided that the town people had had enough of our unexpected crowd. He dropped us off at the main side of the bridge and instructed us that the river was on the other side and that we'd better get walking for maximum play time. The bridge really felt looked and felt like a mile, though I don't know if it really was or not. It was originally built for wagons to cross when the stream was actually closer to a mile long, but the river had long since shrunk. Walking down the bridge was just like what you'd expect walking down a bridge would be like. Not terribly exciting. But through patients and perseverance, we managed to reach the other side where the river was located.
So they forgot to tell us how to get to the river after we reached the end of the of the bridge, but we figured it out. And we should have taken them seriously when they told us that the river was only a foot deep at most.... We did have a lot of fun, and I managed to find some clay in the sand including some little red coloured balls that we used as paint. Some of the kids that went to the museum arrived after a few minutes. It turns out they had all been worrying thier faces off because one of them, Trenton, assumed I was going to the museum with them and then got lost trying to follow them. They set themselves into a panic just because I didn't have a cell phone they could reach me at.
After playing in the river(ok, it was a stream) we walked back to the bus quickly to escape the rain storm. We were then driven to a near by lake for a barbecue with the church. But, of course, the rain followed us there and we had to eat inside. Fortunately after dinner, the sky cleared up and we got to play outside for a couple hours. This lake made me think of Eden with it's plethora of plants, some of which bore edible fruit.
The next morning was Sunday so we went to worship with the Church in Canadian. Afterwards we had lunch and then began driving back to Lubbock. Unfortunately, Ebenezer(the bus) only made it to Panhandle, TX. It managed to stop right in front of a liqueur store across the street from the only wrecker in town (but they didn't have anything strong enough to move us). Since we had to spend a few hours in Panhandle waiting for a new bus to come get us, they let us explore town. We all ended up at the Dairy Queen down the road where we met the father of the preacher from the local Church. So the church took care of us for the afternoon. (Coincidence or blessing? I think you know.) We had a good time and when the bus arrived, we all jumped in to head home.
The trip to Canadian took 4 hours, and the trip home took 10... Ah well...
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