Roar & Snore May 2010 Part 1

Ok, so here is part one of the Roar and Snore event with the Girl Scouts. This is the start of the saga so to speak. The photos are pretty obvious. We got there, entrance, we saw "Monty the Meercat", we took a photo once inside and the last is a photo of our tent. If they end up showing up in that order on my blog. Sorry if it doesn't. We started out well, took a 1 hour 45 minute drive from home and got there in plenty of time. Unfortunately that meant we were waiting for quite a while for something to happen. The girls had fun and so did the moms. We chatted about anything and everything. Finally, everyone was there and we gave the staff the luggage to be brought to our tents. We then waited some more in the waiting area, where they had a girl with a lizard (blue tongued skink to be precise) and she told the girls about the animal for about 15 minutes. Then it was more waiting...about 30 minutes or so. The park closed at 5:00 and we were then escorted into the park and moved to the area where we were staying. We did not have time to go to our tents to check them out because it was dinner time! So, we sat down and ate our dinner ( the line was long and troops allowed all their girls and mothers to cut in with them, which was pretty ridiculous! Then, after dinner we were to go meet at 6:15 to meet with our tour guide. We ended up sitting to eat at 5:50 so it didn't give us much time to eat! I ended up getting my long pants on and getting my "Off" insect repellant fans for K and me, just in time to come back and still be on time! Too bad no one else was! But more on that later. We had a long 2 1/2 hours or so walking around the park where our tour guide "Candy" was explaining that the girls would be learning about animals and also using their wits to figure out the Mystery Animal. So we saw many animals while walking and the girls were pretty attentive. The best were the cheetahs that were becoming more active since the tour was in the evening. We got good photos (later) and the girls were the only ones at each location so they were able to see all they wanted of the animals. It was a might tough for me since I had worked that morning and I did the driving. The walking was fine, the standing started making my back ache a bit and I was relieved when we got back to sit down at the campfire. The girls all got s'mores and hot chocolate and then they started singing and whatnot. I stayed to get K settled and then ran back to the tent to make sure the stuff in our tent was ours and to kind of unpack. I found some other peoples stuff in our tent, but they were part of our troop and next to us. Then I unpacked the sleeping bags and went back down in time to see the troop perform for the rest of the group.

After that it was close to 10pm and we all dashed off to the restrooms to wash faces and brush teeth and go potty. Then it was bedtime. It was wonderfully dark and quiet...for about 20 minutes. Then our tent mates fell asleep. The mom that was in our tent snored...LOUD. I am not talking loud, loud, I am talking train, bear and jackhammer all in one! I was wearing ear plugs ( I usually do, because Carl snores) and I could hear quite clearly through the earplugs! So to be clear, when I wear ear plugs at home and Carl snores, I do not hear a sound. This woman snored so loud that I not only could hear her through the earplugs she was louder than any of the elephants, lions and birds that were making noise right outside our tent! So, I got about 2 hours of sleep. Dozed in and out the rest of the time...but still exhausted the next day. I think K faired better because she fell asleep before the mom did. Now, I figured not too much sleep would occur so I do not blame this mom, she is very sweet. But I think I was a little disappointed because I figured lack of sleep would come from discomfort or the animal noises, both of which I was more prepared to deal with! But to continue...