Field Trip Reflections

Well, we made it to Austin and back alive! Every year's trip is exciting, fun, and just a little bit different than any other year. This year was no exception.

Everyone arrived at school on time, and we were able to depart by 7:00 A.M., just as planned. We have used Cowtown Charters for years, now, and we continue to have good experiences with the buses. Our driver was named Chief, and he gave us a friendly welcome as we rolled out of the parking lot. The students got settled in right away, and within two or three minutes hardly a passenger could be found without some kind of portable gaming device in hand. Some brought PSPs, others Nintendo DSs (myself included), and a few even had the new Nintendo DSi. I enjoyed getting to see that up close. The two screens are appreciably bigger, and the user interface is slicker. The DSi is a little slimmer than the DS Lite, but it is difficult to notice. Of course, it has other features like the two cameras and several software enhancements, but all in all, I didn't suffer any envy over not owning one myself.

Chief made good time. So good, in fact, that we arrived at Inner Space Cavern almost two hours before our first group was scheduled to enter the cave. The past couple of years, our bus drivers have stopped at the Flying J south of Waco on the way down. We built that time into our itinerary this year, so we found ourselves with some extra minutes at the cavern. The nice thing was that no one seemed to mind. Most of our groups got their mining activity and souvenir buying finished before descending into the cave. Our cave guide did an excellent job, as usual. A couple of improvements made the cave experience even better this year than in the past. Our guide took a class picture of us down in the first room. She told us that they only began offering that about a week ago, so we were fortunate to have scheduled our trip when we did. Another thing that made the cave experience better was that in one area of the cave, a small niche was enclosed in glass to display fossils of some of the cave animals. The niche has always been there, but in past years, the humidity has fogged up the glass to the point where you couldn't really even see what was behind it. Well, someone had the bright idea of replacing one of the glass panes with a wire screen, and that made all the difference in the world. I've been in that cave seven times, and this was the first time I could actually see the fossils. After our cave tour had ended, I bought a spelunker helmet for my son and a little stuffed lion for my daughter, and before long, we were all back on the buses and headed for the state capitol in Austin.

We arrived at the capitol right at 3:00 P.M., and before we even entered the building, we had the privilege of meeting Chris Turner, one of our state representatives. He took a couple of pictures with our school group and then graciously offered to show us around the House of Representatives as each class made its way through the capitol. I found it exciting to step past the ropes onto the floor of the House. We have never had that opportunity before. Representative Turner shared a little bit about his job with us and showed us how the voting works on the big boards at the front of the chamber. He also showed us his desk. It was a very special chance to get to interact with one of our elected officials. He even answered questions from the students. I hope our group understood what an honor that was. Afterward, we went to the Senate and got to see that the room is smaller with fewer desks. We also got to see the two large paintings of famous Texas battles in the Senate chamber. I learned this year that when those paintings were restored, they had to lower them out through the second story windows, because they are too big to fit through the doors. It makes me wonder how they got the paintings in the room to begin with. To complete our tour, we went back downstairs to visit the Rotunda, the South Foyer, and the Capitol Extension, all of which are interesting in their own right. Then it was off to the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum after a brief stop for a class picture outside the capitol.

I enjoy the Bob Bullock Museum, because it contains so much of what I teach all year under one roof. My first trip to the museum was in 2002, I believe. It was so nice to see that in 2009, seven years later, all of the interactive exhibits are still in great shape and have withstood the constant button-mashing of countless school groups over the years. The museum personnel are very picky about behavior, so I was glad to see that our students all behaved themselves while touring the exhibits. I know it may seem a bit gross, but I must say that my favorite item in the whole museum is Santa Anna's silver chamber pot on the second floor. I can't imagine how rich or how vain you would have to be to own a silver chamber pot. My favorite interactive exhibit is the one that allows you to smell the same thing that Patillo Higgins smelled when he took his Sunday School class to Spindletop, where he later struck oil. We are just about to study this event at school, so the exhibit provides a wonderful opportunity for students to experience the same thing that they read about in the textbook. The last thing we did at the museum was to watch the Star of Destiny presentation in the Lone Star Theater. It is not really a movie. It is more of a 3-D multimedia presentation on three screens. The show lasts about 15-20 minutes and gives a brief review of important moments in Texas history. I know that may not sound very interesting, but the show has some surprises in store for the audience, such as simulating a rattlesnake strike and raining on everyone during the part that tells about the Galveston hurricane. There were many screams, followed by laughs during these parts of the show. It was a fun way to wrap up the instructional part of our day.

After leaving the museum at 6:00 P.M., we headed to Round Rock to eat supper at Cici's Pizza. When we got there, two other tour buses were already parked in the lot. It was a little frustrating, because we had talked with Cici's ahead of time to make sure that they would be ready for us. Anyway, it took a little longer than we would have liked to get in and serve ourselves, but the pizza bar never ran out of pizza, and I think the students enjoyed eating there. After all, this trip is for them, and if they have a good time, then that is what's important.

Heading back to Mansfield, I think we teachers were more worn out than the students, but that is pretty much the case every year. It took us a little longer to get back than we had anticipated because of the wildfires near Hillsboro. We had to take a detour that led us through Italy and Milford, but finally we rolled into the school parking lot around 11:00 P.M. I think the lesson I learned from the day was that there are at least two things I have no control over: Mother Nature and Cici's Pizza. My son was excited to see the huge charter buses, and he loved the spelunker's helmet that I brought him. I think he would have even worn it to church for Easter today if we had let him. When everything has been said and done, I know that for me, it was just one more successful trip to Austin, but I hope that for our students the day was a trip that they will never forget. That's the reason we keep doing this year after year.