2014 Kansas 4-H Citizenship Washington Focus

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Monday, July 7, 2014

The Final Blog Post

Ready to embark on the last leg of our homeward bound journey, we departed Effingham, Illinois at 7:30 am. We presented our bus driver, William, with tip money as our thanks for a safe and wonderful bus ride. He has been an awesome coach driver!! Marietta shared a quote with us as we started this last day of traveling. After being with each other for 12 days, we had become like a mini Kansas family, and each had made lasting memories. So Marietta shared a quote with us from Dr. Suess. The quote read, “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.” As we drive home, many emotions fill the bus. Some are excited to get home, some are just tired of being on the bus, and some don’t want to leave their new friends. Lots of laughter and chatter is heard throughout the bus, a far cry from the day we loaded the bus when not many knew each other. Some of the kids are found playing cards, some sleeping, some watching a movie, and others just enjoying each other’s company. Our first stop was Boonville, Missouri, where we said our goodbyes to our Missourian delegate, Mikayla. Some of the kids enjoyed some Russell Stovers at this stop. Many cheers were heard when we crossed the state line into Kansas! Along the way to our final stop in Salina, we stopped in Topeka, where we said goodbye to 15 of our delegates, and many tears were shed. At a Manhattan rest stop, we said goodbye to 5 more delegates, where we tested our tear ducts some more. The rest of the delegates unloaded at Salina, where even more tears, hugs, and contact information was shared. At the end of this trip, each delegate had a special to share. Setting out on this trip 12 days, ago, one would have never thought of the impact this trip could have, or the memories they would make to last a lifetime!

With love,

Marissa Bland

Monday, July 7, 2014

The final Picture

The final picture from 2014 Citizenship Washington Focus - We even got the bus driver William! Thank you to William and everyone else who helped make this trip possible!

Final Pictures

Gettysburg

Flight 93 Memorial

Final Blog Post - Sunday, July 6, 2014

We left our hotel in Somerset, PA at 7:45 am this morning Sunday, July 6^th. We stopped at the Pilot Truck stop at 10:00 am to take a much needed morning break. Catherine bought a Monster Energy Drink to help her through the morning bus ride.

We watched three movies while riding on the bus: 1776, Pitch Perfect, Freaky Friday and She’s the Man. We finally arrived at Effingham, IL at 5:00 pm and hung out at the motel and split up into small groups to eat at the various restaurants close the motel. Marietta was fortunate enough to be able to spend the evening with her son and daughter-in-law who live in Effingham.

At reflections, we talked about our favorite thing we experienced during the trip. Most of the group talked about seeing the various National Memorials, Delegation Day or about all the country songs that the Kansas delegation sang on the bus. Our PA at the National 4-H Center, Mikayla dubbed us as the “Kansas Country Choir”. Some others in our group talked about the huge fireworks display over the National Mall or just plain having fun during the whole trip. My personal favorites were attending the musical: Pirates of Penzance and visiting the National Cathedral.

The most touching thing I heard all night was from Marissa and Ben Yarnell saying that it’s not about ourselves but the memories and friendships that we made, that will last for a lifetime.

I personally love you all and will miss you. Remember the memories.

Tim Roloff

Saturday, July 5, 2014

After a long day and a perfect night watching fireworks over our nation's Capitol we got up early and started off at 7:45. We headed out of the National 4-H center for the last time and headed off to Gettysburg. Most of the delegates caught some z's on the ride there. We all got to enjoy the very nice gift shop and buy all the gifts for our family's that we had been putting off. A tour guide then gave us a bus tour around the battle fields. We stopped a couple of times to get out and see some of the monuments and to get the opportunity to step foot on a battle field. The tour guide led us up a hill to get a beautiful view of all the battle field. Back on the bus we returned to the gift shop area and ate lunch at their cafeteria. It was very good! Just outside of Gettysburg is the National Cemetery. We stopped for about 30 minutes to view the area where Abraham Lincoln gave his Gettysburg address. Chaperone and delegate Janet and AJ Wertzenberger then took off to catch a flight to head off to another conference so we made sure and all gave him a big group hug! After getting comfy under our blankets and sweatshirts we were ready to take on the bus again. As we headed of to the Flight 93 memorial we watched Night at the Museum seeing that it was fitting because we were all just at the Smithsonian. As we were arriving to the memorial we got a brief preview of Flight 93. It was a very neat memorial including the names of all the passengers and a large boulder exactly where the plane impacted. It was a very humbling memorial. A short 30 minute drive was all that was stopping us from the hotel. Close to a hotel was a restaurant called Eat'n'Park. This restaurant started here in Pennsylvania, starting as a drive up and now turned into a sit down. The food was delicious and the desert was even better! We celebrated Seira
16th birthday with some dessert! Back at the hotel many of us just hung out and many of us enjoyed the pool. After reflections we noticed some fireworks outside we all got to sit outside and watch another firework show! Some things that happened today was that Shaylee Aprin got pushed in the pool multiple times and one time her ring fell off. After much searching by the boys it was found! Some delegates also met and really enjoyed their waiter at dinner tonight, while other delegates really enjoyed the giant elephant statue outside the restaurant. Everyone is ready for a long ride on the bus tomorrow now!

Friday, July 4, 2014

Kansas delagates to CWF began our delegation day by wearing their American themed attire on the 4th of July! The first part of the day was the closing ceremony. Kansas was well represented in the slideshow, and our own Jennifer Gartner helped present the Twitter and Instagram awards, plus Tessa Davids won the CWF Hunt for the week which means she is entered to win an IPad Mini at the end of the summer. Following closing ceremonies we filled out evaluation forms.

Our bus driver took us down to the National Mall after we ate breakfast at the 4-H center. After establishing our Meeting spot for the evening we had the opportunity to split up and enjoy activities on the Mall and the town. Many delegates enjoyed the Smithsonian museums, others went to Union Station and shopped, and others just explored the town.

I spent the day with Katie Buhler, Samantha White, Laurin Wagner, and Alexis Engelken. We started at the National Museum of American History where we saw an original pair of Dorthy's Ruby Slippers, and an amazing collection of dresses from the First Ladies throughout the ages. We then ate lunch and headed to the Museum of Natural History to see the Hope Diamond before deciding the line was too long just to see a diamond, so in turn we went to the Air and Space Museum. There was an amazing amount of airplanes and rockets and other aeronautics items on display. We made a couple of purchases in the gift shop and Laurin and Alexis rode a flight simulator.

We decided to make our way back across the Mall via The World Life Festival which is hosted by the Smithsonians and showcases two world countries each year. This year the countries showcased were Kenya and China. All of us made purchases including Kenyan beaded jewelry and a basket. It was really cool to see all the examples of crafts from these countries.

The decision was made collectively by our little group that a trip to our Nation's Capitol wouldn't be complete without a visit to the White House, so we walked down there stopping at some street vendors along the way. When we actually got to the White House some police officers decided to close the avenue so we went and sat under a tree in Lafayette Park and just relax for a little bit and take some pictures. Samantha pointed out some "snipers" on the roof of the White House which we exclaimed I've and took pictures of until Katie pointed out that they were just trees.

Back on the National Mall we ate some ice cream and witnessed the Scientologists attempting to pass out pamphlet upon pamphlet to th unsuspecting public. After our afternoon treat we went back in the American History Museum and made some last minute gift shop purchases before meeting up with the whole group, where we learned that some girls had taken a taxi and gotten lost because their driver had only been driving a taxi for two weeks.

The first part of the day was a large success and the next part of our Independence day experience involved riding the metro and eating dinner before we walked to the Iwo Jima memorial to meet up with our PA Mikayla whom had been saving us a spot all day to watch the fireworks from. We got there at seven o'clock and the fireworks didn't start until nine so we had some time to relax. Our relaxation included sleeping, playing cards, Karrie and Andy painting Cadin's fingernails with glow in the dark nail polish, and an epic game of duck duck goose.

The fireworks were an amazing experience and some of them were really awesome. There were smiley faces, hearts and fireworks that spelled USA. Many of us will remember this day because we spent the birthday of our nation in it's capitol. We rode back to the 4-H center where we thanked our PA Mikayla for all she had done for us over the course of the week. We then rushed to bed because it would be a short night followed by a long day on Saturday.

I now have to share the story of Laurin's wallet which occured on Capitol Hill day and hasn't gotten told yet. Laurin had a wallet with a smallish decorative metal gun on it. Every one was going through security just fine and the guy who was in charge of looking at the X-Ray machine wasn't really paying attention except when Laurin's bag went through he glanced at the screen and promptly went "Oh @$&# is that a gun?" After the situation played through Laurin got permission from her dad to throw the wallet away so she wasn't hassled going through security every time.

All in all our trip has been so fantastic and we can't believe that we are already on the last stretch of our trip.

-Macy Davis