Turtles Take Hershey

I can never clearly recall why my girl scout troop had a turtle for our mascot.  I think it had something to do with national turtle day one year and some embarrassing moments for one particular girl. Thinking back it was cruel at the time but the one girl was so excited about it that it just sorta stuck.
As we did every summer we went on a weekend trip somewhere.  In July 2013 we went to Hershey Park in Pennsylvania.  The drive was always difficult with seven of us we didn't fit into one car.  But that was okay we made it work even with all the things that some girls need to bring on a weekend adventure.

Hotel rooms always had interesting moment for us.  Choosing who was going to sleep in the same bed and who was maybe gonna sleep on the floor so the didn't have to deal with sleeping with one of the girls who always took over the bed every night.  Once that was settled we got to work making our t-shirts.  We always made a shirt for every trip, and this trip was no different.  We drew a candy on out shirts that and instead of writing its proper name we wrote turtles to fit with our theme and our personal expression.


One thing that was always nice was we could be ourselves around each other. We went swimming in the hotel pool and then we went to Hershey Park.  We went to Chocolate World and had a lot of fun buying chocolate and seeing how it is made.  In Hershey Park we went to the water section and enjoyed all the great rides that we could in the short amount of time. Then when we were finished we met up with our leaders and the other girls who didn't com with and we went on regular roller coasters for  the rest of the day.

Life Lesson #23: When Going to a park with water rides also pack flip flops so you don't have to walk around barefoot on the hot ground.

Girl Scouts Take D.C.

Celebrating 100 years of girl scouts at the capital means that there will be a lot of other girls around, like thousands.  We had the honor of having one of group members win a contest for creating and original song that she got to perform for everyone.  It was a girl scout cookie rap that we helped her right while trying to sell girl scout cookies.  It's easy for the little girls to sell things to people because they are all cute, we instead had to use our talents and impress our costumers.


On our trip we not only got to celebrate what girl scouts has done over the years we get to visit all of the monuments that celebrate America's history.  The Washington monument was closed at the time so we could only admire it from a distance.  We weren't allowed to visit the president inside his very large house so we instead took a picture and attempted to count all the security guards around and on top of the building.  I was the only one able to spot the snippers, who are supposed to be known for their stealth and ability to go unnoticed.

At the end of our trip we took one of those hilarious ghost tours.  I don't know about my readers, but I personally do not believe in ghosts but the writer side of me thoroughly enjoyed the creativity of the people who made up some of the stories.  My friends though were not so convinced that they were not real.  This made is easy for me to scare them for the rest of the night, which I took full advantage of.  Even though this was my third trip to Washington D.C. I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to meet other girls scouts from all over the world.

Life Lesson #18: When girl scouts take over a city, it will always be left cleaner when we leave than before we got there.

Turtles Take Ocean City

In May during the year 2011 I started on another journey with a great group of friends.  Many people would find it strange that I was a girl scout all the way through.  As we got older the more traveling we wanted to do.  It only seemed normal that an athlete like myself had to be partially injured on this trip.

We were all about taking pictures, making memories, and long walks on the boardwalk that meant by the end of the trip my ankle was as sore as anything would be after a few days of that.  Upon our arrival to Ocean City we walked around the hotel and immediately noted the beach right in our backyard.  As we gathered our camera's and flip flops we each started the short journey to the beautiful ocean and sandy beach.

Forgetful as I am I forgot about the ace bandage around my left ankle attempting to scream at me "I can't get wet."  As we got to the edge of the road and the beginning of the tiny specks of sand we each removed our shoes.  It was then that I realized that I wasn't allowed to get the wrap dirty or wet.  I decided to be lazy and use one of my good friends to noble down to the beach on my other foot that worked a little better at the time.  The image was captured while the memory was logged into my brain.   

We were all close minus the one girl standing off in the distance.  She stayed behind on most of our adventures.  As we stayed up all night one of the days we were there the light on the boardwalk light the way for most of the night.  I drank a mountain dew flavored energy drink and realized that was the craziest thing and energetic person could do to themselves.  I also watch a drunk couple almost drown in the ocean...but that's another story for another day.

Life Lesson #13: Energy drinks (even in a small quantity) are not good for you, and neither is trying to swim while drunk.