Day Nine: Friday, January 13
It's SHANE's Birthday! (His 21st!)
Our Friday the 13th started in fine form with a blistering thunderstorm. The lightning strikes and thunder claps were very close together, and the rain was pounding on the bus. We had every intention of sleeping in, but the thunderstorm just wouldn't let us. We got to find out where all of the biggest leaks are in our dining tent, in our luggage tent, and in the windows of the bus itself (which were open, covered in mosquito netting). Our camp had huge puddles all through it, but, as predicted by Mario (our contact at Parkway Partners), it all soaked in very quickly. We laid out wet socks, towels, and jackets once the sun came back out, and we all recovered pretty quickly.
We spent the morning drying out and cleaning up. First we reorganized the dining tent, then we emptied the bus of all contents and spread them out on plastic on the lawn. We only let people bring the lowest possible number of possessions into the bus, as we realized that people were accumulating large piles of clothing and everything else inside. Wel ocated almost every lost shoe, glove, sock, and pair of safety glasses, and we confirmed our sense that we had left one whole bag of clothes at the laundry, because our missing items didn't show up. We set up a system so that all of our mucky stuff (boots, hard hats, gloves, etc.) can now be kept under control in one of the luggage holds and therefore those items will never need to enter the bus.
We cooked leftover hotdogs into macaroni and cheese for lunch, and groups spent time organizing the projects that they will present on February 8th (at 7:00 p.m. in the Soda Center on the Saint Mary's College campus). Then we took the afternoon off. Some people stayed around camp and got organized. Some people went into the French Quarter and went shopping. As we mentioned before, we are camped right by the Canal St. ferry, which is one of the old-style river ferries where you can actually drive your car right onto it and ride across the river. We just walked on, and enjoyed catching views of New Orleans from the unique vantage point of the water. We are all still very surprised that the ferry is FREE (that is SO un-California...).
No matter what people did, we all gathered at 6:00 at Cafe Du Monde so that we could have Shane's birthday dinner together. We picked Bubba Gump's because they could handle our crowd. We took up most of the second floor. We had piles and piles of shrimp and loads of fun. Some people stayed out with Shane to celebrate, but everyone made it home in time for our 11:00 curfew. Tomorrow, we return to "Da Ninth" to gut more houses.
These shots are of the bus before and after our massive cleaning of it.
Before the cleanup.
After the cleanup.
What a difference!
Elvia, Stephanie, Alli, Mallory, Courtney, and Vanessa spent their afternoon shopping.
One end of the table at Bubba Gump's.
The other end of the table at Bubba Gump's.
Alli and Rachel actually washed their hair and everything!
Feke cleans up pretty well too.
The Birthday Boy, aka Princess Shane, plays with one of his birthday presents: a gator puppet on a stick. Leo took over the gator, and we're not sure Shane ever saw it again. Please note Shane's pretty pink necklaces. They were very becoming.
Shawny tries to keep the birthday boy under control.
| <<< Day Eight | Day Ten >>> |
