Our Last In Service Visit...and Jen Arrives!

On August 11 Lauren and I met at 8 am at the Vis, got our final things for our presentation and headed out to Pauls Valley for the in service. A great omen--it was raining....pretty hard in some places. Pauls Valley is about 30 miles down the road--home of the Action Figure Museum I wrote about previously--so we had a little bit of a road trip before us. As we drove down the road we spotted a rainbow...another excellent omen.


I couldn't resist requesting a pull over by Lauren and to take photos of it. I love rainbows. Much to Lauren's horror, I handed her the camera, jumped out of the car, and ran to the middle of the road so she could take my photo with the rainbow. No harm done---we are all safe...

We continued down the road and found our destination: Pauls Valley High School. Mr. Bobby Russell, the Superintendent, was fantastic! He introduced us and it was show time! We got our PowerPoint loaded and we were off! Lauren was spectacular! She gave a history of the park, gave the NPS spiel, and discussed educational opportunities with the park. I got to share about our education program offerings and gave a little shout out for my 8th grade partnership that I would love to have happen with a local teacher here. The presentation went very smoothly and then....even better....there was a break following our presentation! So we were able to hand out our bags of flyers to the teachers in person and talk with several of them that had questions. Lauren and I felt it was a very successful outreach and ended our in service visits on such a high note!

On the way back we stopped to pick up our lunch at Amy's Cakes....it was a 100+ year old house that sells cakes, sandwiches, and cookies---it was such a quaint little place. We picked up lunch to eat when we got back to the Vis.


The day flew by. At 2 pm we had a meeting with Gary and Eugene from the Oklahoma Alliance for Geography Education. We are working to set up a teacher workshop at the Park...Gary and Eugene have been phenomenal to work with and we're so excited about the possibilities.

And as soon as our meeting was over???? It was off to home to change really, really quickly and then we had to drive to OK City to pick up Jen !!!! Jen was coming in to a) visit Lauren, b) see the park and c) to drive home with me to DC. Lauren and I were both so excited to see her!

We picked her up at the OK City Bombing Memorial where she had spent the afternoon. The plan was to pick her up and then go to dinner--which is exactly what we did!

We had lunch in downtown Oklahoma City at my favorite Mexican restaurant (thanks Lynn!).

We sat overlooking the canal, talking, eating, taking pictures, and recounting our summer adventures.


Before it got dark we drove over to the State Capitol. Jen has a goal to visit all 50 state capitols and Oklahoma was one that she was missing. So of course we had to head over! And take a few photos!




The oil rig is near the Capitol--taken as we drove off. We had one more stop for the night!

The airport! I had to turn in Lucky Lucy and get a one way rental car for the way home. Despite the fact that I had a reservation, we had to wait almost an hour for a car---pretty trying considering we all had had a long day and were pretty tired, with a drive to get home still.

We were all near delirium when I finally got the the car keys for the new car.


We drove back to the Casino off of I-35 where the road split--I headed home in my new rental car and Jen and Lauren hopped in her car to drive to Ardmore. As we drove through the parking lot what did we see? AN ARMADILLO!!!! I know I didn't act fast enough to take a picture, but I think Jen might have gotten a photo.

It was a great ending to a super day!