Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Days 26/27 Casper, Wyoming


Well yesterday we had yet another desert and boring ride.  We played a game today called "Find that Tree," where the pace line or van that could take pictures of the most trees would win a prize from our Project Manager.  The winning team found fifteen trees in a span of 120 miles.  I found 8.  The only exciting thing on the road that took place today is the number of antelope, deer, and wild bison we saw.  You know how on TV when you see extremely small towns with not very many people? Well I do believe we saw the smallest of the small yesterday.  Take a guess at how many people make up the population of Highland, Wyoming. In the hundreds? I do not think so. Ten.  Count them. A grand total of ten people make up the population.  We saw maybe five buildings and one of those was a gas station.  We almost tripled the population with our team when we passed through it.  Towards the end of the ride, we finally got into a city that resembled civilization.  The high school that we are staying at is absolutely enormous.  To put it into Indiana terms, this high school is the Carmel of Wyoming.  There were two practice playing fields that were both turf, and the football stadium was almost identical to Carmel’s.  There was a community pool basically in the parking lot of the high school, so they graciously let us use it during our down time, which was amazing.  I can always appreciate a good pool day. 

Tonight we met up with the NOWCAP organization for a dinner and our first friendship visit in a very long time.  We were served barbeque pulled pork sandwiches, chips, and the biggest pieces of cake I have ever seen.  I met an old man originally from Michigan who was a huge Notre Dame fan, so I immediately connected with him and we talked the entire time about ND football.  The organization had set up an obstacle course in the parking lot for us to complete with the clients.  On the team, each person has his own number so that when we sound off in order, we know if someone is missing.  We broke up into an even team and an odd team to compete against each other.  It started out with those wooden planks that have strings on them where you lift them up one at a time.  Watching the guys try and figure it out was quite humorous.  When that was completed, each team had a client in a motored wheelchair that they had to guide around a cone and go to the next step.  Then people had to walk with eggs on a spoon around a cone.  Next was the classic bat spin and run to their partner at the next step.  My stage was next where we had to throw a football through a hoop ten times.  After that, I had to give the football to a client so that he could complete a pass to my partner.  Down the homestretch we go where they had to complete the saltine crackers challenge (eat ten saltines and then whistle in the fastest time possible).  Once they whistled, one person had to blow up ten balloons and sit on them to pop them.  Once the tenth balloon was popped, they had to run back to the start where the finish line was located.  Obviously my team won because we are just that awesome. 









 Today was a pretty relaxed day in the sense that we only had a sponsored dinner at the end of the day.  During the day, the entire team went to a car wash to clean our vans.  We had been on some dirt roads so far this trip, so it is an understatement to say our vans were dirty.  Other day’s activities included laundry, pool time, mall time, and movie time.  We had a dinner and friendship visit with the Arc of Casper tonight at a local park.  They fed us with Subway sandwiches and chips.  Since we were in a park, there were so many games going on I could not do all of them.  We got a pick up soccer game going with a couple clients, and there was one kid who could punt the ball farther than any of the guys on my team.  It was a pretty fun two days here in Casper, Wyoming.  It was so nice to have friendship visits again.   We have the longest day ahead of us tomorrow when we will go 130 miles to good ol’ Wheatland, Wyoming. Now to sleep in this “basement gym” as they call it, where its just turfed floors for baseball batting cages and training.  


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