Today we got to sleep in a bit since it was Sunday. The Summit Center didn’t open to visitors until noon, so our start time was respectively pushed back by three hours. I didn’t set an alarm, but my brain woke me up by six anyway.
It was significantly warmer than the last few mornings, but I again took my time getting dressed and out of the tent. I headed to breakfast, and met up with my friend. A little before nine we got a message that people were already lining up. We caught a shuttle to the welcome center, and headed to work.
Even though we’d had fewer tickets sold for today, on our side of the process it felt a lot more hectic. People were showing up at the same times as they had the previous few days, but since the buses couldn’t leave for Summit Center before 11:30, they started piling up. We had no problem with getting them through security, and their tickets checked, but they couldn’t go anywhere. This caused the line to back up into the queue outside of the security screening tent, and into the lot. We had the line snaking back and forth in multiple folds. Thankfully most of the visitors are scouts and scouters, so everyone stayed in an orderly fashion.
That parking lot was hot and dusty, and I’m quite sure I’m going to be brining a good bit of West Virginia home with me on my clothing.
Eventually we got the visitors on their way, and had a chance to breathe. The last bus to Summit Center leaves at 3 PM, so at that time we were done for the day. One of our team members had already earned the International Service Team Service Award, and has told us of the requirements. We had met most of them, but volunteering for extra hours with the arranged opportunities wasn’t feasible with our schedule. Most of us had done extra beyond our shifts, though, so our team lead wrote us a letter attesting to this. We headed to Echo, and went to look for where to turn this in.
As we were walking over, I saw that there was a training going on in the cinema tent, and that was one of the requirements. We were able to join in progress, and learn about West Virginia history. Once that was over we did find the spot for the award. Turns out the Native American dancers we had seen before the opening ceremony counted as the cultural event we were missing, so we had now actually completed all the requirements and got the award!
From there we found a spot in the Chat-and-Chew. Having learned from yesterday, I went to check on the status of sauna availability. We were told they were all reserved 7-9 PM. So we made sure we worked it into our schedule: 6 PM sauna, 7 PM dinner, and 8 PM movie. Tonight’s feature was Guardians of The Galaxy.
The evening was mostly relaxing. There was a DJ playing music right next to the cinema tent throughout the entire movie, and after it. The movie volume was turned all the way up, so we were able to hear most of the dialogue. This was another evening I was glad my tent is about as far away from the hub of activity as possible. It seems the music went until right before 11 PM, but with my earplugs in it didn’t bother me.
Xennial Wanderer 