We stayed in members' houses. The only reason I bother to mention that is because of what happened at the member's house. The house I stayed at had 5 bedrooms upstairs and the living areas downstairs. 1 1/2 bath, which meant you had to shower upstairs. So Friday night, everyone is tired and goes to bed. I'm slower to get ready because I was on the phone all night, so everyone else is in bed and the lights are off. Unfortunately, the bathroom is directly at the top of the stairs. . .not a good combination. I came out of the bathroom and couldn't see a thing and went right down the stairs. Luckily I caught myself on the railing, unluckily my knee went through one of the stick supporting it, crashing loudly and putting a huge dent in my shin (I somewhat suspect a stress fracture too, but since all the doctor can do for me is tell me to take it easy and limit what I can do I refuse to go see her).
The next day was infinitely better. We woke up and got ready, drove to the church worried about missing breakfast because we were late. Oh wait, we forgot to figure in Mormon Standard Time. . .we were there before most other people. After breakfast there was a keynote speaker, Jane Clayson Johnson, who was an anchor on The Early Show, Good Morning America, and several others before she became a stay at home mom. Her talk was wonderful, but us poor cadets had a hard time not chuckling at times because the main story she used was about one of her reporting tasks which required that she attend a mini-boot camp at the amazing West Point, NY. She didn't know there were cadets in the audience.
After that we broke off into workshops. There was only time for three and they all looked great, so I just kinda wandered from class to class. The first two, I was planning on going somewhere else and felt like I should go to them instead and they were wonderful. The last one I went to the one I had planned rather than the one I felt like I should go to, not as good. Still a good workshop, don't get me wrong, but not what I was looking for. Moral of the story, go with the spirit, he knows what'll work out best.
That afternoon most of us cadets went to Boston for a couple of hours to just chill. We finally found a place to park (who knew a fifteen seater van could could be parallel parked with less than 2-3 inches of room in front and back?) and walked aimlessly down a street, soon getting lost. The good thing about a city is that there are maps all over for the subway systems, so you just look for one of those and BOOM! you're not lost anymore. Nobody could have guess that we were tourists with 8 clean-shaven, short haired, straight young men in downtown Boston all huddled around a subway map, but who cares? we're cadets, we don't need to fit in. Ben Westman, one of the guys, just got off his mission to Hong Kong and desperately wanted to go to Chinatown, so we went. Chinatown is always fun, but with him it was a blast. I tried a new kind of bread that was amazing, some tea (he assured me it was Word of Wisdom approved and that he drank it all the time on his mission) that he convinced me to buy because it was "the best drink ever" (tasted like liquid cardboard), and some Japanese gum (yes, in Chinatown, who'da thunk?). Then we found a little shop where Ben went insane with the Chinese suits (see pictures), but they were insanely expensive. He bargained the best he could, but when the lady said $35 and he said $5, didn't go so well (all happened in Chinese, he had to explain it later).
We headed back to the Church where we had dinner and a dance. Meals were interesting there. West Point cadets don't get out much and as a result, we are the most socially awkward people you'll ever meet. Luckily, we don't care if people like us anymore, we're pretty secure. That meant that everyone could pick out the West Point cadets at a glance, we were the only large group of guys with no girls mixed in. The whole weekend we said we were going to branch out, not sit by each other, never really worked out though. . .
Since I am happily taken, I played wingman at the dance. The problem is all the guys I was helping were 18. While that is ok at a YSA dance in Utah, these people push the 30 year-old age limit so there was pretty slim pickins for us. I was gettin my buddy to dance with all the best looking girls there, but one was a junior in college, the other already had a degree. He pretty much gave up after that. . .
The next morning we got up and went to church. The night before, the CIC (Cadet In Charge) for the trip told us to be there 10 minutes early. We got there almost 10 minutes late, but the other van wasn't there yet so we were still good :) Turns out they pulled in about the same time on the other side of the building. We walked in 10 minutes late from both sides of the chapel. Perfect timing. 13 cadets, walking into the meeting from opposite sides of the back of the room and meeting half way across a pew in the front of the congregation. We made quite an impact, so much so that they stopped the meeting to welcome us. It was perfect.
The plan was to leave after sacrament and make it back to West Point before a storm hit. Turns out that there was an old grad in the congregation though. . .one that knew our OIC (Officer In Charge) nonetheless. He asked for a few cadets to come bear their testimonies in his Sunday School class, so we waited for them to finish, then waited for him to talk to Bro./MAJ Cook. We climbed in the vans and headed to gas up. Before we pulled out, Bro. Cook talked with all of us. We had to make it as far as we could before the storm hit, so our orders were at or above the speed limit (beautiful thing about driving vehicles with government plates, tickets are much less common) until weather made us slow down. Everyone but the drivers fell asleep, when we woke up nobody knew where we were. MAJ Cook had dissappeared long ago, the driver of the lead van had decided to follow a different route. Ended up working out well though, we made it to Highland Falls where we stopped to get some food (its always better to get food outside West Point than inside the gates). Orders were to get it to go and get back to the barraks, until one of the drivers locked the keys in the car. The department we got the vans from was closed, the MP's didn't have a lockpicking kit. . .fine, call the local police. He couldn't crack it, had to hand his gear over to a cadet to break in.
Several hours of math project later, I'm sitting in my little gray cell, putting off the rest of my homework by writing a long blog entry. . .
Some pics from the trip:
I'm not a picture taker so there aren't very many, but in the future there will hopefully be more.
