Week 4, Day 4: Water & War

Living in the "city" does have it's advantages. Living so close to the major bridge and the river, means the water treatment plant is right down at the bottom of the hill (plus a few more blocks). The kind city crew were more than helpful by giving us a tour. (Josh - you were AWESOME!) It was a hot day, and after last night's camp out, the kids were moving like a herd of sloths, but once there it was quite interesting. 

We got to see the schematics of the pipelines leading to the plant. We got to see the waste water as it came in to the plant and what it was composed of: everything you flush or put down the drain. 

 We learned a little of the science of how it treated before being released into the river (bubble bubble).  We were regaled with stories of the goldfish that was put in the water and lived for years, adapting to his environment with all the constant swimming he had to do to keep up with the current. The smell was not the most pleasant, but remarkably the campers did not complain too much.

All in all the questions were intelligent and a bunch of "what's that do?" But after exhausting all we could learn in the time frame we were there, we bid our farewells onto our next LETTERBOX!... but wait - I've got nine hot, tired, hungry kids... better eat soon. 

The treatment plant, like I said is located at the bottom of the hill, right below the entrance to Fort Griswold - there is a whole slew of letterboxes there, one group set by an Eagle Scout. So we decided to look for one letterbox... and failed due to the lack of our compass -(ooops)- and a frightening amount of poison ivy. C'est la vie! So then off to the picnic tables we went. 

After refueling the campers revived a bit and went to find box #3 of the series (#1 being down the road, too far for walking today & #2 the failed attempt). Note to self: read through the entire clue before starting off. If we had, we would have realized the directions were simply a basic tour of the fort grounds and took us back a mere 10 yards from our resting spot... sigh! But at least we were successful in finding ONE stamp :) ! 

After that, the desire to continue letterboxing waned drastically and was out voted by the chance to play MORE WARRIORS! (who can argue with creative fun play?) Suddenly energy returned enough to run all over the fort's grounds again. 

Did not follow the whole story, but I think someone got promoted and then an actual "battle" occurred, where casualties took out most of the campers... oh well. ;)

The only lure to get them back to base camp, was our spa tub, but that was enough to get them moving. So the very hot kids trudged back... to get into a hot tub... (yeah, it didn't make sense to me either, but they loved it!) I insisted on 10 minutes of journal-ling, but then into the tub with the whole crew, until pick up. The tub water was created as having  "restorative" properties as all the fallen warriors were put right again. I just love a happy ending :)