Field Trip Through My Eyes

Ugh! Headache already. Grades kindergarten to six are on their way to Celebration of Dance. I hate rides to field trips; the loud bus, the headaches, everything. It’s only quarter to ten and I am already wanting to go home.

My eyes are itchy, my head is pounding and the loud bus isn’t helping. I’m also hot. So hot. Dead and hot. The sunscreen smells bad. Of course, I’m not wearing it.

Oh, look! We’re on our way to my Aunt Stacey’s cottage! Woo hoo! I’m no expert, but heading down- wait, we turned! And look, my soccer field, Storrington! Still not having the best time, but I’m getting used to it. Farmland comes aftger the ice cream place near the field. After a couple minutes of farmland, a lake. An old, broken barn. Ashley and Ashley sit in town different seats, fighting about where this guy Tyler lives. Goody, more farmland. Uh oh. Now Max and Peyton are blaring “Bills” at the top of their lungs. A little river! Red and green buoys stick out of it. It’s now 10:00 am.

We seem to be heading towards Kingston or maybe Westport? We’ve turned so much that I’m now very confused about our location. I just saw a sign that said SandHill Road with an arrow pointing South. I think South? I wonder why we took this obvious detour. Maybe it’s because there’s still 44 minutes until Celebration of Dance actually starts. The other buses kept to Perth Road though. Weird. John Deer. A gas station. Some sort of power plant. A farm. Aaahhh! Completely wrong! SandHill Road was North. Just saw a sign saying South was the opposite direction than I thought.

New pencil. Ever heard of Rose Emberly Drive? I just saw it. Cool, a blue jeep. There isn’t one sign that says where we are. Just passed LaSalle Secondary School. A guy on a weird bike. I look and look. No sign. There’s a sign pointing South that says downtown. So we’re probably in Kingston.

Honk! Honk! A transport. Oh, yes! Ms. de Groot yells for us to be quiet and at 10:21 we pull up to Fort Henry. Half an hour of waiting, one and a half hours of dancing and 15 minutes of lunch. The dancing was sort of boring, and I couldn’t hear my own voice, it was so loud.  But we danced to lots of songs and had some fun.

At lunch we sat on a hill with a beautiful view of Lake Ontario. We could see Wolfe Island. We drive away in the middle of a big chain of buses. The yellow dandelions outside look big, and bright. They take up so much grass. The sidewalk looks so hot and to the right, a huge soccer dome sits shining in the sun. I bet it’s over twenty degrees. Hottest day of 2016 so far, I think. Today is a day for cool coloured jeeps. I see an orange one. There is a big building with lots of bikes parked in front.

Soon, we’re marching up the steps of KGH. Inside, at the Mobility Clinic, we named a skeleton’s bones, we felt arthritis in our fingers and experienced blindness. We needed to put tape on our fingers with popsicle sticks like we had arthritis. Then we tried to open a candy with that hand. We were also given these glasses that made you feel like you were blind and we had to identify a coin.

At the Mechanical Engineering Machine Shop, we were shown big machines, we were told how 3D printers worked and got to pass around different things Corey Fowler had made with the printer. We were also shown a Baha race car.

Now, as we drive down Division Street, I smile. It looks to me that we will be headed straight down Perth Road, no detour included. I dit in the bus, hot and sweaty, in the powerful afternoon sun. When I get home, I’m gonna go swimming and, if Wil isn’t there, have some ice cream.

I sit looking at No Frills. We drive under the highway and 4 motorcycles zip by Little Cataraqui Conservation Area. Suddenly, I slide forward in my seat. We pass Glenburnie and I think to myself, “10 more minutes.” Farmland sprinkled with dandelions are everywhere. A couple houses here and there. We enter the outskirts of Inverary and I sit up to look around. We pass a digger as it pushes dirt away to build a house in a new neighborhood. We pass the boat repair shop and I see a neon green jeep. Out here, the fields are green, unlike the brown ones I saw on our detour. My shirt sticks to my back and we pass North Shore Road. The last jeep I see before leaving the bus is white!

By: Stella

Edited by: Stella and Ms. de Groot