Capital City Trip, Day Two

Day two: Monday, June 30: got up at 7:30 a.m. and had a breakfast of Mother's homemade quick breads, and fresh fruits. Afterward, Hubbie and I rode bikes around the campground for 30 minutes (plus a five minute cool-down walk around our campsite circle).



We spent the next hour listening to an audio book we'd started on the trip down..."A Bend in the Road," by Nicholas Sparks. Sparks, a good storyteller who doesn't find it necessary to use foul language and graphic sex scenes, is one of our favorite authors.



We had an early lunch so we could head out at noon to arrive at 12:30 at the science museum, where I was scheduled to teach photography. Staff members, one with a four-wheel dolly, met us at the unloading dock behind the museum and helped haul my paraphernalia into the classroom.



By 1 p.m., Hubbie and I had set up what I needed to do today's session with the nine "day campers", ages six and a half to twelve years old, who attended. The kids did sunprints, which are designs created by arranging found objects or dried flora on photographic paper and then taking the designs out into the sunshine to expose the paper. The designs are then put through chemicals to fix the images.



After the kids dried their designs, we took them into the darkroom to create black and white contact prints, using a darkroom enlarger.



The "darkroom," by the way, was a tiny room housing the elevator mechanisms. The mechanisms are encased in large steel tubes that are very noisy when the elevator is in use. Also the tubes sport large protruding nuts and bolts that I walked into from time to time when the lights were off. I hit one of the bolts so hard with my hip one day that I now have a huge bruise there.



Otherwise, the room was sufficient for my needs...big enough to accommodate a folding table for the enlarger and several chemical trays, plus two safe-light stands. But there was only room enough for me and one student at a time. Over the years, I've had to adapt some strange spaces as darkrooms, like a boys' small bathroom adjacent to the classroom, and various supply closets, but this is the first time I've had to use an elevator mechanism room for a darkroom.



Today's session went very well, and we learned right away who the unruly kids were...one boy and one girl. The boy kept wandering out of the classroom and into the museum, but he was brought back by various staff members. I think this child may be autistic, though we were later told his parents think there is nothing whatsoever wrong with him. The unruly girl, about 10 years old, just acted like she was bored, and thought she could get my goat by interrupting with inane questions. I remained very patient with her. Coming to camp was probably not her idea. Her parents might just have been looking for built-in babysitters to keep her out of their hair for a few hours. Same with the unruly boy. At any rate, every group I've ever worked with has had problem children, and I've learned to tolerate them.



We were assigned a couple of teenage volunteers who were very helpful in keeping the children entertained while I worked with the kids one-on-one in the darkroom. The teens are very sharp youngsters, who took part in the projects each day.



The session was from 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., with a 30-minute break. Afterward, we arrived back at camp about 5:30 p.m., had a supper of Ziplock bag omelets, biscuits and gravy, fresh oranges, and milk, and then rode bikes for 30 minutes again.



On our ride, we saw a flock of geese grazing on the river bank, an orange and yellow hot air balloon slowly drifting over the treetops, a bi-plane with blue body and yellow wings, and either a Air Force Base or med-flight helicopter.



After our ride, we sat in the yard until the mosquitoes began to bite, driving us indoors. We played Skipbo again, the only card game Mother really enjoys these days. Of the three games we played, I won two, and Mother won one.



While we were playing, Mother commented that she spent part of the afternoon sitting in the yard crocheting. On a tree limb just above her head, perched a very annoying mocking bird repeating its considerable repertoire of songs.

It was a busy day for all of us, and we were ready to hit the hay by 10 p.m.