Milpitas and San Jose

I had a very good time in California. We only visited Northern California around the Bay area though. First, we went to San Jose. It was pretty cool and there were a lot of Chinese restaurants. We stayed in the Embassy Suites near Milpitas. The hotel was pretty cool as well. There was an atrium and it had a pool with living fish. There was also bamboo in the atrium. The coolest part was the glass elevators. They stuck out from the wall so you could see who was in the other one. Also, there were elevators on both sides of the hotel so you could see who was in the other ones as well. My brother and I played "Elevator Tag" where you try to tag the other person but you can go down elevators and stuff.
We spent some time in the Milpitas Library. It had moved into a new building and it was way bigger. We applied for library cards, got them, and got a whole bunch of books to read. The new library was bigger, with more computers and shelves. It even had a second floor. It was really busy. We could barely find a parking space in the parking lot.The two coolest thing is San Jose were the "Christmas in the Park" and the Tech Museum. The Christmas in the Park was a small section in downtown San Jose with decorations and displays celebrating Christmas. The best part was that all the displays were moving. The people in it were moving and they were dancing and stuff like that. I liked the Gingerbread house or the Santa Railroad Train the most. The following pics are of the Gingerbread House, Santa Railroad, Ornament mine, and Caribbean Christmas displays. All of them could move.

The Tech Museum was also really cool. There was a ball machine outside. It was where there was a conveyor belt and it brought up some balls to the really top of the machine and from there, the ball rolled on the tracks and hit all sorts of obstacles. Sometimes, it would go through some chimes or bounce off a wood block. When we got inside, we didn't need to pay because we had a membership. there was a second story and we went there first. It had an alphabet machine that could write your name with alphabet blocks. The sign said that the robot remembers the exact location of all the blocks. There was also this other machine nearby that drew you. I liked the alphabet machine better because the drawing machine made me look like a gorilla. I also saw this weird game where you have to get the machine to the edge of the cliff without going over. Downstairs, there was an invention lab and other exhibits. There were the lightbulbs that were powered by the bikes and a lot of other green things.

Five Star

Five star was a pretty cool restaurant. It had a nice splattering of graffiti inside. Aside from the seedy neighborhood and the $5 dollar cups of juice and the lame lighting, it was decent. Also, it was really expensive and a party of six cost around $180. You could get like 200 McChickens with that type of money. Also, somehow the waiters must not feel the temperature because it was like 20 degrees and they still had the AC on. I think it was supposed to be an "Asian" cuisine but they didn't even try to fool us. There were like "Fried Green Beans" and a whole bunch of other "authentic" food. They were not even as real as P.F. Chang's! If they were trying to say it was good food and five star, they are very mistaken! I would recommend that they change their name to two star. So, in all, if you have money to waste and you wan't to eat some food in murky darkness while it's 20 degrees, be my guest. Five Star (Two Star) is the place for you.

We went to the Lincoln memorial and some people made us join a rally and hold signs up. It was to let DC have a voice in the Senate and House. It was also to stop the war and all that stuff. Then we went to Jefferson. It was way smaller than the Lincoln memorial. We also saw the WWII Memorial. It was filled with people that held cardboard signs. We also saw the Korean War Memorial. It had big silver people that had guns and walkie talkies and those equipments. The black wall behind it had etchings of soldiers and workers. The WWI memorial was really small. It was a pedestal with a golden person on top of it and red flowers that looked like a big 1. It had names of all the people in the division that died. We also saw the White house. It had a lot of security on it. They also had wire mesh and concrete barriers. It was not as cool as before.

Sackler Gallery of asian art was another museum we visited. It had asian art in it. I saw weird Hindu people with a lot of arms and a lot of heads. I also saw thai pots and a whole bunch of other stuff. There was Ottoman vases.

The African Art Museum was cool for many ways. One was that it was one that we never visited before. Another way was because it had a 14 foot mask that weighed around 30 pounds. The last way was because it was connected to three other museums. I will start by saying how we chanced upon it. We were walking in the Smithsonian garden and then we just went into it. The first thing is security. They look at your bags and that stuff. Then you see this staircase curving downward and there is this pool at the bottom. There is also a mask that is stretched across two stories. On the top level there is not much. On the bottom, there is the sweetgrass baskets and those stuff. There also fancy gold and stone African chiefs or gods. A guide told us that you were supposed to wear the mask and dance around with it!

Wolf Trap Nat. Park was this huge theater place. Every night they would put on a show and you could go there. We got a private tour. The theater was huge. It had 8000 seats and it was open, no walls. IT was made of wood and had an upper balcony where all the rich people stay for free. There was also a club that you had to pay $3500 to get into. That was the big theater but there were two smaller ones. One was for International Childrens day where you have children flown in from around the world. Another was in the woods. They put on shows for kids and all that stuff. Besides the theaters, there was also a stream called Wolf Trap Stream. There was a little forest walking area. I liked the place because it was just plain cool. There are theaters that let you brin alchohol and they're the only place that sells it too. I think the natural beauty is shadowed by the big theater. The smaller ones are fine.

Yesterday we went to the Steven Udvar Hazy center. It was a big building that had a ton of airplanes in it. My favorite one was the in the old airplanes section. It had a normal airplane look except at the front, it had a car motor. I also liked the Constellation. There was a guide and he told us that Bob somebody flew a plane in a roll and poured ice tea at the same time and he didn't spill a drop. We also saw the Enola Gay which dropped the atomic bombs. It had catwalks where you could go into to see the airplanes up close. It took away the fancy Wright Flyer that rich people used to have. They also added the Constellation.

USNWC

We went to the USNWC which was in Charlotte. It was the United States National Whitewater Center. It was also a USA Olympic training center for the Beijing Olympics.

First, we went to the Mega jump where you had to jump off a three story building. There was a rope that slowed you down though. From the bottom, it looked really easy and all the kids were saying to the people on top stuff like "Hurry up!". But when you actually got to the top, it looked really tall. They hooked your harness up to a rope that was attached to this "slowing" machine. The lady hooked me up and told me to step on the red dots at the edge of the platform. I could see all the little people down below and they were looking at me. I closed my eyes and walked off. It was like when a roller coaster goes down a big hill, but slower. When I got to the bottom, I realized I liked it.

Then, we went kayaking. It basically a plastic board which you sit on and paddle. It was really fun though. It was light so it could go faster than a canoe. It could also respond quicker than a canoe. My brother was trying to ram into me so I just back-paddled and turned around to face him. He was going fast so he just shot past me. In a canoe, like in Raven Knob, If another canoe was trying to get you, you would have to turn really slowly, or get rammed. I also like a kayak better because if you get beached, you can slide from the shore really easily.

Next, we went back and ate lunch. It was a cheeseburger and chips and a drink. Everyone had the same thing.

We went rafting after that. It was the funnest part. We went to the calmer channel. Even though it was the calmer channel, we did surfing, where they put the boat into the falls and everyone got wet. I think that I like the M rapids because they were fastest in the Wilderness channel. We went on it 4 times. Later, in the evening, we did rafting again except this time we got to go through the fast channel. It was awesome since we went to the huge drop and we went fast and backwards through it. We saw a raft get flipped over. All the people fell out. I also fell out because another raft rammed into us. The guide pulled me up. I think rafting was the funnest out of all the activities.

We also did climbing but we did rafting before it so our arms were really tired. I did manage to get to the top of one but the others were too hard. There was this wall that went at a 70 degree angle so it leaned out!

Summer

I like the summer break. First, there is no school. Second, you can do fun stuff all day long without having to worry about homework or catching the bus. Third, and probably most important, you have a better mood without school stress eating your brain. This summer seemed like the longest summer.

A regular day would go like this. Wake up and play piano, eat breakfast, and do some typing. Around afternoon, we would play with the Legos and the Jenga blocks and those toys. Around evening, we would do some math and play the chopstick game.

To those who do not know what the chopstick game is, I will explain. We get a tray and each person gets a pair of chopsticks and a different colored group of ten marbles. What you have to do is that you have to get your marbles from your section of the tray to your container using your chopsticks. It was a very hard game.

I like when we went to Canada or Atlanta the best. I like that because they had cool museums and attractions like the zoo and the science and tech museums.

I hope this summer wont end soon but poor me.

We went to Raven Rock State Park which was near Lillington and Fuquay-Varina and camped there for a night. I think the only bad part was that we had to hike two miles to get to our campsite. Also, there was no water at the campsite so we had to carry all the water bottles with us. Also, on the first day, we hiked back to the parking site to meet the ranger and then hike back. There were some pretty cool things on the trail though. There was a place called Overlook and that was basically a stone balcony that you could see the Cape Fear River from. Also, we saw the rock which was this huge rock that hung over the water and was as tall as two or three houses! The lunch was boiled hot dogs and the dinner was Easy Mac which was a macaroni and cheese thing that you poured water into and then it became something close to macaroni and cheese. We also had marshmallows and mine never got brown, one side expanded but it was always still white. After that, we went to bed. Our tent was super hot and I was stuck to the sleeping bag. Plus the cicadas were deafening and there was an owl that kept on hooting. Finally I fell asleep and woke up early next morning. I packed my stuff and sat outside. It was cool and not that hot. Breakfast was eggs in a bag and we did the hike all over again and finally got to the parking lot. We took a car back to Raleigh.

CNN

The CNN tour was probably not as good as before. I think that was because we went there before and we knew most of the stuff. They showed us the studios and the Teleprompter which showed the words on a machine and the anchor would read off of that instead of the hard copy. I also learned that when it said [break] on the Teleprompter, the anchor had to turn the page on the hard copy. Before the CNN tour, there was a building that said Cartoon Network on it so Victor said that if someone wanted him to watch CNN, he would watch Cartoon Network. The tour started with a 8-story escalator ride to a bid fabric globe. Then, they toured the studios and the rooms that were full of computers. They said they had to fact-check everything that went on TV. They wanted everything to be right facts or then they would lose their reputation. The CNN place was not that cool anymore once we toured it again.

At the High Museum of art, we saw a lot of Dali paintings. They were really weird looking. They had random stuff in it. One had a horse with a wheel biting a telephone and the other one had a liquid clock. The pictures were like someone cut and paste objects into the canvas. Here are some.

Then, we went to make some dream Catchers. It was a wire ball with beads strung onto it. Mine also had coils filled with beads. Here is a picture of a Dream catcher. It is a professional one and is flat. Ours were sphere-ish shaped. It is supposed to catch your dreams.

Medieval Times

Medieval Times was way fun. It was a arena where knights on horseback fought each other and did equestrian competitions while you got to watch and eat. The first thing was the introduction where each knight was announced. They put you in a color section and those were the knights that you cheered for. We were in the black and white section and the knight that we were cheering for was wearing a red cross with black and white checkered armor and cloak. The other colors were red, blue, yellow, red and yellow, and green. The next thing was where the King rode on a horse and had the squires come out and hold the different banners. Then, when all the knights rode away, it became dark and it showed the prince getting kidnapped. There was a horse show after that and the horses did different battle movements. Then, they had a person with a falcon on her wrist come in and the falcon flew over everybody's head and when she threw a weight up into the air, the falcon caught it and landed. Then, came the part where the knights fought each other. First, they had the two people on horseback and when one fell off the other would jump down and continue the fight. They first fought with two swords and then when someone lost his, a squire would give him another weapon such as a flail or a mace. Then, someone would grow tired or make a mistake and be "killed". That's what happened and then our knight "killed" the red and yellow. When he was cheering, the evil Green knight came and attacked him so he stumbled into the fog. Then, the greens brought out the kidnapped prince and were going to kill him. But, the black and white knight came and cut the prince free and they fought the evil knight and his henchmen. The chekered knight (the black and white) "killed" many of the henchmen before taking on the Green knight. The Green knight grabbed a sword from one henchman (who was subsequently "killed") and fought the prince. It was two good guys versus one evil guy plus four henchmen. The checkered knight fought the henchmen while the prince battled the evil knight. Soon, the both only had one sword each. Then, the evil knight punched the prince and knocked him down. Then, the checkered knight came over and knocked the green knight down and his sword flew away. "Loyalty or death!" shouted the king. The green knight hesitated and then roared "RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" And tried to push the checkered knight away but got killed. it was avery good show and most times, I was shivering with excitement. I hope to DEFINATELY go again.

Stone Mountain

Stone Mountain was this huge park that had cool activities and a Skyride. It also had a Duck, a train and a Lasershow. The first thing we did was ride the Skyride. it was a thing that ran suspended on a cable and went up and down the mountain. At the end of the smooth ride, the cabin began to rock back and forth. Then, we got out and walked on to the top of Stone Mountain. The air was cool and there was a thick fog so we couldn't see much from the top. We ate some food there and then went down the mountain. There was a big carving of Stonewall Jackson, Jefferson Davis, and Robert E. Lee on the mountain. We passed it as we came down. It was even bigger than Mt. Rushmore! We went to the Skyhike next where we went on a big obstacle couurse. The line was really long and we waited a long time. It first started with level one where there was a lot of wood ones. Ropes were the hardest as we soon found out. There was a thing with only one rope and nothing else. Of course we had a rope attatched to ourselves in case we fell but it was still pretty scary. There was also a level two and that was higher up. My favorite obstacle was the one rope one. You had to move side ways so you wouldn't fall. There was also a level three and that was the highest obstacle course. The one that was the scariest was the one with hoops of rope and nothing connecting them so you could swing there for a very long time. What you had to do was to swing one foot to the next hoop and grab on with both hands. We also saw a 4-d movie about Journey to the center of the Earth. It wasn't as good as the original movie. We also saw a man blowing glass. The train ride was weird because someone had a seizure and we got stuck in the middle of no where. The lasershow was cool! It had a song for the Star Spangled Banner and they had blue red and white fireworks at the end. I liked Stone Mountain because it had fun stuff and cool stuff.

The coke place

The world of Coca Cola was interesting. It was new and they had a Coke museum and other stuff. The first thing we saw when we got inside were huge Coke bottles that were from different countries. Then, we went to the Coke museum that had signs and other stuff that were used to advertise Coke. It had some paintings by Norman Rockwell. After that, there was a movie called Happiness factory that showed what happened when you got a Coke from a vending machine. There were little blue people that would fill the bottle with Coca Cola and then some penguins would chill it and then it would fall off a big cliff and you could get it. After that, we went to the bottling plant there that bottled cokes. it produces more than the Coca Cola place needs. Then, we went to Milestones of Refreshments where there were Coke artifacts from around the world like a delivery truck. There was also a thing that told you how much things were when Coke was 5 cents. A hotel room was 1 dollar!! At the end, there were Olympic torches. I also saw a whole bunch of Olympic pins. We also saw "The Secret Coke Formula" that was 4-d and had a lot of special effects. There was a button on the seat and when we ran into a piece of wood, it poked us in the back! Also, the seats always moved around so we were jerked from one place to another. Then, we went to Taste it where we tasted different flavors. I liked Inca Kola or Bitter Lemon.

Then, we went to Pop Culture where we saw things made out of Coke. Then, we went home.

The Georgia Aquarium was huge. It had different exhibits with different themes. There was a tropical diver for the tropics, a Cold Water thing for Alaska and Canada, a Exploring Georgia for Georgia, a River scout for the North American rivers and such and a Ocean Voyager so you can see the whale sharks and other huge fish. First, we went to the touch pool. It was where the Southern stingrays swum around in circles with a few really small hammerhead sharks. You could touch them and so we did. The hammerhead felt smooth while the rays were jusst plain slimy. If you walked into Georgia Explorer, then, there was another touch pool where you could touch shrimp. The shrimp always ran away so I didn't touch them much. Past that was yet another touch pool where you could touch horseshoe crabs. If you walked out of that and into River Scout, you got to see a river above your head and different parts of the river with different animals like turtles and garfish on both sides. at the end, there were two Asian small-clawed otters but they were sleeping. Next, we went on a tour that showed us the "behind the scenes" stuff like the top of the Ocean voyager and the top of the River Scout. After that, we went to Cold Water thing (I dont know what thing is) and saw some otters getting fed. I took a million pictures and when we were done, the camera ran out of batteries. There was also a penguin crawl tunnel where you crawed through a tunnel and got close to the penguins by standing up in glass cylinders that let you take pictures. Even old ladies were doing it! We saw a couple of beluga whales and went on a 4-d show called Deepo's underwater wondershow. It was pretty informative. Then, the coolest part was when we went into the tunnel of glass and saw the huge whale sharks and manta rays.They just swam over our heads and passed on. There were Giant grouper, HUUUGE Whale sharks, and manta rays. There were also some sawfish. I liked the Georgia Aquarium because it was just cool.

Zoo Atlanta- Parakeets.

The parakeet place was probably the coolest place in the zoo. It had hundreds of parakeets and you could feed them seed sticks that were one dollar each. However, I became more cautious because I saw a little girl and she got pooped on. The parakeets mere mostly green and yellow but there were some blue and all white ones. You could hold the seed stick close to them and they would nibble on them. They ate soooo slow! When 30 minutes passed, they still hadn't finished the seed stick! Some times, when they were scattered around the trees, they would suddenly fly to one corner and form a green and blue rainbow on the netting. They were very cute. There was a green one that looked like he had a beard so I called him the "king". The "King" did not want to eat from my seed stick.

Next to the parakeet place, there was a warthog place and there were 4 warthogs in there. They looked like Pumba in the movie the Lion King. They were not very smelly at all.

I liked the red pandas , the komodo dragon, and the pandas the most. The red panda was sleeping but you could automatically tell that they were super cute. He was more dull orange than red and was like a rug because he was spread out. The komodo dragon was cool because he looked so ugly and fearsome. He had a long tail that was scaly and a ugly head that looked liked a giant lizard head. He was resting. The pandas I liked most because they just looked really cuddly and cute. One was sleeping and the other one was eating bamboo. It was almost human like how it ate. They were fatter than I thought and very sad looking. They looked very, very sad. I saw a thing that talked about the pandas trip from China to the US. They said that they had first class cabins but when I looked at the "cabin" they were in, it was just a cage the size of a cardboard box!

There were also some rides that we did such as the train. We did the train and figured out that since we had wristbands, it was free so we stayed on 16 times! Then, we went to the merry go round which we rode on 4 times and then we went to the rock wall. The rock wall was very tall so I was kind of scared the first time. I almost went to the top but fell! I fell! Well, there was an automatic belay system that made the fall enjoyable and I felt that I was flying.

Assi

Assi was a huge store even huger than Sam's or Walmart. It sold food mostly. They had a million samples from Mexican food to Korean food. We went in there just planning to look around and then eat at a resturaunt but after we went in, we wouldn't go out so we stayed there and when we came out, we were not hungry one bit! There was also a Mexican section there where there was a wheel that you could spin and you could win things like a soda or a box of tortillas. Most people got a bumber sticker though. My brother however, won a soda!

The Naturalist center was coooooool!!!!!!!!!! They had stuffed birds and stuffed polar bears and human skulls and snakes floating in an alcoholic mixture to preserve them and samples of rocks and bones and mammal skins etc. etc.! There was a deer that they stuffed in a jar and snakes were floating in the solution and the frogs were too. There were cabinets and when you opened them, there were drawers and if you pulled them out, they contained stuff like human jaw bones and and bird skins and snake skins and rocks and shells and stuff like that. There was a ton of stuffed birds along one wall and all the hawks and eagles seemed to stare down at you and there was a little stuffed chipmunk and two ferrets and a wolf. There were two foxes and a big, ugly, groundhog. The bills of allthe birds were plastic because the original ones would have corroded already. There were all sorts of fish with no pupils that were floating in the jars and seacucumbers and spineless creepy things. There were butterflies that were pinned down to a tray and beetles and cicadas and all sorts of stuff. There were two tigers and a skeleton of somebody from the 1900's. I asked" Are these people donors or do you go out and dig the bones up" and they dug them up. There were Inca people and Egyptian people and femurs and humors and all that stuff. I asked, "do you have things like brains floating in vinegar or organs and such" but they said they had no organs. Everything there was dead.

I went to Grayson Highlands. We drove 4 hours from Raleigh to there and hiked 5 miles to our campsite. It was raining during the hike so it was cool and wasn't stifling or super hot. The hike was all uphill and we had to rest several times to let the people at the back catch up. We got to a shelter and there was a little notebook there. Mr. Murrell told us it was a shelter log. There was also a pen so you could write your experiences in it. We hiked all the way up until there we saw a bald part on the mountain. I ran to it thinking that we had finally got to our campsite but it wasn't ours. We had to hike another mile to get to our campsite. There were a lot of horse manure around because people ride their horses up here. We got to our campsite and we put up our tent. Me and Penn were tenting together. We had to careful not to put our tent on manure. After that we went down to the spring to get water. There was no tap so you had to get water from a spring. We had a water pump and we use a pump. We also boiled it with a Jetboil. We had food and went to bed. In the night, it rained really hard and our tent leaked. We had a bad night. In the the morning, we ate, and hiked back down. You had to be careful about slippery rocks. We got down and drove home.

Ontario science centre

This museum was AWESOME!!!! It was huge too! We saw an imax about the Hubble first and then explored. We went to the Harry Potter Exhibition. We saw props and costumes that were in the movies. They were exactly the same as I pictured in the book. There were the Quiditch uniforms, the school robes, the Quaffles, the snitch, the wands, the boggart chest, the chess pieces, the talking pictures, the floating candles, the mandrakes, the potions book, etc. We also saw a science place where you could make your own shoe and make a movie. We also saw some cool materials, like the lightest solid on Earth which was called aerogel. There was also shape retaining metal. go here.

Niagara Falls

We went to Niagara Falls. First, we just walked along the top of the falls where there was a railing. We could see both waterfalls, Canadian and American falls. You see, Niagara is made up of 2 falls, American falls and Canadian Falls. Canadian falls is also called Horseshoe falls. We saw some machines where you put in a dollar and you could see far away but some were broken so you didn't have to put in a dollar to see. Well, when we got closer to the falls, there was a strong wind and it blew water up into your face and got you all wet. My brother said he was thirsty and I said to just "open your mouth". Well, we got back and went on the boat. They handed you blue ponchos that you wore. Then, we boarded the boat. A recorded voice talked about the falls and about kings and dictators looking at the falls and stuff. When we got close to the falls, the wind blew though our sleeves and puffed up our poncho so we looked like fat people. My brother held out a bottle to collect water from Niagara Falls but only got a few drops. He thought we were actually going under the falls! When got back on dry land, we ate something and then left.

RBC gold building

We saw a building with real gold in the windows. That is right! Real GOLD! 2 million dollars of it are infused into the windows. The government of Toronto said that they couldn't build the tallest tower so the RBC people decided to build the most beautiful building. It is pretty tall though.

MORE FACTS not part of my experience

1. They made it so that you cant get the gold

CN tower

Me, my dad and my brother went to the CN Tower. My mom didn't want to go because she said she didn't like tall buildings. It is the tallest building in the world. When we walked over to the CN tower, we saw a fountain where people threw a lot of trash in. We went inside the lower part of the tower where you pay for all your tickets and stuff. There was a machine where you walked in and it blew air on to you. Then, we got onto an elevator that went 15 miles per hour up the side of the building. I think these things were designed to scare little kids because the floor was glass and the walls were glass and everything was glass. When we got to the top, I looked out the window. The view was spectacular! You could see the islands,the other buildings. They looked puny compared to the CN Tower. There was a resturant at the top and it spun! We didn't feel it spinning because it spun once every hour. There was a upstairs but a mean lady said, "Get down unless ya want to eat!" Except she said it in a nicer way. The downstairs was the awesomest place I have to agree. It had a glass floor and these kids who were from a girl's school or something kept on jumping! It was REALLY scary because it was glass and you could see down to the bottom and there were spiky stuff down at the bottom! It said it could hold 14 large hippos and I'm pretty sure that all thoes girls and the other people were 15 large hippos. There was also a mini museum that showed facts about the CN tower. There was also a Skypod place which was the tallest man-made observation deck. We didn't go because it was around 20 more bucks per person. There was a outdoor observation deck where we saw some workers working. They were cutting right through the mesh and leaning on it too! I wouldn't do that for a million bucks! I really liked the CN tower and wish to go again.

Rideau Falls

We saw Rideau Falls. It was where the Rideau river met the Ottawa River. There was a small island there and we saw some beavers. We also saw a big gun from WWII. The actual falls had two parts. The first part was bigger and cooler than the second part and we picked dandelions and threw them off the bridge and watched them go over the falls.

Hershey Pa

Hershey Story was a museum about the history of Hershey. It had cool things in it like the first conching machine and an exhibit on Hershey special wrappers and boxes and logos. You could even make your own wrapper and add pictures that were on real Hershey wrappers back then. There were also exhibits on other chocolates like Reeses and Krakel and those stuff. It was cool because outside, all the streetlights were shaped like Hershey kisses and the road was brown like chocolate. But, I don't think that the residents liked us because we got honked 7 times!!! There was also the Hotel Hershey which was like a French chateau but it had a huge lawn and on it, spelled out in giant letters that were made with stones, it said WELCOME HERSHEY. We also saw the Hershey amusement park too. It had 2 really tall rides that looked pretty scary but we couldn't see past them. We didn't go to Hershey park but we did go to the Chocolate world. When we got inside, we went to the chocolate tour. It was a slow ride that showed every step of the chocolate making process. Some of it was faked, I have to agree because they put mirrors on both sides to make it look like there was an infinite chain of conching machines or stuff like that. Most of it was real because we could actually see the chocolate being poured into a mould and wrapped up. We also went to the chocolate shop where we took pictures with the largest Hershey bar that felt like 5 pounds and the largest kiss that felt like 10 pounds. I don't know who would eat that much chocolate!!! They had shelves up the ceiling loaded with chocolate! I really liked Chocolate World.

Rideau Hall

We went to Rideau Hall. It was the house of the governor general. There were a lot of trees. Each of the trees was planted by someone famous like Mikhail Gorbachev, John F. Kennedy, or some other Duke of something. There were a lot of mosquitoes so we had to leave before we even saw the hall. But, in between the trees and on the paths, there were cool things like a totem pole and an Inukshuk. The totem pole was given to the people at Rideau Hall by the Kwakwaka'wakw tribe because the governor general at that time was named Chief of that tribe. The inushuk was made for the second anual Aboriginal day. An inushuk is supposed to warn people about dangers in the arctic.

Mint

We went to the Royal Canadian Mint. It was in Ottawa, the capital of Canada. It was supposed to look like a castle on the outside and had a tall fence and thick gates. We didn't take pictures because pictures were not allowed. We had to wait in a white tent for our tour guide to come because they were doing construction on part of the facade. When we were waiting for our tour guide to come, we saw wooden cutouts of dollar coins (Canadian dollars mind you) with the Vancouver winter Olympic mascots Sumi and Miga. Their faces were cut out so you had to stick your own face in. When the tour guide arrived, he took us inside and the tour began. There were two mints in Canada. One in Winnipeg and one in Ottawa. This one made collector coins, investment coins, and medals. The one in Winnipeg made real circulating money. The workers first took a block of gold and put it in a machine the flattened it with 8 tons of pressure and made it into a coil. They then sent the coil to another room and and made the coil thinner. Then, they flattened it out and punched gold coins out of it. They then cleaned it in a solution and tumbled it around with beads and stuff to make it shiny. They then pressed designs on to it. For investment coins, they mechanically pressed it because they were just investment coins but for collector coins, they hand pressed it. For the investment coins, one person took a bunch of blanks, blew the dust off, and another loaded them in a machine that pressed the designs on to them. All the time, they were wearing rubber gloves so they wouldn't make fingerprints on the coins. For the collector coins, however, only one person worked the machine. He had a magnifying glass to look carefully at the coins and those which were not good had to go into a furnace and back through the process again. Those that were good, he put them one by one into a press and pressed each one eight times with 12 tons of pressure. Then, all the coins were put in boxes and shipped away. We went to the store and there was a 28 kilogram gold bar that they had chained to a table and you could try to lift it. It was so heavy! We bought two collector coins and left.

The Food Bank

On April 17th, 2010, my little brother and I volunteered to collect money for the Food Bank. We stood outside a Harris Teeter and asked for donations. If they gave us $1 or more, we would ask them if they wanted a newspaper or not. I was afraid that the newspaper did not look very professional and looked more like a magazine saying, why you should give. Most did not take the newspaper. Most people also did not give money. They said stuff like, "I donate lots to the Food Bank" or "I don't have any cash" or just "No thanks". I think people like to give money to little kids more than big kids because every time someone looked like they were walking towards me, they would always shift direction so they would now be walking towards my brother. The people in charge even said that little kids are the best because no one can say "no" to a little kid. Still, it was a success. I got around $50. Almost nobody took a newspaper. Some popular reasons were "I subscribe" or "I got one from your buddy over there." I think this event has taught me that you should always make people feel bad about not giving to starving people so they'll give you more money.

Camping at Medoc Mountain

My Boy Scout troop went camping at Medoc Mountain on Friday 19th to Sunday 21st. It was a great experience and I enjoyed it. First, on our way, we stopped in Hollister to eat Friday's dinner. We arrived at the campsite and set up our tents and unrolled our sleeping bags.
Then, we warmed up by the fire. The fire was so hot that if you sat in front of it, the front of you would be scorched while your back would be frozen. I had to rotate to feel comfortable. The fire would flare up for 5 seconds and be extremely bright if you threw leaves in. My friends conveniently figured this out by grabbing a whole bunch and throwing them in. It became so bright that it was like looking at a lightbulb. Some of the older boys accidentally dropped some hand sanitizer on one of the rocks that bordered the fire pit and lit it with a twig. The hand sanitizer had blue flame coming out of it.
When it was getting darker, we went back to our tents and slept. It was an interesting night for me because my feet were higher than my head and the sleeping bag was so large that my feet were cold.
We cooked pancakes, and sausages for breakfast (the oatmeal was optional). I helped Michael build a fire which was a house plus lean-to. Then, we had sausages for lunch. To cook them, we wrapped them in tin foil and then placed them over the charcoal. I think that roasting them over an open flame would have been more fun than just putting them on charcoal. All of our meals were very good.
One thing we did was a service project where we picked up trash that was on the land. There was cool stuff that we found like a container of "Pure Ground Black Pepper" and a bottle of "Sunrise". We also found a rusty chair with no seat and a pair of shoes.
I like this campout because I did a whole bunch of stuff like pitch the tent and pack my bag alone.