DAY TWO - Wednesday, December 29, 1999:

Here are some notes for the day from Director Bill Palange:

    There's no question about it. A decent nights sleep has a very positive effect on your attitude. Tuesday was exhausting but filled with energy and excitement. The first flight group was scheduled to leave OHS at 1:30 a.m., so when I arrived I figured I would find people starting to make their way in. Wrong !When I arrived at 1:30, EVERYONE was there and rarin' to go. You could feel the energy in the hallway.

    The schedule worked beautifully and with the help of Mother Nature we gotto our airports and on our ways in great time. Security precautions were very high, but that helped give us a good feeling of security. Students on all the flights were fantastic, and the airline flight attendents made it a point to let us know just how impressed they were with our students' attitudes and demeanor.

    After a few delays, we were all rejoined at the Hilton Phoenix airport hotel about 8:30 p.m. (mountain time). Our Mexican fiesta dinner was complete with a mariachi band that not only played some traditional Mexican music...they also got us into some "tom-foolery". Let's just say that Mr. Pelc(Smedley) and I are probably going to provide you with a good laugh as a result.

    We shook the cobwebs loose with a brief rehearsal after dinner that went great. We serenaded the patrons of the hotel with a preview of our Fiesta Bowl Parade music.

    Today was just a thrill. I only wish you could have been here to see your kids faces when they stepped off the buses to view the Grand Canyon. Their faces told the whole story.

    We left early for the log bus ride to Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon. Past miles of cactus covered terrain, we steadily ascended from Phoenix (about 1000 feet about sea level) to the Grand Canyon (7000 feet). The change in the terrain is phenomenal. Leaving Phoenix you look up at the mountains from the desert floor, and as you go further north, you realize that you're actually driving across the tops of those mountains. As we reached Flagstaff and the final leg to the rim of the canyon, the terrain becomes almost perfectly flat for as far as you can see. At least, speaking for myself, it really heightened my anticipation level of what we were going to see. After 4 hours in a bus there was a lot of anticipation from everyone.