11:30 p.m., Sunday, June 11

Mom, Dad (oh, and you know who, too) –

Sorry I haven’t written before now. We’ve been so busy, I haven’t had time. In fact, I knew we’d done a lot when a girl next to me in line for the boat cruise tonight asked, “Do you remember that guy we met yesterday?” We all laughed when we realized she was talking about something that happened this morning! We’ve only been in Washington, D.C., one day and we’ve already lost track of time! Whew! What a trip!

It’s late and I should be getting to bed, but I’m so pumped up. I can’t sleep! I’ve been dancing for three straight hours. If I hadn’t been on my feet all day, walking all around Washington, I could have danced even longer! Oh well, my feet are tired but I’m awake. I might as well tell you about the past two days.

I had no idea what to expect when I checked into the Truman Hotel in Jefferson City Friday night. I saw a bunch of kids my age. Just like me, every one of them was trying to wrestle with an enormous suitcase packed with enough clothes for a weeklong trip. I hope I didn’t look as nervous as all those other kids. I was going to spend almost an entire week in a strange city with a bunch of people I’d never met.

The evening started OK. We got dressed up and had a fancy meal. Mike Marsch, our tour leader, showed us some photos and told us what to expect. That helped to ease my worries a little bit, but I was still pretty scared. I didn’t know anybody, and I’ve never taken a trip like this.

After dinner we got to change into our regular clothes, and we came back together for an orientation. We played a game that let us meet some of the other kids and start to mingle. Already, I’ve met a couple of people and know a few names. I also met my roommates. I share a hotel room with two other delegates. I have a feeling I’m going to get to know them really well.

One other thing I’m going to get to know is the name of my local electric cooperative. Mike constantly reminds us that this trip is sponsored by our local electric cooperatives. He does it in a fun way, though. Something else I’m going to remember is my “number.” Every delegate has a number and we count off everywhere we go.

Saturday, June 9

Saturday morning they woke us up bright and early — too early — and fed us breakfast. In fact, every meal on this trip is provided or paid for (yes, Mike, by my local electric cooperative). Then they split us up into teams and had us build an electric cooperative. Yeah, that’s what I said, too. But that’s what they did. The chaperones passed out cardboard boxes, string, little sticks, paper clips and clay and told us to build a model showing how we thought an electric cooperative system was connected.

Of course, none of really knew what we were doing, but together we worked it out and got pretty close. I’m sure Mike and the chaperones thought this game would help us learn about our cooperative, but what it really did was help us make new friends. When our team sat down at that table, we were all shy and nervous about talking to each other. When we got up from the table we were friends.

After our co-op building game, we loaded those heavy bags into two buses and drove to the St. Louis airport. Before we got there, the chaperones asked how many of us had flown before. I was surprised to see that only about a quarter of us had never been on an airplane. As you know, I haven’t, and I didn’t really know what to expect.

At the airport we made it through security and waited at our gate. I met some more delegates as we talked and played cards.

We flew on Southwest Airlines, and the flight was amazing. The flight attendant cracked jokes and sang her welcomes and safety instructions to the tune of the Beverly Hillbillies song. She enlisted three of our delegates to pass out snacks and really made a big deal about the 91 Missouri Youth Tour participants (that’s 81 delegates and 10 chaperones) on the plane.

What really blew me away was when she brought out two rolls of toilet paper and announced that we were going to play a game. We started unrolling the toilet paper and passing the roll overhead to the seat behind us. It was a toilet paper race with two long strips of TP stretching the entire length of the plane.  When we were done we wrapped up one of the chaperones in all the paper.

This crazy flight attendant wasn’t done. Before we landed, she presented a birthday cake made out of a roll of toilet paper and a crown made from snack packages to Andrew Klemme, a delegate from Three Rivers Electric Cooperative.

Like I said, I was nervous about flying on an airplane. But with so many fun games, there’s nothing to be afraid of. Why didn’t anyone tell me flying was like this?

Our plane landed about 8 p.m. in Baltimore. Yeah, that bothered me a bit, too. I thought we were going to Washington, D.C. It turns out that our final destination was only a 45-minute bus ride away. We loaded up in two deluxe tour buses and made our way to our hotel. As we arrived, we could see the Washington Monument and the U.S. Capitol rising above the city skyline.

It was awesome!

There are about 1,400 other delegates from states all across America at the hotel. We see them in the lobby and start to exchange state pins, which we clip to our name badges. This is going to be fun.

Sunday, June 10

Another early wake-up call, breakfast and back on the bus (after counting off a couple of times, of course). Our first stop: Arlington National Cemetery.

You just cannot believe the sad beauty of Arlington National Cemetery. Everywhere you look there are white headstones lined up like troops in formation. There are so many soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen buried here. It really gives you a sense for the toll of war.

We visited the grave of President John F. Kennedy. There is an eternal flame that burns, well, eternally, over his grave. The grave itself is just down the hill from the home of Robert E. Lee on a spot that overlooks the Washington, D.C., Mall (no, not a shopping mall, the area in front of the Capitol with the Washington and Lincoln memorials). Some of Kennedy’s inspiring words are engraved on a wall near his grave. It was very moving.

Nothing compares, though, to what we saw next. We went to the top of Arlington Cemetery and watched the Changing of the Guard. What an amazing ceremony. The sentries that guard the Tomb of the Unknowns man their post 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, rain or shine. We watched as they stepped off 21 paces and paused 21 seconds, a ritual that suggests a 21-gun salute. The precision was awesome.

We also visited Arlington House, the home of Robert E. Lee, at the heart of Arlington Cemetery. I know the Union forces took Lee’s plantation because he was heading the Confederate effort during the Civil War, but they created a great monument to all soldiers. In fact, there are a lot of Confederate soldiers buried at Arlington, too. The view from Lee’s house is incredible. But as we looked down on the city and the Mall, we had no idea what awaited us.

Back on the bus and driving from Arlington to the Mall, our chaperones pointed out all the cool monuments — most of which we’ll see before the week is over. As we passed the Lincoln Memorial, Mike Marsch pointed out the Missouri name engraved along the top of the building along with all the other state names. He told us the Latin letters underneath Missouri meant “sponsored by your local electric cooperative,” but I think he might have been teasing us.

We spent the afternoon on the Mall, touring the Smithsonian Institute’s museums. We split up in groups, and delegates were free to visit the museums that interested them most. I went to the Museum of Natural History where I saw dinosaur bones, a fantastic display about the world’s mammals and a really neat exhibit about gems. The Hope Diamond is huge!

I also had time to go to the National Air and Space Museum. Apparently, that was a favorite of the Youth Tour delegates because I ran into a lot of my new friends there. We saw some of the most important airplanes and spacecraft in aviation history. We saw the crude airplane Orville and Wilbur flew at Kitty Hawk and learned about their efforts to get man off the ground. We saw Lindberg’s Spirit of St. Louis that he flew across the Atlantic Ocean and the X-1 that Chuck Yeager used to break the sound barrier. There were Mercury and Gemini orbiters and reproductions of the Apollo landing module that took man to the moon.

At the Air and Space Museum, they’ve opened an exhibit of American Treasures. These are some of the most popular artifacts of American history. Normally they’re on display at the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History, but it’s closed now for renovation. Still, we were able to see some of the really cool stuff like Dorothy’s red slippers from The Wizard of Oz, Star War’s R2D2 and C3PO, and Mr. Roger’s sweater.

You won’t believe this, but I actually went to an art museum — on purpose! Some of my friends wanted to go to the American Gallery of Art, so I tagged along. I’m glad I did. I saw the only Leonardo De Vinci painting in America, a portrait of a woman. She was really beautiful. We also saw some other really cool paintings. I’m starting to figure something out about this trip, even when you think something isn’t going to be fun, it is.

There is no way I could see everything I wanted to see at the Smithsonian museums, but I got a little sense of what’s there. Talking with some of my new friends, I learned a little about what I missed. Some of the other delegates went to the National Archives and saw the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Other delegates toured the new National Museum of the American Indian or visited a modern sculpture museum. A few kids even watched a protest rally on the Mall.

By the time the buses picked us up at the Smithsonian Castle, my dogs were barking. Man, my feet hurt from walking all day. A quick check of the schedule showed me I had an easy night ahead. We were going to take a boat cruise on the Potomac. That should be relaxing, I thought. WRONG!

We boarded this really cool boat with delegates from three other states. There must have been 250 kids on board. There were three levels to this ship. The top deck was open, and you could relax and enjoy the sunset if you wanted. The two lower decks had dance floors, each with its own D.J. The whole boat was thumping from the all the kids dancing the night away. You don’t have to guess what I did!

Wow, it’s late and I’ve had a full two days — I still can’t believe that’s all it’s been. We’ve done and seen so much. And I’ve made so many good friends. Oh well, I better get to sleep. I’ll write more tomorrow.

11 p.m., Monday, June 11

Mike said we would learn more about our local electric cooperative, and this morning we sure did. Today was “Youth Day” on the Youth Tour (I thought EVERY day was Youth Day!) All the delegates from each participating state gathered in one big room for an assembly. That’s almost 1,500 teenagers from more than 40 states. We were all encouraged to cheer for our state and make a lot of noise (at appropriate times, of course).

You should have heard all those kids shout! Missouri made a lot of noise when they introduced Kailey Tyler, a delegate from Ozark Electric Cooperative, who will represent Missouri on the NRECA Youth Leadership Council.

It was an interesting and inspiring morning. We heard from Glenn English, the head of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, who told us a little about his group’s efforts to represent America’s 900 local electric cooperatives. We also learned about the early days of public power and rural electrification from Sen. George W. Norris. Of course, it wasn’t the real Sen. Norris but David Landis who dressed up and portrayed one of the early leaders in bringing electricity to rural areas. Yeah, I know, it doesn’t sound exciting, but it was very interesting. It made me realize I take a lot for granted and that my grandparents and great-grandparents lived a life much harder than mine.

The highlight of the morning was a speech by wheelchair athlete Mike Schlappi. The speech was inspiring, sad, funny, educational and entertaining all at once. Mike was a normal teenager just like all of us when he was accidentally shot by his best friend. Mike told us how he overcame the emotional hurt of his injury, and how he’s went on to live an exciting and full life in spite of his physical injury. The way he put it was, “If you can’t stand up, stand out.”

After the morning Youth Tour activity, we left the hotel for a full day of touring some of Washington’s most spectacular monuments. I was reminded of my great-grandparents generation again when we visited the World War II Memorial. It’s a big wide memorial with a fountain in the middle and a big tower on either end to represent the two theaters of operation in World War II. It sits right between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. I just stood there among these great monuments and could not believe what a wonderful trip I was experiencing.

Next, we walked just a short distance to the Washington Monument. All 91 Missouri delegates and chaperones rode the elevator to the top (not all at once, of course). The view was amazing. Did you know there’s no support system in the Washington Monument? It’s all just stone laid on top of stone.

We then headed to the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial. This is one of the newer memorials in Washington, D.C., and it’s very interesting. It’s a sprawling complex divided into four sections, each representing one of Franklin Roosevelt’s four terms as president. Water flows through each section at a different rate to suggest the level of turmoil during those years.

There were parts of the memorial that represented World War II, the Great Depression and FDR’s efforts to put the country back to work (yes, our chaperones pointed out a small plaque recalling the Rural Electrification Administration and the early days of electric cooperatives). This memorial is designed to be touched, so we obliged the designers by rubbing the nose of Fala, FDR’s little dog. It’s funny, he was MUCH bigger at the memorial than I would have expected! Of course, FDR was larger than life, too.

From the Roosevelt Memorial we drove to the White House for a quick photo of the entire Missouri Youth Tour Delegation and then back to the hotel for a short nap (and I do mean short) before our evening activities.

Last night was amazing. After a stop at a local mall (the shopping kind, this time) for dinner and, well, shopping, we visited four more monuments: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Korean War Veteran’s Memorial, the Lincoln Monument and the Jefferson Monument. We got to our first stop just as the sun was setting.

It was so beautiful to see the reflection of the Washington Monument on the Reflecting Pool and watch the Lincoln Memorial glow in the setting sun. You’ve seen this view a thousand times. It’s where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech and it’s where Forrest Gump reunited with Jenny in the movie. It’s amazing to think back on all the events I read about in history class, and know I was standing on the same spot they took place!

I didn’t know what to expect when I started to walk down along the sloping sidewalk to the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial. I sure didn’t expect what I experienced. I could actually feel a sort of hush as I walked past the first names at the edge of the wall. As I walked downhill, the wall got taller and the sheer number of names began to sink in. Before long I was thinking about these young men. Who were they? Where did they come from? Suddenly it struck me — many of them died when they were not much older than I am now.

There were flowers and photos and mementos laid at the foot of the wall. I saw grown men, granddad’s age, in tears as they reached out to touch the names of their buddies on the wall. I never understood what they meant when they said this wall with 58,000 names was “moving.” I do now.

The Korean War Memorial is really neat, too. Located just across the Reflecting Pool from the Vietnam Memorial, it features a squad of larger-than-life soldiers on patrol. The statues are all wearing ponchos and each is equipped like a different member of the squad. You almost get the sense you’re on patrol with them.

The Lincoln Monument is awesome. Abe kept getting bigger and bigger as I walked up all those steps to the top of the monument. Sitting in his chair there, he towers over the Washington Mall. I took a few minutes to read his words, which are engraved on the walls inside the monument. I think I understand a little more now why they say he was a great president. He was very wise, and even when the Civil War ripped America apart, he wanted nothing more than for us to all be one people.

Finally, we stopped at the Jefferson Memorial. This is that round, domed building you see next to Washington’s tidal basin. It’s very beautiful, especially at night. A giant statue of Thomas Jefferson fills the inside of the building and his words, too, are engraved on the walls. Another truly great American president!

Well, it’s late and my roommates are telling me to stop clicking away over here. I better go to bed. There’s another long day of touring ahead tomorrow. I hope my feet can last because I want to see it all!

Tuesday, June 12

Today was a day of surprises. Almost nothing we visited was what I expected.

We began the day at Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington. I thought our first president would have a nice house, but I had no idea his estate would be so beautiful. We toured Washington’s 22-room mansion and saw the rooms where he slept, ate and worked. That was interesting but the grounds were wonderful. The view of the Potomac River from his back deck was amazing.

From Mount Vernon we traveled back into Washington, D.C., to something called The Old Post Office. I wondered why we were going to a post office, but I soon found out this neat old building is now a national park and is full of gift shops and a food court. The building has a bell tower and after we ate lunch, we rode an elevator to the top.

The view of downtown Washington from the Old Post Office tower was great. Large windows on all four sides provided wonderful views of the Capitol, the Smithsonian museums and the Mall, the White House and the Washington Monument. I never expected to enjoy a trip to the post office this much!

After we left the Post Office, we visited the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery. I really wasn’t expecting much from this stop, but it turned out to be really neat. Our chaperones gave us a list of things to find in the museum, and we took to the challenge. Both museums are located in the old Patent Office Building. We were told that this building was once thought to have the most beautiful interior in Washington, D.C. Abraham Lincoln held his inaugural ball there. I can see why. The grand hall on the upper floor is amazing.

The museum displays were really cool, too.  One gallery had a portrait of every U.S. president. Others showed great American art. One exhibit was full of portraits of athletes and sports stars. There was some crazy folk art, including a giant sculpture of a temple made entirely out of aluminum foil. Part of the museum had modern art. We saw things that I never knew were art. One piece was a life-sized model of a woman sitting at a table eating a banana split. We all thought she was real! It was weird, but neat. I’m beginning to think I like art museums.

After we left the art museum, our tour leader Mike Marsch surprised us with a stop that was not on the itinerary. He took us to the International Spy Museum where we learned about “tradecraft.” It was an interesting museum that not only showed the tools of real spies but also the make-believe ones. They even had James Bond’s Aston Martin.

Tuesday night we traveled back to Baltimore to watch the Washington Nationals take on the Baltimore Orioles at Camden Yards. This morning we’re all hoarse from cheering our temporary hometown favorites, the Nationals, onto victory.

Wednesday June 13, 2007

There are days when I feel a whole lot more like an adult than a teenager. Today was one of those days. Today, we went to Capitol Hill and called on our members of Congress.

The entire delegation of 81 youths met with Sen. Claire McCaskill and then we split up into groups to call on our congressman or congresswoman. I went into the meeting with my representative a teenager on a field trip. I left as a constituent and a future voter. Talking to my friends, many had the same experience. Our members of Congress treated us with respect and they seemed to value our opinions. They certainly took our questions seriously.

I was really impressed that a member of Congress was so accessible, and so nice to a group of teens. We even got a tour of the U.S. Capitol from a congressional aide. Because we were guided by a staff member we got to skip all the long lines and we got to go places in the Capitol that most people don’t get to see.

While we were on Capitol Hill, our chaperones guided us to interesting sites. Some of our groups walked through the Library of Congress while others sat in on a courtroom lecture in the chambers of the U.S. Supreme Court. I’ve got to say, I was proud of my country and in awe of the things I saw today.

This evening, it was time to be a teenager again. Tonight was the all-states dinner and dance. All 1,400 Youth Tour delegates took over the basement of our hotel for this final farewell party. We danced. We shouted. Some played games, others watched a movie or simply talked. We all had a blast but it was sad to think this amazing trip would soon end. It’s been a wonderful experience — much better and more interesting that I could ever have imagined.

Tomorrow, we get back on that airplane and come home. I’ll tell you more about the trip when I get home. After I get a couple of days of sleep, that is.

 

 

 

For information contact: Mike Marsch Association of Missouri Electric Cooperatives P.O. Box 1645 Jefferson City, MO 65102 or e-mail YOUTH TOUR

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