A Good Day

Today started very early for a Saturday morning. We had a field trip for our mechanical systems class (HVAC...yay...) that left campus at 8:30am so I had to wake up at 7. Amazingly, I woke up on time.
First, we went to Antiochian Village. It sounds like a retirement home, but is actually the national headquarters for some Christian religion or other. We toured the museum and auditorium, and then Jerry, the professor, took us to his favorite room of the building - the boiler room. I thought it was a little boring, personally. Looking around, I think a few people agreed. After that, we took the bus to the new dining hall. It was big. It was orange. It looked like a humongous log cabin. Jerry said the architect cried when they decided to put the faux log-cabin siding on. He also told us the architect said that was the ugliest building he ever designed. Poor architect. Again, we went to the boiler room and looked around. O yes, and the whole time, our bus driver (Mr. Chuck) walked around with us.
So then we all went to lunch. It was really amusing, because so far, when we moved from building to building, we've been taking the bus to just cross the street. I predicted to Waz that we would just drive 20 feet before we had to get off again, and lo and behold, we drove about 20 feet. I think there was a Mary Kay cosmetics convention because when we walked into the parking lot, there were an abnormal amount of pink cadillacs, and inside the entryway, there were a ton of pink things. It scared me. A lot. When we all picked drinks for lunch, I saw blue colored juice, and being that the more toxic it looked the more appealing it was to me, I picked it. Then everyone made fun of me. Meh, blue juice is more fun than red juice. The nice thing about archie field trips is that you're so familiar with all your classmates, that you could sit with just about anyone and still have a good time. It was a good lunch. I stole cookies and we ended with a debate about who was better, Matt Damon or Leonardo DiCaprio. Since I personally think that Leo looks like a very ugly woman, I went with Matt.
Next we went to Jerry's very own home. We approached what I thought was the driveway going up to his house. A very narrow little road that Jerry's own SUV just squeezed through somehow managed to accomodate our schoolbus. I feel like we drove a mile on that road before we reached his house, which seemed to be about the same size as Mount Vernon. Apparently my professor is quite affluent. We were greeted by an adorable three-legged german shepard mix that decided to run a circle around me while on his leash, nearly making me fall over.
The inside of Jerry's house was the most American looking house ever. The kitchen and gathering room were warm colors, the other rooms looked either very stately or very country craft-like. His wife told us she was starting to decorate and one of my classmates said, "Starting??" Then she clarified by saying she was starting to decorate for Christmas. They plan on having a total of 27 Christmas trees. 27! Jerry took us all into the basement to show us his pride and joy - a 3 ton geothermal heating system. Then we went upstairs and looked around his house. The study had a tiny little spiral staircase which led to a tiny tiny little room at the top. When I got up there, I don't know if it was the staircase or the size of the room, but I felt a little faint so I went back down. Claustrophobia, I think. All in all, a gorgeous house that a state politician would love. We finished our visit with a sampling of Mrs. Jerry's Christmas cookies. Very yummy.
The bus ride home was very quiet because everyone fell asleep. Well, almost quiet. Chang snored way too loudly for me to be able to sleep well. Fortunately, my trusty new earmuffs made it a little quieter.