School Field Trip

This morning Daryl and I served as chaperones on Parker's second grade field trip to Silver Springs. Since he is in a split class of 9 second graders and 9 third graders with a teacher and a teacher's aide, the main teacher stayed behind and we traveled with the teacher's aide....as well as all the other second grade classes from South Ocala and extra chaperones. We were paired up with another parent Mrs. Ganglehoff and together the three of us had all 6 boys from Parker's class. Through other classes at South Ocala as well as t-ball and Scouts, we knew four of the boys on the trip very well.

Everyone started off in the Bird of Prey theater for a special animal show with trainers Amy and Jim. We got to see a gopher tortoise, yellow rat snake, skunk, great horned owl, and an alligator.

After that we stopped by the giraffe pen. They are so beautiful, but smelly!

We took time then to see what Silver Springs is most famous for - a glass bottomed boat ride. We had one boy who was nervous about getting on the boat, so Daryl stayed behind up on shore with him. All the pictures of the water through the glass were pretty murky, but we got a few nice shots of the foliage around Silver River.

Then before we had a mutiny, it was time for lunch. The kids and chaperones had all received vouchers for lunch, good for chips and a drink, as well as one of the following: hot dog, pizza or hamburger. Daryl helped the kids get through the line in the cafe and make their choices and then we were able to find a quiet corner to sit and eat.

We cut back across the park to catch a ride on the Wilderness Jeep Safaris. All kinds of animals out for the boys to see and they had fun listening to the guide talk about everything as we bounced along.

An emu nest!

The Jeep Safari ends at World of Bears which we checked out for a few minutes before letting the kids blow off a little steam at the Kids Ahoy Playplace.

They all begged to ride the carousel next.

Cutting through the Boardwalk by the shops, the boys spotted this pair of birds.

Running over the bridge to the island which houses all kinds of reptiles and panthers.

This guy wasn't in an enclosed area. He was swimming in the Silver River itself - we passed him as we went over a bridge to the panther area.

The panthers were all taking a snooze.

Back over in the reptile area we found these beautiful flamingos hanging out.

Rare white alligators.

Parker's class on the way out of the park with their teacher's aide Ms Seiler.

We finished up the day with a bus ride back to the school and then were able to check Parker out early from school and head out to run some errands before heading back to church tonight for meetings. We love being able to chaperone field trips and are glad for the time we got to spend with Parker and his buddies.