Tag archives for Plane
Welcome to Montana!
Posted by We’ve arrived in Great Falls, Montana! Fourteen of us want to share our first impressions of our trip. Dillian is on a late flight, so he will join us later tonight.
Getting Ready to Leave for Montana
The 2012 Hands-On Explorer Team is getting ready to leave for Montana! We’re almost done packing, and we have all received our itineraries and passports, so we’re just about ready to go. We’ve been getting to know each other by email, but we’re all excited to finally meet in person. We will all fly from our homes to Great Falls this Friday–that’s only three days away!
Each team member received an expedition backpack, water bottle, journal, Montana guidebook, DVD, and map. We have been practicing with our new Canon cameras, and we’re really excited about the great pictures we’ll be taking with them.
We plan to post blog entries every day with photos illustrating our adventures. Follow the blog to live the adventure with us!
Photograph by William Joseph, My Shot
A Day on Cayman Brac
Posted by Jonathan: We had a very early start this morning because we were off on another adventure to a new island. We took a Cayman Airways plane to Cayman Brac, a sister island to Grand Cayman. Fifteen minutes and 90 miles later we landed in Cayman Brac. “Brac” is Gaelic for bluff and the island got its name because of the 140-foot bluff standing on the island’s coast.
Our first stop was to the Cayman Brac Museum. The museum holds many unique artifacts that shows the history, culture, and heritage of the island that date all the way back to the early 1900s. One of the artifacts we saw was a mattress made by stuffing it with dried plantain and banana leaves. Another thing we learned about in the museum was the history of caymanite. Caymanite is a semiprecious stone, which is layered in different shades of brown, and is only found on Cayman Brac. It was discovered by a tourist visiting Cayman Brac from Alabama in 1978.
After the museum, we headed to the Brac’s caves. My favorite cave we saw was called Peter’s Cave. Peter’s Cave is located inside of the bluff so we had to drive all the way to the top. The cave was made out of limestone and was used by the first settlers of the island to provide shelter from the hurricanes.
Because of its sturdiness and high elevation, Peter’s Cave is the perfect place to hide out during a bad storm. Inside the cave, we had to really duck down so we wouldn’t hit our heads on the low ceiling. It was very dark and cramped in the cave so we needed to watch out where we were going so we wouldn’t crash into any stalagmites or stalactites that were scattered all over. I can’t imagine having to stay in there to ride out a storm because of how humid and tight it was, but obviously people still do because we found a lounge chair, mattress, and jugs of water in the cave. It was interesting to explore Peter’s cave but I was happy to see the sunshine and amazing view of the Cayman Brac when we exited.
The 2011 Hands-On Explorer Team is getting ready to leave for the Cayman Islands! We’re almost done packing, and we have all received our itineraries and passports, so we’re just about ready to go. We’ve been getting to know each other by email, but we’re all excited to finally meet in person. We fly to Grand Cayman this Friday–that’s only two days away!
Each team member received an expedition backpack, water bottle, and journal. We have been practicing with our new Nikon cameras, and we’re really excited about the great pictures we’ll be taking with them.
We plan to post blog entries every day with photos illustrating our adventures. Follow the blog to live the adventure with us!
Photograph by Margaret Jackson, My Shot
Hey, It’s Grace T from Pennsylvania. My exciting expedition to Peru started out at 3: 30 am, at which point I started getting ready to leave for JFK airport. Driving to the airport we passed the New York Times building, the Hudson River Gap and crossed the George Washington Bridge into New York, before I knew it we were at the airport. It was now 7:30. At the airport there were many different languages spoken, even the airport workers were speaking Spanish. Once we had gone through the airport lines and gotten all our baggage checked, we met up with some of the National Geographic staff in the waiting lobby. We were surprised when we were boarding the plane that the airline was taking precautions against the swine flu. They passed out dust masks that we had to wear the whole flight into Ecuador; where we would take another flight to Lima.
Hola! This is Laura Beth, here to write about our long journey to Lima, Peru! My trip started at 5:30 on Saturday morning, when my mom and I left for the Sioux Falls airport. Two uneventful flights later we arrived at the Los Angeles airport, where we met up with my cousin, Jeanne, (who came with me as a guardian, since my mom is a teacher winner,) and Nellie, Elliot, and Wyatt, and their parents. Once we had all gotten to know each other a little, we boarded the plane to begin our eight-hour flight to Peru! The flight, however, didn’t seem like it was eight hours. We each had a TV screen on the back of the seat in front of us, and we could watch movies, TV shows, listen to music, or play games. The flight attendants gave us meals and beverages, along with pillows and blankets. They all spoke Spanish, so it was very interesting to try and understand what they were saying! I was very surprised how easily we could communicate by pointing and smiling, along with using simple English and Spanish phrases.
We arrived in Lima at about eleven o’ clock. We grabbed our luggage and some even experimented with the vending machine, using different currency. By one in the morning we were on a bus to our hotel!
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Hi, it’s Lijah. We have arrived in Lima and to my surprise I am actually not that tired. I usually cannot sleep on planes but this time I was sound asleep on both plane rides. We arrived at the Peruvian airport and we noticed everyone had medical masks on. We asked around and supposedly they were very big on keeping swine flu out. This was kind of scary to know that it was a possibility. We went to get our luggage; we got ours just fine, but Dewey and Tim were not having much luck. Finally after a while it came through. Then Dewey and Tim also got the random security check. They were not having much luck in the Peruvian airport! 
From the airport we were bused to our hotels. The night life of Peru was amazing. There were a lot of casinos and bright tourist lights that lit the city. We also saw many wild dogs that roamed the parks and alleys. There were these two specific dogs that were running in circles around a big park statue. They were barking and rolling around. It was quite humorous!
Leaving for Peru in Two Days!
The 2009 Hands-On Explorer Team leaves for Peru in a couple of days. We’ve gotten our vaccinations and itineraries (and passports, too!). We’re busy packing, and getting to know each other by e-mail. Soon we’ll say hello to our fellow explorers in person!
Each member of the team received a cool book about the Inca and a journal. Here’s a picture.
We’re also practicing with our new cameras. On Friday we’ll board our planes, and then it’s off to our incredible adventure in Peru. We’ll be really busy exploring new places, including some spots that may not have Internet access, so we may not be able to post a blog entry every single day. But don’t worry–there WILL be an entry for every day we’re on the trip.
So watch this site, check back often, and live the adventure with us!
Hey, it’s Abbie and Mara! After the joy of sleeping in yesterday morning, we waved goodbye to tropical Cairns and our awesome tour guide Tracy. While waiting for the plane to Hobart, Tasmania, we also played pranks on others in the airport…
Video courtesy of Tourism Australia
Photo From the Plane
The Great Barrier Reef from the air, approaching Cairns
Adam’s, Grace’s, and Casey’s Blogs
The plane was delayed!!! 
Hi, I’m Adam DeSerio. It was great getting to meet the other kids at LAX in an awesome Private lounge! We had free food, and received a gift bag containing Aussie leather hats, and an Australian dictionary. Everything was going great till one of the hosts told us that our plane had been delayed till 2:30 a.m., and originally we were going to leave at 11:20 p.m. Most of us slept right there in the airport. When we finally got on the plane at 1:30 we were notified that we ONLY had 13 hours till we would land in Brisbane! It is really funny because the leather hats were made in Australia, were shipped to Los Angeles, then were taken back Down Under, and will eventually end up back in Los Angeles! Ha, ha–it’s great!
