Do You Know the Way To San Jose?

Today I was one of the chaperons for a field trip to the Tech Museum in San Jose. The entire school, K through 5, went. I haven't been on a school bus since the '80s.  The buses are no more comfortable than they were in the 60's. They still don't have seat belts.  Is that even legal?  Re read the title.  I can find the way to San Jose, but the driver couldn't.  She was lost shortly after we left the school.

This is my view of the bus driver, who can't find Highway 13, 2 blocks from the school. There are children in front of me.  But they are too short to be seen.  You can just barely see hair two seats up.

As we waited, and waited to get in, the children watched a "Rube Goldberg" contraption.  It took close to an hour from off the bus to go into the museum.

Still waiting.  The children are tired, bored, hungry, and all need a bathroom break.

We made it inside!  The children are hand cranking to create power to run a car race.

The most popular exhibit:  a hand dryer

beside a water exhibit.  They kept playing with the water turbines and then needed to dry their hands.

We had lunch at the park across the street.  This is just a portion of our green shirted students and teachers.

In line for the IMAX movie.

The wonderful Ms. H waving us to our bus.

Loading the bus to go home.

We had a lovely day.  The children had fun while learning.  Unfortunately there were problems.  The museum was not ready for that many people to show up at one time.  They had no system to handle us.  No welcome, no signs to their entrance from where the buses dropped us, and then they wouldn't let us in for nearly an hour. Their staff would give info/rules but no one could hear them.  We asked them to repeat and they would again talk to just the front.  So 20 people out of several hundred heard them.  For a Tech Museum, the signage was poor outside and inside. 

The bus company was still in the dark ages.  No GPS, so the drivers were guessing where we were going.  Coming home our driver was in the wrong lane, lost sight of the bus she was following, and we ended up going down the wrong street.  She kept driving instead of stopping and regrouping.  One of the fathers got his phone and pulled up the GPS and then sat in the floor by the driver; telling her where to turn.  She didn't always listen to him.  So we wandered way too long.  I heard other buses got lost too.  That is just stupid.

The trip was fun.  I enjoyed the children and the adults.  One of the best parts of the trip: the little girl who sat with me was tired and laid her head in my lap and slept.  That took me back to when my son was a little boy.  A child sleeping on your lap is a wonderful thing.