Rad Dog Road Trip

This past Saturday, I had the privilege of going on a special event with the middle school ministry from church: a “Rad Dog Road Trip!” As part of my internship this fall, I’ve been working with this ministry, and one of their big events every fall is this road trip. It’s an all-day trip, filled with surprise stops that the kids don’t know about. As the intern, I also got to help plan the event. J

 

We met at the church at 9 a.m. Saturday morning. I had only been expecting about 15-20 people. We had 23 students, and 6 youth leaders/drivers/parents! It made for a very fun-filled, high-energy day!



Our first stop was a farm that is owned by a family at our church. Several years ago, they discovered a dinosaur on their property. One of their riverbeds is dried up, and you can find marine fossils (primarily sharks’ teeth) there. They graciously allowed us to come and do some looking! But first, the kids fueled themselves with some hot and creamy donuts. J



We had fun enjoying the crisp morning and looking for fossils. There’s a bit of a funny story behind this picture. J I climbed up on this log and sat for a few minutes. Then I went to jump down. I thought it was only 3 or 4 feet to the ground. It turned out to be more like 5 feet. I miscalculated and ended up flat on my bottom, feet sprawled out in front of me. Thankfully, the only injury was to my ego. J But I started my day by landing square in the mud!

Photo Credit: My friend, C.



After about an hour, we piled back into our 4-vehicle-caravan and headed south. As the day wore on, the girls got more giggly and noisy. J



Our next stop was a park where we played a game of speedball (a combination of soccer and ultimate Frisbee.)



After working up a good appetite, we had lunch at Raising Cane’s.



Our after-lunch event was probably the highlight of the day. We went to an adventure park where they had go-kart racing, laser tag, putt-putt golf, and bumper boats. We had fun racing each other on the tracks.



I joined 3 of the other youth leaders in a bumper boats battle. I got in, not really thinking about getting wet. But each boat is equipped with a water gun. J It turned into an all out war, and all 4 of us were drenched by the end of it.



We dried off with a round of mini-golf.



Next was a tour of the Ranger’s ballpark! This is the view from the press box. We also got to go in the Ranger’s dugout, the tunnel underneath the stadium, and inside one of the suites. It’s HUGE!



Then we had dinner at Double Dave’s pizza. The guys were VERY interested in the Texas A&M game going on. J



Our last stop of the day was a pumpkin farm!



We were there specifically to do the corn maze. I love these!

We didn’t make it back to the church until 9:30 that night, but we had such a fun day together! I’m so glad I had the opportunity to go along and get to know some of the middle school kids at our church better!