Between a long bus ride and a long airplane ride, the first day of the trip was a pretty long day. When people weren’t carrying luggage or going through security most of them were looking for something to do. Whether it was reading, talking to friends, or just looking out the window, everyone found a way to pass the time. Junior leaders Gabi Fratta and Britta Seifert decided to make a crossword puzzle during the long bus ride from Marshall to Chicago. Britta confessed that their idea to create a crossword puzzle developed out of pure boredom. Their first crossword was made especially for junior leader Kierstin Elliott to solve. After solving the crossword, Kierstin described the experience. “I felt special that I had my own crossword puzzle! It brought back so many memories!” After completing this successful puzzle, the girls decided to create another more difficult and original masterpiece. This one was described as the quest to make “the most difficult crossword puzzle ever”(Seifert). As it was a more difficult crossword, it called for more time to complete. As Gabi describes, “Our passion for creating these puzzles drove us to step up our game plan and make an even better one.” The theme of this crossword puzzle? “I think that we need to make people happy…and a good crossword puzzle is my idea of happiness”(Fratta). With happiness being the theme, the clues for the puzzle were definitely thought out deeply before being written down. Gabi describes the clues as coming from the heart. “We searched deep inside our souls for the clues,” she remembers. What about the people who solved the puzzle? As there were many people who tried to solve it, only a few succeeded at finding out some of the clues. One solver, Andrew Mickus, had his own opinions on the puzzle. “It was the most confusing thing I’ve ever seen. Not to mention poorly drawn and not easy to comprehend.” Besides this one pessimistic opinion, it is clear that the girls completed their mission, and definitely met all their goals from before they set out on their adventure of crossword making. “Ultimately, it was goal to make the world a better place that drove us to make this crossword. We’re saving the world, one crossword puzzle at a time”(Seifert).

     It’s day one of our great Alaskan adventure. We started our day off in the parking lot of Marshall Middle School where we loaded our bags on to the gigantic busses said our good-byes to our families and friends. We then pilled onto the bus and waved to all that were there to see us off as the bus pulled out of the parking lot.
     When we arrived at the airport we unloaded all the bags on to the sidewalk in front of the airport. It was a sea of different colors and sizes bags covering the side walk. After we had all the bags unloaded from the bus, we realize that the bus driver dropped us off at the wrong terminal and it is too far to walk to where we needed to be. Then an airline attendant was nice enough to come and move down to the terminal where we were dropped off to check in all our bags so we didn’t have to move them all. When all 80 of us got our bags checked we headed for security where the people weren’t as kind to us as the people before. They made us feel that we were a big pain having so many people traveling together. After that everything went pretty well, and we all got on the plane and took off for Alaska. As we were in the air all we could see were clouds. They were everywhere; one person, Meredith Carrel, said, “The clouds look like the stuffing inside of a pillow.” The flight in total went pretty well. We had a little turbulence once or twice and the ceiling above me was leaking water but besides that and the fact that it was a six-hour flight everything went well.
     We landed in Alaska at about 10:30 Alaska time and about 2:30 Michigan time. We got all the bags from the luggage carousal and put them in a large pile. The drivers then went to get the vans while the rest of us waited at the airport for them to return and take us to the church in Palmer were we would be staying the night. The drivers returned and we loaded the vans and took off for the church. At that time it was about 2:00 a.m Alaska time and 6:00 a.m Michigan time; some of us had not slept in almost twenty-four hours. We got to the church and all crashed on the floor. All the junior leaders said that today was the worst day of the trip. I hope they’re right. I’m sure that they’re right!