Vanderbilt Cohort Departs

Breaking with tradition where the ILC cohorts gather at El Cerrito HS  waaaay early in the morning (so they can catch the first flight out of the airport), the Vanderbilt cohort was fortunate enough to be able to sleep in and only had to be at ECHS at 6:45 (for an 8:00 AM shuttle departure.

As is the custom, as soon as they exited their vehicles, they had to produce their government issued photo IDs, their medical insurance cards and their student IDs (for discount tickets while site seeing).

Their luggage was weighed, luggage tags were affixed and they were offered a few last minute items such as trash bags, Ziploc bags and red vines (even though red vines have the consistency pf plastic and have absolutely no nutritional value, it seems as if the world revolves around them).

Don distributed itineraries to the students and parents and then spoke to the assembled crowd to remind the ILCers of their responsibilities (site visit questions, how to behave in an airport, having fun, what's expected in the blogs and a host of other things that they've been told time and time again—but still need to be reminded of.

The group was set to depart.  Before that could happen, though, there were two things that absolutely, positively had to be done: group photos had to be taken and they needed an airport shuttle.

The photos were a piece of cake but the shuttle was a different story.  Earlier in the morning the UChicago cohort departed and the shuttle was nearly an hour late.  We worried that there might be a repeat of this but for this group the shuttle arrived about a half hour early.  Since all of the ILC business had concluded, it made sense to board the shuttle so they could have more time at the airport to grab something to eat.

Once they got to the airport, got themselves checked and past security, everything was a piece of cake and their departure was as routine as things can be at an airport.  All is well with the world.