Lights Out

Today at close to 11:00 Judy and I were standing outside the museum waiting for our group of students to walk up to the front of the museum. After a 2 1/2 hour bus ride from Diboll, TX (around Houston) the kids (and parents) were in desperate need of the restroom facilities. Right as all of the kids and parents were corralled in the restrooms all of the electricity in the museum cut off! Kids came running out of the dark restrooms to the light of the outside walkway.

I went back to the office and found Effie heading toward the Discovery Room with a flashlight. She had to rescue two ladies who had their toddler grandchildren. As Effie lead the little kids, who still had the play clothes on, toward the front door I heard one little girl say "I didn't like that". In my interview for this job I was asked if I could be flexible and think on my toes. Well, today that came into play. Since we didn't know when the electricity would be back on we had to flip the school group's lunch time. So they all headed for the picnic area while we all sat in the dark waiting for everything to turn back on.

As it drew closer to 12:00 we wondered what else to do with the group since they would be making their way back to the museum. Judy decided to drive up to the visitors center to ask if we could have them tour Independence Hall. About a minute after I let her out the front door all of the lights turned back on. I took off running towards the back door to stop Judy from getting in her car--it's a bit of a challenge to run in dressy shoes.

The students arrived on time and we gave our tours without any other problems. I have to say I was very excited by the outage. Never a dull day at the museum!