Bus Trip of Tough Love

WHOO HOO! Today was my first LLH bus trip! I got to spend the day with some of the gentleman of E4! I got to LLH around 9:30, so that the volunteer coordinator could walk me up to the unit and introduce me to the activity therapist. I stood around awkwardly while she tried to round off the guys that wanted to go. It took about half an hour loading all the patients onto the bus. I was told that we were going to Kennedy Park. I googled it up last night because I had no clue where that was. Union City popped up and I doubted that we were going all the way to Hayward. It turns out that we did go to Hayward. The bus stopped in South San Fran so that we could pick up some chicken for lunch. Then, we bumped our way down the San Mateo bridge to Hayward (It was an extremely bumpy ride. I saw the poor guy in the back bounce his head throughout the trip). Since there were 11 patients (more than what the AT anticipated) and only 4 people looking after them, all we did was sit on the bus and eat lunch. Kennedy Park has a petting zoo. I felt bad that the men could go see the animals. When we stopped at McDonald's to get some ice cream, one of the patients asked me when we were going to the park. I seriously thought the bus was going to turn back around after ice cream. The bus did turn around, but it headed towards the freeway instead. Whoops. We got back to LLH around 3:15. The other unit that had another bus trip was stuck on twin peaks because of the bus broke down. Good thing they were still in the city. I would hate it if our bus did that in Hayward. Once we got back, I decided to stay a bit longer and do the events calendar for May. The AT seemed tired, so I let her rest. Gah, throughout the trip she made fun of how the men acted out because of me. A little disturbing but I joined in with the laughs.

One of the other volunteers was on the trip to help her twin brother. Really nice lady. The other person was a CNA; He was really flamboyant. The AT was a bit loud herself, but I think that it was needed. If she didn't joke around and give the men some tough love, the bus trip wouldn't have been as fun. I guess her character made up for not being able to go out onto the park.