May 7th, 2011- Shuttle Driving

There is a LOT of training that goes into YD Adventures ministry every year. Every trip we offer is customized to the individual group. You might say, but it would be so much more efficient to just offer pre made trips. That is true it probably would be but the personal touch of each trip being designed to meet the needs of the group is what we are about. We don't want to just offer a cookie cutter program we want to meet the needs of the group so that we can interact with them where they are. It doesn't do  us much good to offer them a trip talking about discipleship and growing in their faith if they have no faith to speak of.  We not only customize are trips but we cross train our staff so that they can do the whole trip with the students not just pass them off to the next guide when they leave your area of expertise. So that is why we spend so much time training.
     To be certified technically in all of the different areas of adventure we offer it doesn't just happen over night. I have spent most of my weekends this spring working towards becoming a bonafide white water rafting guide. This weekend we had our first group of the season. Instead of being on the water this weekend I was being trained as a shuttle driver. We rotate support type roles and who is doing the guiding. You might think (like I did) what is the big deal you drop them off you pick them up and maybe read a book and work on you tan in the middle... that is pretty funny (I laugh now because I know but don't worry I will fill you in as well then you can laugh with me)
     You start out in the morning getting to the put in, helping the guides rig up the boats. We have a REALLY sweet set up that one of our volunteers hooked up so we can blow up our boats off of car batteries instead of using a stinky loud generator.  But you still have to do some hand pumping. Then you meet the group and issue neoprene to each guest. Then while the guides are giving the saftety talk you (as the shuttle driver) get to "shuttle" the guests cars to the take out (don't worry they get the safety talk as well, just in the van) You get eveyone back to the put in and wave goodbye as they set sail. Now is the time that you might think you can bust out that book but alas... it is not. First, you grab lunch at Safeway then you go to the lunch spot and set up lunch for the group. Complete with a handwashing station with warm water. You serve lunch, clean it up and then you head for the take out. Timing is all dependent on water levels so you might have a little time you might not. As Kady put it this is the "hurry up and wait" portion of the day. At the take out we have to wash all of our neoprene/ de-rig the rafts, and say good bye to our guests. There is a lot more to washing the neoprene but I won't get into that today.
 My original thought of how the day was going to was that it would be busy but much less intense then rafting, but alas I was beat. I am pretty sure I was in bed by 9:30 and asleep by 10. Tired but glad that I got to be a part of making a trip/ relationship building possible for the group that came out.