My amazing class trip to Wilmington

This year, 2025, on April 11th, I went on the field trip to Wilmington with my class! It was the best trip I'd ever had. We left from morning and returned at evening. This field trip was more than half a day, meaning I had to be away from my parents for a long time😞, but I survived at least without them😌. Me and my class went to two places that day. We went to Wilmington's battleship and the Kure Beach Pier. In this essay, I will tell everything about my trip from beginning to end. As I tell my fair share, you imagine as if you were in my place, how would feel in doing all the things that I did, starting on the charter bus?

I had to wake up at 5 in the morning and pack all my stuff needed for the field trip. I arrived at my school at around 6: 10 am. The buses came in a few minutes. It was cold in the bus like a igloo. We had to wait a little bit before the bus started to go because one of the buses were late in coming. After we started the trip, we had silence time for 10 or 20 minutes. The temperature soon became normal and we were allowed to talk, play game and soon eat snacks. Our lunches went in coolers gifted to each teacher. It was raining when we started our field trip, but stopped after a few minutes and never rained for the rest of the day in Wilmington. I and my bus partner- my friend played a lot of games and had fun, not getting bored. During the ride, we stopped at a rest area. Soon, after the 2 1/2 to 3 hour drive, we finally reached.... the Wilmington's battleship.

It was a great success for everyone. The battleship there had lots of floors/ levels to wow and learn where the soldiers there slept, ate and lots of other stuff. Before I tell what next we did, I will show a picture of Wilmington's battleship, so you can get an idea of how it looks.

Picture of Wilmington's Battleship

Before we explored the battleship, a nice man came to tell some facts about the battleship like how long and wide it was and when it was made. He also told some rules to follow when on the battleship. Me and my friend was grouped with 2 other girls along with a chaperon to explore the battleship. We explored different rooms in the battleship and went on the top deck of the battleship. We had a lot of fun. After about an hour and 35 minutes, all of our class met to eat our lunch on a bridge build next by the battleship. After lunch, teachers collected trash from all the students and set out to our bus to drive to Wilmington's Kure Beach Pier. We were planning to eat lunch at Wilmington's beach, but due to the rain at the beginning of our trip only, teachers decided to postpone eating lunch at the beach, sadly ☹, but that didn't ruin my trip😎. It was 25 minutes to get to the pier by the charter bus. Me and my BFF played some games until we got to the pier. Again, before I continue explaining the rest of what happened, here's a picture of the Kure Beach Pier, so you can get a visual image of how it looks.

Wilmington's Kure Beach Pier

Another nice lady came as our guide and told what were we going to do her and some other necessary information and kindly led the way to start. 

First, we got a lesson of how to fish and used actual fishing rods to fish fish. And guess what, me and my bus partner were the first ones to catch a fish! We actually was able to touch the fish and throw it in the the ocean with our bare own hands. The fish felt so slimy! At the pier, there was another school with kids a little older than us wearing bright blue shirts, but we were wearing orange shirts. Our teacher chose orange shirts as our class tee-shirt because we would look like cute traffic cones  which was a very creative thought. Before our next activity. we got to see some dead fish given from a fish house to touch. Everyone got to touch it except us but no one ever passed it to us😠, but that didn't ruin our day😀! (We were in the back of the crowd 😕)

The next activity we did was finding fossils. We got a lesson of fossils and got a bowl each with small holes. We would scoop sand in the bowl and shake it. The fossils would stay in the bowl and the sand would sprinkle out. Our task was to find a shark teeth. Me and my bus partner tried to find a shark teeth, but we couldn't find any shark teeth. Instead we found some interesting fossils and even a rainbow one😲 which I gifted to my bestie. At the end, somehow, my bus partner found a shark tooth randomly, which was great! But the ones who weren't able to find a teeth were given a shark teeth from the one host. We were allowed to take our shark teeth home, which was brilliant! My shoes were piled with sand just like leaves piled in the fall ready to be raked. 

The last thing we did before leaving the pier was dissecting a squid which was already dead. We got a lesson of some of the parts of the squid and with our bare hands, we actually touched the squid to see the parts of it😲. It was soft, but felt icky bicky yucky to touch it🥸. We actually was able to see and touch the internal skeleton! We were also able to see the part where the squid squirts its ink and make a tattoo on our hand and your friend's hand. After that, the lesson was over, so we washed our hands- which still smelt squidy after cleaning our hands. Before leaving, we took a class photo. And... oh wait. Before washing our hands, we cut the squid and had to identify if the squid was born as a boy or a girl. When we cut the inside, it was white, so we had a boy squid. If it was a girl squid, then it would be a jel type of color like Vaseline. It would be a yellow-whitish type of color.

 After the last part, we headed for the charter buses and headed back for school. Me and my friend were tired, but not sleepy. We just played games, talked and ate our afternoon snack. We got 8 to 10 minutes of silence time before we finally reached the school. When we came back to the school, it was 7 pm! All the parents were there to pick us up. All the kids came running to their parents. I rushed to my parents, said bye to my friend and headed for home.

At home, I told my parents everything about my day and ate samosas- a yummy Indian snack!

Samosa

And this is how my day went from beginning to end. I enjoyed my field trip very much, and I hope you also enjoyed if you were in my shoes.

By Navya Singh