Disaster Tour

This Saturday I was scheduled to give two tours at the zoo, back to back. The first one was a group from the Ft. Richardson Air Force Base and was to be from 10:00 to 11:30. The second one was my usual Discovery Tour, from 12:00 to 2:00. Theoretically, I should have had half an hour between tours to regroup, grab a bottle of water, and prepare for the next tour.

Things don’t always go the way they should.

The group from Ft. Rich had made arrangements ahead of time, saying there might be as many as 50 people attending. Katie, the education director for the zoo, had three tour guides lined up in preparation for them. As it turned out, they only had about 25, so Heather, the volunteer coordinator, got to go off to other duties and Mary and I did the tour.

We had the Ft. Richardson people split themselves into two smaller groups, and Mary went off in one direction with her half while I went off in the other direction.

It was kind of a chilly day to start out with, but it soon turned in to a gorgeous day. My group of people were all really nice; a few jokesters in the crowd, which made them even more fun to be with. And as always, I do tend to talk a lot.

So, about half way thru the zoo I asked one of the guys what time it was – and just about had a heart attack when he said it was 12:15. Not only was I 45 minutes over due, but was also 15 minutes late for my other tour!

That’s not good.

Thankfully, I had Rikki as a shadow that day – she is learning how to give tours (and one hopes she does not learn too much from me!) – so I sent her off to try to find a replacement to finish the tour for me so I could go take care of my Discovery Tour people. Of course, no one had a radio in hand and we had no idea where the volunteer coordinator had gotten off to.

Finally, Mary ended up taking my people off to finish their tour, and I went and gathered up the Discovery Tour patrons – all the while apologizing profusely for the delay.

Two out of six of the people decided to get refunds, unfortunately. But the remaining four gamely went on – and I hope had a good tour. I was so flustered and upset over the debacle that my head was just pounding.

By the time I made it home finally, I actually threw up.