Brian Hilts and Nick Lyons - Monday, May 15th - The Wabash football team had an early rise for breakfast and the traditional mock game this morning before finishing their packing and heading to the Indianapolis airport. Spirits were high among the players, and everyone was anxious to get away from the cold, rainy weather of Indiana. Our first plane, which took us from Indy to Newark, New Jersey, was the definition of a “puddle jumper” with its rather small interior. We got to know our seat partners on a little more personal level. After a brief stay in Jersey, we boarded a much larger plane for our flight to Panama. This was about a five-hour journey made short with the help of Harry Potter and Big Momma’s House 2.

We introduced our team’s slogan and mascot to some of the flight staff, and after seeing a picture of Wally on a player’s hat, a stewardess mentioned how much Coach Creighton looked like him. The high spirits of earlier that morning resurfaced when our Panama experience finally began; however, a few members of our football family, including Coach Creighton and Coach Lemmond, were surprised to find out that their luggage was still back in Indianapolis and never made it to Panama. This didn’t stop the team’s excitement though.

Tomorrow we will start our service work on a farm in a local village. It is almost 1 in the morning right now, and it is about 80 degrees outside and very humid. We are expecting it to be more extreme tomorrow when the sun is out. We are confident that our work there will be greatly appreciated, and we are looking forward to interact with the locals and experience their culture. We also expect to see Bubba Lange drop 15 pounds tomorrow just from sweating in the hot and humid conditions. Currently we are driving to our first destination which is about two hours away from the airport. Our day will be starting early tomorrow, so we intend to get as much sleep as we can.