"Your kids are very polite and nice to deal with," the stewardess told Tom Jameson. "When I saw that I was going to be with a plane full of 8th graders, I was apprehensive but it's been such a pleasant surprise!"
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    We walked off the ramp leading down from the airport past the sheriff, an enormous fellow with a gold badge, through the arch made of elk antlers and into the luggage area where the students found ways to divert the monotony of watching the same few bags go around by chatting happily with each other.
    We drove through the deep darkness of the Wyoming landscape to the Teton science camp. The eighth graders got a brief orientation, found their rooms, wrestled with recalcitrant sleeping bag zippers and other diversionary concerns. As the adults sit here typing away on the blog, the rooms on the boys floor, moments ago still loud with talking, have suddenly fallen silent. Cheerful exhaustion has set in. A busy day tomorrow awaits . . .