Students treated to tropical island sights

By PHYLLIS ZORN

Staff writer

The halls of Marion Elementary School were filled with throngs of students and families Tuesday for book-related fun and games.

Groups rotated among a flip-flop book walk, Treasure Island book fair, reader’s reef, Pirate Island, walk the plank games, and making shark tank snacks in the lunchroom.

Bob and JoAnn Good talked to students and parents about their November trip to Galapagos Islands near Ecuador.

The Goods first saw the islands in 2009, and decided to return as part of a trip that included stops at Macchu Picchu, the Amazon River, and the Equator marker.

When tourists visit the islands, officially a national park, they travel in a tour boat with cabins and a narrator tells them about the things they are seeing.

“We went to a tortoise ranch,” JoAnn said.

Although the Galapagos Islands are arguably best known for their huge Galapagos tortoises, they saw many other interesting wildlife as well.

“There’s a whole wealthy of different types of iguanas and all kinds of sea birds,” JoAnn said. “The wildlife now is so protected, they don’t even run from you.”

The islands also have what are called post office barrels, based on the postal system when the islands were visited by sailors.

“If you were traveling, you could drop in a letter,” she said. “Now you put your post card in it, and others go through them. We found two cards addressed to someone in Andover and one just west of Walton.”

The Goods took the two cards and hand-delivered them to the addressees. They left cards for son Oliver Good, now living in Lindsborg, and one for their son in Houston in the hope a future visitor will deliver those cards.