Gettysburg College: the next vacation destination?
Photo credit to gettysburg.edu
By Jack Gentes and Alex Grun, Contributing Writers
Satire
Spring break is on its way, which means that students everywhere are making plans to go to places such as Florida, Key West, the Everglades, Tampa, Orlando and Seattle. For some students, however, traveling to a premier travel destination is too expensive or simply unethical. Many students have expressed the opinion that they’d like to stay in Gettysburg for the duration of the break, but that campus is too boring with everyone gone. Well, guess what, chicken butt? Now you can stay on campus, and have fun in the spring break sun. That’s right, the college has announced its newest plan for the campus, known as Sunny Entertainment Available Through the Lincoln Experience (S.E.A.T.t.L.E. for short).
One of the running gags at Gettysburg is that the two main grassy areas on campus are misnomers, these areas being Muss Beach and Stine Lake. Kids all ’round the school are often heard asking why Stine Lake and Muss Beach are called what they are. These questions will be things of the past after this spring break, however, as the college plans to turn Muss Beach into an actual beach and Stine Lake into an actual lake. The S.E.A.T.t.L.E. project is being funded by a wealthy G-burg alum named Carol Attle (C.attle@alumni.gettysburg.edu). Attle says that she has fond memories of staying at Gettysburg over spring break when she was a student, as she couldn’t afford a trip back to her home city of Seattle during the break. She wants to make it so students in similar situations can have fun while staying on campus over break.
For Muss Beach, the school plans to drain Quarry Pond and put the water into a large basin near the roadside. A wave pool apparatus will then be built behind the basin so that students can catch a few gnarly swells on their surfboards. Imported sand is expensive, but Mrs. Attle spares no expense as she is importing a mixture of sand from places like Florida, Key West, the Everglades, Tampa, Orlando and Seattle.
For Stine Lake, the school will simply remove all drainage systems around the immediate vicinity and wait for the rain.
Consequently, seven students have applied for housing during spring break, but recent estimates have projected numbers to reach the mid-teens. Although this is quite a small group, the school hopes the number to grow over the next few years. Lastly, in honor of the project’s founder, the school has announced that the water part of Muss Beach will be named the Sea of Attle.
