Camp!

This past week, I have spent all of my time at a bible camp outside of a little town in Missouri off of Table Rock Lake. It was beautiful there! Here is a rough description of my week and how it went.

Monday the 11th: I had to be at church at six in the morning to help pack the trailer of suitcases, sleeping bags, pillows, etc. My Dad brought me into Lincoln that day. We pulled into the church parking lot and pulled up to where the vans and trailers were being loaded. I had my large lime green suitcase and two trashbags labeled "Stofer" that had all of my beding in them. Dad made me carry my own suitcase out of the truck and to the trailer. I reluctantly rolled that insanely heavy suitcase to the trailer. I said goodbye to Daddy, and then loaded up in one of the five 15-passenger vans that we were taking to camp. I ended up in the very back seat that seated four people, forgeting all about my obscure car sickness. I was back there with my friends Megan A, Nathan S, and Micah P. We were about 2 hours into the trip when we stopped for breakfast. I was starting to get a major headache and my stomach hurt. At first I thought I was just hungery, but to my dismay, I still felt sick after I ate. So, I moved to a different van that wasn't very crowded. This still didn't help, so I moved to another van at our next stop. One of the leaders suggested that I sit closer to the front (I was in the second row), but all of the popular girls in the front row didn't want to switch spot with me, so I toughed it out. All of the leaders told us at our last stop that we were about 90 minutes from camp, and that the last hour of the trip had the most curvy and hilly roads. We loaded up and after about 20 minutes I just completely lost it. My head was throbbing with pain. I started crying, and I felt just horrible. The rest of the van ride was like this. Finally we arrived at camp! We were given a half hour to unpack and get our swinsuits on until we had to be at the pool to take a swim test. I passed, and after a while, we all went to bed, it was an eleven hour trip in all.

Tuesday the 12th: I woke up early and went on a beautiful three mile run, it was amazing! Then that morning, we had free time, so I went and kicked some butt at volleyball and basketball with my friend Megan B. against 2 other boys in our class, Tyler H. and Calvin B. After lunch, I was walking back to my cabin when Nathan M. yelled my name and told me it was time to practice for the special music song that I was singing a duet in. We practiced. And Practiced. And practiced. It took forever! We would be singing it that night after the other worship songs that the praise band was playing. That night, I walked up on stage confident, we had practiced that song so many times I could sing it backwards, in Spanish, and standing on my head all in my sleep. (A little bit of an exaggeration....) I grabbed the microphone that I was instructed to use during practice. The piano (played by Micah P) started, and soon came my que, a subtle eight-note run, I started singing. I had a solo on the first two verses and the chorus. I thought it was going pretty good until, after my long solo, one of the sound booth guys came and took my mic and handed me a new one. I didn't let it phase me. Megan B sang the next two verses and the chorus with my subtle harmony in the background. Next came the bridge....time to 'peel paint'. I blasted that harmony and rocked those perfect thirds, fifths, and sixths. The last chorus was my solo (again) I sang it with confidence and ended the song. Afterwards, Nathan M (he was playing synth) came up to me and apologized for the sound problems. I asked him what he meant, and he told me that durring my whole first solo, my mic was off.... oh well.

Wednesday the 13th: In the morning, I had some free time and messed around with my friends. After lunch, my friends and I were signed up to do the "Barn Swing". Basically, you climb these sketchy stairs up to a platform up really high (in a harness) and then, once you are hooked up properly, you jump off of the platform. It was amazing! After that, I went tubing with my friends Lauren H, LeeAnn H, and Cassie S. It was decided that my parter, Carl N, and I would go on the tube first. Carl was reluctant to go with me, but there were no other partners. As we got on the tube, Carl kept saying that he would hold on longer than me and that I would be the first to fall off. That was soon proven wrong, when he fell off first. Our turn was almost up, and I hadn't fallen off yet, so I plugged my nose, and jumped off. The other people went on the tube, and then we went back to camp. The night ended somewhat normally and everyone went to bed.

Thursday the 14th: Hiking Day! Our church group took a day trip to Arkansas and went hiking! At the end of the trail, there was a river, so we all went swimming! It was an amazing day! We all returned to camp in time for supper, but before supper I had praise band practice. After supper, we had our performance, and then we all played a huge round of "Ultimate Capture the Flag". We were divided up into three teams, and were allowed to use the whole camp, it was really fun!

Friday the 15th: A very busy day! I got up to go for a run, and then after breakfast, it was my team's day to complete the "Challenge Coarse". It was a huge obstacle course that involved a lot of strong tall people, unfortunatley, my team had very few of those. I learned from three things from this: a) I am not as athletic as I thought b) Sometimes being bossy is a good thing c) I really need to learn when to SHUT-UP! (I put that in there for you Micah!) After the challenge course I had just enough time to go change and head to lunch. Right after lunch, my friends and I went tubing again and I attempted to go surfing on a tube. One word. FAIL. It was terrible! After tubing, I was signed up to do the ropes course with my friend Cassie S. They hooked us up in seat and chest harnesses, and we were instructed to climb this long slanted log up to the course that was 50 feet in the air. There were many parts of the course where I had to walk across a thin wire, and was only allowed to hold on to my partner. It was really hard! It took Cassie and I about 2 hours to finish it, and that was one of the fastest times of the day. It got really hot up there too; when we got to the bottom, we had both sweated all the way through our shirts and shorts. That night, after supper, worship, and bible study, we had a big bon fire. It was amazing. This is also when I aquired a new nickname: Scandinavian Booger. This was given to me by the old guy who is the praise band leader. Here are some of the other nicknames: Yidish Loogie- Tim (praise band leader) Samari Snot- John (One of the group leaders) Irish Nosebleed- Lauren (one of my friends) and Talabanian Upchuck- Nick (one of the group leaders). No one really knows how all of these names were devised, it just happened. After the bon fire, we had to return to our cabins and start packing and cleaning.

Saturday the 16th: We woke up and finished packing. The girls were instructed to carry their suitcases untill they reached the group of guys, and the guys took it from there to the trailer. All of the guys, except for one, walked away when they saw me coming with my huge, heavy lime green suitcase. The one guy who stayed was my tubing partner Carl! What a freshman... After breakfast, we loaded up the vans and headed back to Lincoln. We were only an hour into the trip when someone in my van completely threw up all over the backseat. The stench quickly filled the van, but we had to wait a half hour before we could stop to clean it up. Worst half hour of my life. The rest of the van ride went fairly smoothly, and I was very happy to be home.