Camping Trip Part I April 24, 2010

I’m back from my trip, it was fun!

I was really surprised about my cabin. I got a lot of my friends in it, but I either didn’t know or didn’t like the other 3 or 4 people. xD Every cabin had at least one teacher in them, and of course I got my annoying homeroom teachers and another nice sixth grade teacher. I’ll call them Mrs. Mean, Mrs. Retard, and Mrs. Nice. So first we got in and unpacked our stuff. The cabin was so nice, we lucked out and got the newest one! It had hardwood floors, two giant rooms, a huge and nice bathroom, and a basketball court next door! I have to admit I really liked having the nicest cabin, but it kind of defeated the purpose of a camping trip. Haha.

The first activity I had was Water Ecology. My instructional group (horrible group, I only knew 1 person out of 13) went down to the lake. We first took the temperature of the lake and the air, and then we got buckets, filled them with water, and scooped some of the ugly stuff from the bottom of the lake using nets. xD The job was to put the crap down on the sand and sort through it, trying to find any organisms. Knowing me who is deathly afraid of insects, I mainly just recorded what we found on paper and dumped the water out. We did find a few things, like a baby Swamp Darter, some sort of beetle (it was HUGE, and not to mention disgusting), and a bunch of little water bugs. I would rate that activity 8/10, at some times it was a little boring. xP

Next we ate lunch, but that doesn’t matter, does it? xD After lunch, I had Orienteering. Blech. We basically just learned how to correctly use a compass and direct yourself out of the wilderness if you were lost. After the learning part, the teacher told us coordinates and we’d have to walk in that direction and find a little container that had a question about compasses inside. After the first couple finds, it got dumb, because all the people who wanted to answer the questions would just run off in the direction before anyone else and look. I would rate that 3/10, it was mostly boring. xD

Then we had Wilderness Survival. It wasn’t as cool as I expected, but I guess it was okay. We first went into a room and looked at pictures from past trips and the shelters they made at this center. Once we were ready to try it on our own, we headed down into the woods (long hike) and into a small area where we were supposed to build our shelter. After about 10 minutes, we completed it. It was almost exactly like this, but bigger and leaning on a tree. Of course we all piled into it and surprisingly we fit! I would rate that about 8/10.

Then we had dinner. The camp’s food was surprisingly really good, except the second day there were substitute chefs and everything was a bit uncooked. After dinner, we all went into “Hulitt Hall” (a little auditorium place) for a Reptiles & Amphibians Show. Some guy with a lazy eye was talking about frogs and snakes of the forest, but I barely listened because I was too busy making funny noises with Jasalynn and Mandie to hear anything. Although, once he turned on the TV and we got to hear frog noises, EVERYONE was laughing, so it was all good. xD One frog sounded like a banjo, one sounded like a fart, and one sounded like a woman screaming! I honestly never knew that frogs made such weird sounds. After that, he passed around animal skulls and dead animals in boxes. O_o There was a horse skull that was two times the size of my head, a cow skull almost the same size, and skulls of cats, dogs, foxes, and raccoons and such. I was creeped out by that, but then he started passing around the dead animals in cases! There was a snake that was perfectly preserved from the 1800′s, a case with five bats in size order, and a rat the size of my forearm. I didn’t even go near most of them, even though they were sealed tight.

After that, we went on a “Night Hike.” I was looking forward to it! It was about 10 when we started the walk. We went as an entire grade, so we couldn’t possibly get separated unless you purposely walked off into a different direction. xD It was pitch black outside, so the only light was these jerks that brought their cameras. Most of them ran out of film, but someone figured out a way to get a flash without even taking pictures. Thanks a lot, person! After 20 minutes of walking in a linked-arm-line with Kelcie, Kelsey, Mandie, Jasalynn, and Madison, we all kind of separated and it was only me, Jasalynn, and Mandie left. Of course it wasn’t long before clumsy Jasalynn fell (I later began counting and she set a record of 17 falls the whole trip) and hit her head on the ground. She was dizzy and hallucinating the rest of the night. Needless to say, I had to lead her everywhere. We ended up getting potentially lost, and by lost I mean the entire group. The walk ended up being an hour and a half and not the planned 40 minutes we expected!

TO BE CONTINUED!