45 Minutes of Fame

Friday

Friday came all too soon for me. I made sure to get up early that morning- I wanted to enjoy my last few hours at camp as much as I possibly could. Even though in the back of my mind I knew that it was the day that we had to go home, I still had a really great time.
I've got to say, there is nothing like the last day of Camp Hope to make you feel like a celebrity. Everybody is running around getting people to sign their Camp Hope books and so I was constantly asked for my signature. It was so much fun! Some people would ask for just your name, others will ask for your email, and then other people (such as Lindy!) would want you to write them a note too.
Even Zack had me sign- "Can't let the person who dubbed me Alexander get away without signing!" he said as he handed me his book as we were waiting in the lunch line. Haha, I don't think that I shall ever live down the Alexander incident! Oh well, I really don't mind though because it really was funny.
I had such fun running up to pretty much everyone I'd met over the week and collecting their signatures. It's really fun seeing all of the different things people put...Especially Dexter! I always wanted to be around when he was signing some one's book because he would always put something crazy & random. He wrote a short horror story in Jessica's book, in one person's book he wrote that poem that I forget the title of that begins, "One bright day in the middle of the night, two dead boys got up to fight". In my book he drew a "Teenage Mutant Ninja Pineapple"...In the address page. He's always gotta be the different one in the bunch, that's for sure!

Once everybody was packed up and the cabins were cleaned, it was the moment I was wishing wouldn't come...Time to go home. It was a long trip back. Everyone was real tired and didn't say a whole lot. It was fun hearing about Selah Walker's experience as the Jr. Girl's counselor though. She had some interesting stories to tell, including how there was a mix up on the Jr.'s hiking trip on Sunglass Mountain and every one thought that they were lost. I also got to hear about the Jr.'s skits, which us teens didn't get to see since they divided us up to save time. Of course, our drivers had to get their caffeine fixes, so we stopped and met the Pederson's, Mrs. Bates, and Dexter at two different Starbuck's stores along the way. Since it was offered, I couldn't pass it up, so I had an iced caramel machiotto. Yummy.

It was 10:45 when I got back home. Part of me was glad to be back and happy that I could get a nice hot shower, but the other half was really sad to have left most everyone.
As a lot of my friends who went said, "Camp Hope really should last for two weeks."

"Don't say I didn't warn you..."

To The Top & Back

Thursday

Like they would say in my church, "As providence would have it" I woke up earlier than I had any other morning on the day that I probably needed the most sleep. I saw a little bit of light coming through the window and checked my watch to see what time it was. The little screen in my hand read 5:30. My body was thinking "Ugh. It's so early. Just go back to bed!" but my brain was thinking "Hey, you're at Camp Hope, don't waste a perfectly wonderful morning stuck up here in the top bunk!" Turned out that my brain won that battle and so I drug my tired body out of bed to get dressed and go out side.

Once again, a lovely morning...Well, kind of. It was overcast and colder than it had been. I walked around camp a little and then found myself a nice spot on top of a boulder where I could see nearly everything but nobody would really notice me. For a long time I just sat and thought. About camp, about life, about how much I loved the early mornings...So peaceful!
Eventually human life began appearing in camp again. The first ones I noticed who were up that morning were two of the Jr.'s. They had headed out for an early morning game of Volley Ball at 6:00 in the morning. I watched them for probably 45 minutes or so and then I think they went to play Gutter Ball or something. They didn't appear to notice that they had an audience of one for their little game.

Some where between when the volley ball game had started and when it had ended the adults had started getting up and so had several of the older teen guys. Eventually Mr. Pederson got back to his spot so that he could bugle-blast any of the campers who happened to still be in bed.
I think that exercise that morning was the most tiring of all the days at camp. We did a game of follow the leader and Ruben had us jogging down the road that leads to the chapel. Once we all got to a certain place in the road he had us all stop and he pointed at one of the mountains that surrounded the area. "That" He said as we all looked to where his finger was aimed, "is Goat's Peak. That's what we will be hiking this afternoon." It looked so big and far away. We're climbing that? I thought to myself. I looked up at the mountain again. It seemed so overwhelmingly big! I couldn’t imagine actually climbing the thing!

After he jogged us all back up to the basket ball court and we’d had morning devotions, we all had our breakfast, went to chapel, and then prepared to leave on our trip.

The drive up to Goat’s Peak was the second most fun time I had at camp. I couldn’t say the most fun. There was nothing that could beat the spoons game of the night before. It was an awesomely fun ride up though. I sat with Mandy on my left, Carolyn on my right. Behind me in the back were Laurel, David, and Dexter. Behind the wheel of the ride was Ruben and beside him was none other than Sam Boyd. As soon as I saw my travel mates, I could tell, this was going to be great.

Not too long into the drive, Dexter was back to his crazy antics again. He discovered a dime in the cup holder and was having fun. It was nuts. The best part is, I got it on video...Sadly the camera I’d brought can only do silent movies, but it’s still pretty funny. Then a little bit later, Carolyn got Ruben to put in a CD. Then she got Sam going and before anyone could say “STOP! DON”T DO IT!” the whole car was filled with the sounds of silly songs. It was a blast. We sang and laughed all the way up there. I could’ve rode like that all day long, but sadly it had to come to an end once we got to the start of the hiking trail.

Before we began hiking, we all stopped and had lunch. Most of the campers were seated on a big pile of gravel. Then I sat on a log between Mandy and Mr. Pederson. That was fun having lunch with him. He’s pretty cool. Then on another log near us was Dexter Jones & Jacob De Ru, being wild as ever.

Soon as we were all finished up, we were given our water bottles and divided up into groups of fast, medium, medium-slow, and slow. Then we were off on our adventure up the mountain!
Words can’t describe how beautiful it was. I won’t even try to tell how incredible it was. They say pictures speak a thousand words, so I’m going to throw in a few pictures instead of explaining what was like.




So yeah, those pictures right there are of the incredible beauty of which I cannot describe.
If you can think of a way to put all of that into words, let me know!

The hike itself was extremely tiring. Step after step, up hill all the way. I'm so glad that I wasn't in Ruben's hiking group- I would've never been able to keep up, I'm sure. Actually, I wouldn't have wanted to try and keep up with them. The destination would be great, but I wanted to be able to enjoy every minute of getting there as well.

After hiking for probably an hour, we stopped for a minute and my group's leader pointed to a peak that was higher than us by quite a lot. "There's Goat's Peak, right up there" he said. I stood there and stared at it in disbelief. We had gone all that way and yet the destination was still so far!

The thought I'd had back at camp flashed through my head again: We're going to climb THAT?
It was so big, I was so small, we were all so far away and I was already tired. How in the world would I make it clear up there? I made up my mind not to think about it. I would follow the trail where ever it lead and I wasn't turning back. Not after I'd come this far. No, if I was going to get tired out, I was going to be tired from making it to the top, not half way. I hadn't hiked all this way for nothing, so I went on...And on, and on, and on... Until finally we were within yards of the top of the mountain. We could see the lookout tower and our friends from the faster groups waving at us from above. At that point, I ran. I had nearly made it...Just a few more feet... And I was there. Finally there! The sweet, sweet taste of victory and not giving up... Or maybe it was the cookie I'd just ate.

I looked over the edge of the mountain and at everything around me. It was incredible! Amazing! I couldn't believe that I had actually done it. That view was worth all the work climbing to it.

Not only did it have the most awesome view I had ever seen in my life, but it also had cell phone access. So I borrowed Carolyn's phone and called my mom. I sure do wish that I could have been able to see the look on her face when she saw the phone message from me saying that I was at the top of a mountain!

The hike back down seemed a lot shorter than the one up. I suppose it probably was, considering the fact that we were going down hill and didn't need to break as often. I didn't really say a whole lot going down. I was so tired out and still somewhat in a daze of amazement that I was actually where I was. I was amazed that I had just been at the top of a mountain, I was amazed that I had made it there. But that wasn't all. In fact, I could hardly believe all of what had been happening the past few days. It didn't seem that long ago that I was sitting on my bed at home wishing that Laurel would hurry up and come home from Camp Hope. Now this year I was actually here with her meeting all of the wonderful people that she had told me so much about. It was a great feeling.

Before I knew it, we were at the bottom of the peak again waiting for the last few people to catch up to us. Me, Joy, and Nathanael were all sitting around on the giant pile of gravel talking about music and bands and having a water bottle throwing fight with Dexter when suddenly there was a cheer- the last people had made it down.
In a way I was sad to leave, but we had to some time. So my travel mates all piled into Ruben's van and we started back. Shortly after we got in the car, Carolyn dug out another CD for us to listen to.

That's when we determined the Camp Hope song- All Star. We played that song several times over with all of us singing to it every time. It was great. It seemed to take longer getting back to camp than it did to get to the mountain... I have my suspicians that Ruben saw we were having such fun that he decided to take the long way. I'm glad he did, if that's the case!
When we all got back, the song spread through the dinner line as Sam got us all singing it once again. The line up to get into the kitchen had never been so much fun!

If you can believe it, even after a busy afternoon like that, the fun and games still weren't over. That evening was skit night. Just as I had been told, it was the best night of Fun 'n Stuff.
I am so glad that I wasn't one of the judges- everyone did so well I don't think that I could have ever chosen a winner. In the end, it turned out that the Know Nothings won. I'm not going to go into great detail about how their skit went, but I will say that it was had to do with a stolen lottery ticket, a war on stage with aerosol deodorant, and that it was quite funny.

“And how does that make you... Feeeel ?!”

The other skits were Snow White and the 7 Grammarians (Take a guess at what team did that skit!). If you didn’t guess from the title, it was a take off of the story of Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs. They made it a musical and did an incredibly great job! In fact, they got called back later on to do their skit again the next day for the Jr.’s. "Swish swish, clang clang!"
The No Jakes performed a skit about- get this- trying to figure out a skit to perform! They were the funniest. "I know! Let's do a ballet representation of Camp Hope!" said Jacob as he jumped into the air before crashing on the floor. “I got it! We get flying lily pads and fly them all over the audience!” contributed Dexter. It was so funny. Aparently there is a tradition at camp that Mr. Pederson started where his group has to get pastor Harris wet. Well, this year he had a bit of a cold and requested that they didn’t drench him this year. It made him plenty nervous hearing over and over in the No Jake’s skit
“But wait, we have to think of a way to get pastor Harris wet!” In the end though, they got Ruben Harris wet. It was actually the only part of the skit that they planned, the rest was ad-libbed.
Then there was the Angel’s skit. Ours was about big foot. We were all going camping and this creepy person comes and warns us about big foot living in the woods. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” I had a great time playing the girl who flips out... “Big foot? WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!” And Joy was so funny when her character was trying to contact a UFO...

Joy: “Jumping Jupitor! I knew they exsisted!”
Jessica: “Who?”
Joy: “The UFO’s! I’ll try and contact them and tell them to send your S’more back!”

And of course, I can’t forget what happened while we were waiting for the judges announcement on who won... Ruben did the story of the three little pigs in song form. Everyone who had rode up with him to Goat’s Peak knew where he was going when he started out, but it was still funny. I mean really, a 20 something police officer telling a room full of teenagers the musical version of the story of the three little pigs. That’s not exactly something that happens all the time!

Once the winner had been announced and Fun 'n Stuff was over, all the teens went to play volley ball in the dark while we waited for our turn to roast marshmallows at the camp fire. It was great fun, although between the darkness and the rising dust cloud, I couldn't see very well at all. I don't even remember what group won, but I don't really care. We had a ton of fun and that's all I was after.
When the Junior's left the fire pit, we all headed up for S'mores and silly songs.
The four stooges- Me, Laurel, Nathanael, and Dexter- all sat together...and goofed off. Hey, it’s what we do best together!
It was a wonderful time with us all sitting together singing the shark attack song and doing the mythical dance of the peeling banana...And Dexter trying to get Laurel and I to be his armrests.
You couldn’t have sent us to bed too late that night...All too soon it was over and we were all sent in to do cabin devotionals and go to bed

"Life is hard, and then you die."

Soaking & Spoons

Wednesday

Yet another early morning wake up for me, but this time I don't think it was because of an earthquake under my bed. I woke up to the early morning rays of sun making their way through the window on the far end of the Grammarian's side of the room. Then the one thought that I kept having over and over again struck me: Wow. I can't believe that I'm actually here!

Not being one to waste a perfectly nice morning at camp sleeping in, I made my way out of the top bunk - which might I add is a rather interesting and sometimes slightly painful experience. When your climbing down off of a shaky bunk onto the top of a creaky metal folding chair, being quiet is a difficult thing to do, but some how each morning I managed to pull it off.
Up at the basket ball court later that morning we did Winnie the Pooh exercises and finger stretches- lead by Ruben, of course. Strange and crazy, but I must admit that it was fun.

After breakfast, the rest of the Angels decided that we should work on our skit. So I hurried up and finished my breakfast and followed the rest of them down to the little chapel. Although we came down there to practice and plan, more than half of our rehersal time was spent just laughing over some of the silliest little things. Every single time Raeshelle walked past practicing giving us evil glares, everybody would crack up. I don’t know what there is about being told not to laugh, but it doesn’t help matters any. When ever some one said, “now don’t laugh this time!” everybody ended up cracking up anyway. It’s like your body just has to do the oposite of what your mind is trying to tell it to do. Makes me wonder if maybe if we were told to laugh we’d be serious....Hmm...I doubt it! So we practiced (well, sort of) our skit again, and again and we were having such a good time, nobody thought to look at their watch. So in the middle of what was probibly our 5th or 6th retry with our skit, our counselor, Mrs. Mcfaul came in and said “You girls were supposed to be at the soccer field more than a half an hour ago!” Well, that got us moving. So we all hurried ourselves up to the Field of Running and came in right in the middle of a game of kick ball. After all that running, I hardly felt up to running some more in a game of kick ball, so I joined Mandy and Laurel who were sitting off on the sidelines. After a few minutes more of watching the game from a distance, we decided to look around a bit. We walked through the woods near the Field of Running and discovered gigantic 3-foot-tall-2-foot-wide fuzzy weeds. Laurel and Mandy decided to try out some karate moves on them, and in the end destroyed a couple. So I grabbed one of the yellow flower-covered tops and walked back into camp after the games looking very proud of the "head of weed" I'd collected.

I really don't remember much else of what went on that day, although I'm pretty sure that in the afternoon we had the big water fight. We all were given rubber tubes, which we filled up with water and carried them around on our backs to spray the other players. It was cold, but very much fun. I was the first person to get some body wet when I lost my grip and my tube sprayed several of the people who were waiting to get theirs. Then Dexter was the first person to get thoroughly soaked when his tube popped on him. It was one of those hilarious America’s Funniest Home Videos moments. I wish that I’d had my video camera there to get that footage! I was very pleased with myself at the end of that water fight because I managed to get Ruben pretty soaked. That was great!

[[Me Soaking Ruben]]

That evening was the most memorable for me though- the night of the spoons. After having a blast at Fun ’n Stuff singing silly songs, we all headed back down to the kitchen for snacks...And one awesomely fun game of spoons...If you could really say that’s what we were doing. We were constantly stopping to pose for pictures or just to laugh...at what we’ll never know. Just all of the sudden somebody would start laughing and before you know it, the whole group of us is just going nuts laughing our heads off and banging on the table for no aparent reason. It was one of the best nights of my life! There are few things in life that could beat getting hyped up on cake and ice cream and then going insane with a bunch of new friends while playing a game of spoons. I’m sure this will be one of the best summer memories of my lifetime.




"We could set the dining hall on fire, and put it out with water! Wait, wait - we like the cooks. Yeah, that would be kinda awkward...burn toast and all that in the morning."

Blindfolded Fun

Tuesday

I was shaken from my sleep early that morning, due to the fact that my bunk was shaking like mad. I looked below me and saw the cause of my earthquake: Libby was rolling over. I looked about the room and most everyone was asleep. Quietly I climbed out of bed, got dressed and headed out; hey, why waste a perfectly nice morning at camp sleeping in?

It was then I discovered just how wonderful early mornings at Camp Hope were. The cool air, sunshine making it's way through the tall pine trees, the birds chirping...How peaceful it was!
I decided right then and there that no matter what time I woke up there, as long as it was daylight enough, I'd get up. There was no way that I could sleep in at camp- not after what I had experienced that morning!
Eventually people started getting up. The cooks were preparing breakfast, campers were emerging from their cabins, and a few of the Jr.'s were getting in an early morning game of Gutter Ball, and Mr. Pederson was heading over to his spot, preparing to give the campers who were still in bed a good blast from his bugle.

When everyone was up, the Jr.'s headed over to the kitchen for breakfast while all of us teens went with Ruben up to the basket ball court to do exercises. That morning we did the Hokie Pokie. Haha, very fun. It's things like that that make me love the morning exercise time.

"You do the Hokie Pokie and turn yourself around...That's what it's all about!!!"

Once we were all suficiently tired out, he did a short devotional and then we all headed down for our turn at the dinning hall for breakfast. Of course, that was very enjoyable. I loved the food at camp and will probably be forever bragging up how great the chefs are there.

Later that day the game was Dodge Ball. It was the first time in my life that I had played that game. I absolutely loved it! I didn't do outstandingly well, but I wasn't completely lame either. Everybody seemed to enjoy the game a lot. After that, we all followed Ruben as he skipped up the road that Laurel and I had found the day before. When we got there, none other than the big grassy meadow was there waiting for us to run through it. Turned out that the meadow was a soccer field, which Libby decided to name "The Field of Running", because after all, that's what we went there to do.

When we returned from the field, all of us were divided into our groups and had a water balloon shooting contest with Ruben as the target. One of the guy's groups won, but I don't remember which one. All I know was that it was a fun game to play on a hot afternoon.

That evening at Fun 'n Stuff we played Pictionary. My group came in dead last, but even so it was incredibly fun. I hadn't done that game in so long, and I hadn't ever played blindfolded, either.

"ONE! MORE! TIME!"

The Journey Begins

Monday

I awoke to the sound of the radio playing. I looked at the time and it didn't take me long to realize why in the world my alarm clock was going off at 5:00 in the morning. "Today's the day!" I thought to myself as I hopped into my clothes and shoved my retainer into my suitcase.
An hour later Laurel and I were sitting in her living room waiting for Libby, Selah, and Mrs. Walker to arrive with our ride. I was slightly nervous for that first half hour while we were waiting. I didn't have any idea of what to expect, since I'd never been to the place in my life and had only seen but a few pictures. I forced myself to forget about the fears and replaced them with the reminder that no matter what happened, the Three Stooges would be there for me the whole week. Dexter Jones, Nathanael Hoffmann, and Laurel Christianson. I'd known Laurel for two years and the guys for only one, but it hadn't taken me long to realize what awesome friends they were.

Before I knew it, our ride was there and we were strapping ourselves in for the greatest 5 days of the year. We were on our way to the place where friendly faces were everywhere and pine trees were abundant- we were on our way to Camp Hope.

My group was among the first few to get there, so with the free time we had until our first activity, Laurel showed me around a little. I decided as soon as we got there that I loved the place. It wasn't as big as Camp Gilead, where my family and I used to go, but it was wonderful. It even had Gutter Ball- something that I hadn't seen or played for 4 years! I was so excited to see that there. As Nathanael said, it was the camp pastime. There was rarely a time when it wasn't surrounded by campers.

After everyone arrived, we had our first camp activity, and I had my most embarrassing moment of the week. We each got a partner and we were to memorize 5 things about them: their hometown, favorite food, furtherest place they’ve been from camp, favorite hobby, and their first & last names. Sounds easy, right? Well some how I managed to bomb out on that game. I got everything right...Except for the name. My game partner was Zack Boyd, but some how I ended up calling him Alexander. Oh, gee, hurray for Sarah. She’s SO good with names...Not.

Then it was time for what I call Ultimate Basket Ball. Baisically the game of Basket Ball played by the rules of Ultimate Frisbee. We were given numbers and then divided into teams: The Evens and The Odds. That’s where (for the games, anyway) the three stooges and I got split up. Laurel and Nathanael were on the Odd team and Dexter and I were on the Even team. In the end, the Even’s won the first of many Camp Hope games.

Later on during some free time, Laurel and I walked along a dirt road that I'd found that cut through the forest. A little while into our little walk, she heard footsteps and voices behind us. We turned around and saw Anna and I believe Lindy and Emily walking through the trees. Shortly after that we came to a large grassy meadow and saw the three of them dancing. Aparently we weren't the only ones who knew of this beautiful place. We stopped at the edge and watched them for a couple minutes and then decided to head back and let the other explorers dance without an audience.

“This is Fun ‘n Stuff. For some of you this may be fun, for others of you this may just be stuff” Announced Ruben Harris as we all stood around in the little chapel building that evening.
“Hmm. Well this should be interesting.” I thought as he proceeded to tell us about the night’s activity. We were to go on a scavenger hunt through our luggage and find one thing that started with every letter of the alphabet. Then we had to advertise it to the judges and the rest of the campers. First before we started that though, we were divided into teams- older & younger teen girls and older & younger teen guys. Then we were given 30 seconds to come up with our team names. Here’s what we ended up with:

Older Teen Girls - “Grammarians Anonymous”
Older Teen Guys - “No Jakes”
Younger Teen Girls - “Angels”
Younger Teen Guys - “Know (or is it No?) Nothings”

The Angel’s (My team!) won the scavenger hunt. That was a nice way to end the first day of camp, although I must admit, I loved the creativity of the Know Nothings when it came to advertising their items. The disclaimers they put with their stuff were absolutely hilarious.


"And there I saw it, in a dark corner - nothing!"