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!"