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."