Last camp post. I promise. Anyways, one of the things I got to do at camp was ACE. Advanced Camper Experience. I think. I could be wrong 'cause I really don't remember exactly what ACE stands for. But that sounds about right. Although I guess it could stand for Awesome Caribbean Eagles or Actually Coral Exists...but that makes no sense.
Anyways, yes, back to ACE. And this was my first glimpse of the climbing wall.
So me, Grace, and Emma (I'm quite aware that's grammatically incorrect in so many ways...but that's the order we're standing in the picture) are actually junior leaders in American Heritage Girls so we weren't supposed to be able to participate in activities. But, since there weren't enough girls signed up for ACE they asked us to be the last few participants.
Climbing gear! I know. You wish you looked this awesome.
Yes.
So first we did ice climbing. Yes, in August. Ice climbing. Haha well, technically it was using ice climbing equipment on a foam wall. But still, I can now say I've been ice climbing. Which is good, because I will never do it again. It was hilarious...and rather pitiful. I could barely make it up the wall and the instructors were all at the base of the wall (well, really only a few feet below me) encouraging me to keep going. I'm just like heeeck no! Ain't no way I'm gonna make it any up the wall any more! Then I made it only about the same distance on the rock wall. Yeah, I really suck at climbing. Repelling though was really fun! That's something I'd love to do again! But, I never went back to the climbing wall that week...
Day 2 we went for a 13 mile bike ride. I actually enjoyed this! I may have zero upper body strength for climbing, but when it comes to biking...thunder thighs for the win! My only complaint (or should it be "camp"laint?) is that the bike seats were a wee bit uncomfortable...and I couldn't sit down the rest of the day! But still, I biked 13 miles and didn't die. Then we had to walk our bikes up the rifle trail...at least a mile of rocky terrain.. Guess I'm not as out of shape as I thought. That was really encouraging after climbing the day before. Sorry there aren't any pictures of the bike ride :(
Day 3 was supposed to be a 3 hour canoe trip...it turned into a 4 hour canoe trip and we even ended up missing the place we were supposed to stop at and we had to backtrack a bit! 3 hour canoe trip...haha, yeah feel free to sing that to the tune of the Gilligan's Island theme song. It was a fun trip though even though we missed lunch and had to call the camp to make sure they saved some food for us! And again...no pictures. Sooorry! But it was an Amazing Canoeing Experience...haha see what I did there.
This is the only picture I have of day 4--lake day! Spent 3 hours kayaking and doing other lake stuff. And then later that day was outpost--that was interesting. We had to walk quite a ways to get to the outpost site...and it was raining. I could already tell outpost was going to be fun.
Yeah, we passed the Grand Canyon on the way to outpost. That's how far we had to walk.
So...our tent may have been missing a few pieces. But thankfully we had duct tape! Duct tape, string, and sticks. So we continued setting our tent up in the mud...and did I mention it was still raining? Oh yeah...and there weren't any bathrooms either. Just nasty little outhouses that you could smell from several feet away. So. Fun.
Here we are trying to figure out what to do with so few tent pieces.
I don't sleep well at night anyways, so the thought of having to sleep on the ground did not sound fun to me. Don't get me wrong, I love the outdoors and I love camping! But, I usually bring an air mattress with me. Well, as soon as we got in our tent it really started raining.
So here's the scene: duct taped tent, the tent's set up in the mud, and now it's really raining hard. I drifted off to sleep for a few minutes around 12:30 but as I saw some water seeping in through the sides of the tent I did not go back to sleep. Soooo I just sat there on a soggy sleeping bag in a puddle of water waiting for everyone else to get up so we could walk back to camp. And I kept checking the time to see how long I had to wait...longest night ever!
I slept in my clothes, had no makeup on, and my hair looked awesome (sarcasm). That was a bit of an Aggravating Camper Experience. I love you, Camp Friedlander...but outpost? Heck no. Anyways, I could have changed...but the extra clothes I brought with me were also soaked from sitting in the puddle of water in the tent. So I think we may have been a little late for flag ceremony, I can't remember...but yeah, I could not wait to be done with breakfast so I could go shower!
Day 5, after showering and cleaning up a little, we were going to play frisbee golf...but everyone was so tired that we just sat in the dining hall and watched Howl's Moving Castle. I seriously love that movie. And almost no one else had seen it before! But yeah, what other camp can you go to and watch anime? Pretty awesome if you ask me!
Ah, Camp Friedlander...you made me realize that camp actually can be fun! (even with outpost!) Let's just say the camp I went to when I was a kid wasn't that amazing... But yeah, this has restored my faith in camp! And I'll tell you what ...going to camp as an adult rather than a camper was awesome. A (mostly) free schedule, access to electronics, and I got to keep my cell phone with me the entire time? Yeah...it was great.
Well, that's the last of the camp posts. This next week I'll be in South Carolina on vacation so I'll have some fun beach pictures for y'all. I know my blog's been a bit different this past month, but as soon as I get back to school I'll hopefully get back into the swing of things with regular posts!
