Long Weekends and Much Needed Showers

Hey everyone!!! I made it through the weekend trip and have now finally settled down in my dorm for a while. So I have a lot to recount, but a short time to do it, so let's make this quick!!

Friday we left around 3 and drove for hours on end (it was actually three) out to the Spring River. We got there at six, set up our tents and ate dinner. We introduced ourselves to each other and just sort of chilled until midnight when I decided to go to sleep. Me and my tentmates, however, discovered one little problem. Our tent door was broken, meaning we couldn't close it. Our stuff was damp and cold and so we had to waste like 15 minutes trying to get the OR leaders to do something. That was a little frustrating, but eventually we got moved to a different tent. So that was okay. Sleeping was pretty okay, until the trains came by and woke us all up. Oh yeah, did I mention, our trips campsite was right beside double train tracks. Woo.

Anyway, the next day we got into our trip: canoeing. I have never been canoeing before and must say that I was very proud of myself for only flipping our canoe once. I felt so bad for Trevor. Considering that I could not for the life of me lift the canoe to dump out the water. Anyway, the river was a lot of fun and I totally recommend it to everyone. I wish I had pictures but I left my phone and it also died Friday night. The rapids were just perfect enough for us to have fun without totally killing each other. Trevor and I did almost run over two guys when we went around a curve that flipped their boat. That was funny, actually. Hmmm, I think my tentmates, Krys and Candyce, tipped on one of the curves called Deadman's Curve and got separated. Both lost their shorts, I think? Haha, but the best story was mine and Trevor's experience on the curve.

Okay, so there's Deadman's Curve, which you can go left into the curve, or go right over some drop offs and stuff. Well, we had been doing pretty decent on the drop offs so far and it didn't look too bad. So we go that way, and go over the drop off, which is pretty small and we're like "ah yeah, that wasn't so bad". And then we look in front of us. There's a second drop off that we didn't see that was a good two feet down. No, we didn't actually go over it, it would have been a ton of fun and we probably would have tipped over, but we ran the canoe up on this little spit of land separating the drop off from Deadman's Curve. Then we dragged the canoe through freezing cold waist deep water back the way we came and around into the actual curve. I think a couple of people behind us actually went over the drop offs though, so that was pretty funny.

That lasted about five hours and we got back to the campsite around three or four and just hung out. Oh! I should also mention this. I went on the Spring River Oaks trip, and there were two other Spring Rivers trips. Hardy was the one right down the river from us, and apparently the two trips have a prank wars every year. They left before we did to go canoeing, so a group of us went over to their camp and zip tied two tents together, disassembled the other three and hid the tent poles, and then super-glued army men onto random things. We passed by their campsite on the way to the end point of our canoeing trip and they were not happy to see that we had gotten the drop on them.

So, later that night after a dinner of walking tacos and nachos, we were all asleep. me and Candyce had turned in early because we were exhausted. Apparently, some of the other kids had gone to spy on the other camp to see what they would do in retaliation and came back saying that they were getting ready to come bombard our camp with water balloons. So everyone (except me and Candyce, cuz she was tired and I was in my underwear) went and hid behind the tents to ambush Hardy. It sounded really fun whenever the shouts and battle cries rang out, and within a few moments we had ran them off. It was great to know that we had won that round too. Later though, we were awoken to a lot of noise and loud voices.

Apparently, Hardy had come back to mess with us again, zip tying our tents shut and apparently taking one shoe from all of us and putting them in a pile somewhere else. Luckily, one of the leaders heard them outside their tent and ran them off; a bunch of them went around to cut the zip ties, which was what we had woken up to. This morning went by pretty quick; wake up, eat breakfast, break down camp, quick lunch, and just wait for the bus to come and get us at noon. From there we drove all the way back to Conway. I think I slept for the majority of that ride, and then I asked mom to come by and grab me so I could do some laundry at home. I would have done it here, but everyone would be making a mad dash to do laundry and shower. Also, I think everyone else moved in today.

Anyway, I did that and got to just chill at home for an hour and a half talking to my parents and my best friend Libby who so wonderfully came over cuz I haven't seen her in over a week and I missed her! We even got to let Oreo (my dog) in so I could say hi to her. So I had to be back by 5:30 for dinner, which meant I didn't get to finish drying my clothes, so mom (or dad?) will be bringing them by tomorrow. I love them so much, they baby me all the time. <3 There was a quick meeting at 6 for this dance thing the freshman get to do and then I holed myself up in here. I really need to end this here since I need to take a shower and get ready for movie night. We're getting to watch Star Trek into Darkness (holy crap do I love me some Benedict Cumberbatch super baddy) and I think my friend Kayla is going to come and watch for a bit.

So yeah, I think that just about sums up my weekend! Later dudes!
                                            ~H