The Wilds.
It is amazing how many games of the card game Bluff can be played when you have absolutely nothing else to do. Dan, Zach, Ryan, occasionally Nicholas, and I played that game all the way up and all the way down. It is a great game, until you can figure out if they are bluffing just by looking at their face. Then you know that you have played for too long.
After playing for 2 hours or 20 games (whichever came first) and being totally burnt out, Rory would wake up from the front seat and say "Anyone want to play Bluff?". Thus led to more consecutive games.
Dan was quite the wacko. I'm glad that I got to get to know him on the way down. Spending many hours in the car is the best way to learn to love someone, or hate them. Dan makes the cut ;).
Camp itself was great. Nick and I were in a cabin along with seven other people, two of whom were CITers. One of them had a striking resemblance to Billy from "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest", hair and all, which at first really freaked me out. The two loudest ones in there happened to be really sort of, erm, stupid. Not surprisingly, they stuck together. It was great to listen to them ramble on and attempt to one up people.
A few of them styled Axe, the body spray. It stinks, by the way. And they didn't just USE it. They sprayed it on for ten seconds at a time, then came back three minutes later and did it again. It really really stunk in there. I think that that stuff itself can give you brain damage, not counting the aerosol in there. Hence the two "ignorant" people mentioned above. The amount used seemed to be inversely proportional to their brain cell count.
Apparently, the week that we were there (the 3rd week) was the first time that they had gotten rain in the manner that we did. The weather was on a perfect schedule. The day would start out very hot in the morning. It would progress to get hotter and much muggier. Then, in the afternoon it would be torrential rain for about 20 minutes and the temperature would drop by 10-20 degrees. And from there the cycle would repeat. It actually wasn't too bad. I enjoyed the change in pace and everything. It made for good cooling off.
The messages were great. They had a way of being very revealing and getting the point across well. I thought that they were very good and very effectively executed. I was very thankful to be able to go and hear them. They did a number on me.
I think that it is worth mentioning that our team WON. Yes, we did. And we also got a
perfect memory verse score. Mmm, yes. That we did.
The return trip was crazy. Zach and I decided that no one was going to sleep on the way back, in order to ensure a crazy cool car party. Not that the way down was dull, but it had its low and quiet points. We wanted to ensure that that didn't happen again. And it didn't. We bounced from southerner bashing to French fry debates in a matter of mere seconds. It was amazing. That was one great trip. What was even better was the fact that some people fell asleep, and that we had a video camera on hand. Among the victims were Chris, Dan, and Zach. Since I was unable to acquire Icy Hot or shaving cream, we were limited to tooth paste and lip gloss. We made the very best of it none the less.
I am very proud to say that I myself never fell asleep on the watch. I feigned sleep well and fooled Rory into trying to steal my hat. That worked well until Dan leaned in close and whispered in my ear, "Hey Drew, I love you". It was all over after that.
We also had very much fun with the camcorder. Between hourly reports, coverage of passing clown cars, sleeping/drooling people, odd road signs, and home made commercials, we brought the house down.
(Speaking of clown cars, we were witness of a car which was absolutely 100% filled with garbage up to the ceiling, windows, and all 4 of the seats. There was only a little breathing room in the drivers seat where the driver had to sit and hold the garbage back while driving. I'm surprised that an apple core didn't get stuck under the brake pedal or something.
We also made a couple of friends on the road. Waving to other people is a good way to make friends. Lots of stories there.
All in all, it was a great trip in order to get to know everyone better. I loved it.
The Nova Scotia Trip.
This was a great trip also. The ride up was good in getting everyone up to speed on everyone else, but it soon degraded to card games and strange conversation.
After staying in Belfast for the first night, we proceeded to Canada. Thankfully, we did not have to deal with border patrol. They waved us through and we continued. There were no cop cars or highway police the whole way up. We could have cruised at 90 mph the whole time if we wanted, and not have been seen the whole time. That is what the 15% tax on everything is paying for.
The view wasn't all that interesting while we were driving up. Once in a while, when we drove up on top of a hill, we would be able to see miles of trees to our left and right. That was about it until we actually got to Nova Scotia. That is where every time you took a picture it looked like a post card. Especially the sunsets. They just couldn't have been any better.
The first full day that we were there was Sunday. That evening we went out to a beach just for the heck of it. It was a rock beach. Most of them are. We stayed to watch the sunset, which was brilliant.
That beach is also home of the amazing and famous Rusty Bulldozer. Man, so many good times were spent there. There were broken glass bottles all over inside of it. There were a bunch of rocks made up into a fire pit where there were other things lying around such as tubes of modeling cement and small glass cylinders. Good times, good times. They must have had such a good time that the hours just, disappeared (literally). But, the Rusty Bulldozer was most definitely the highlight of the beach.
When we came back to the beach a few days later, we decided to build a causeway into the "lake" thing that was fed by the ocean. After 25 minutes of hurling giant rocks, we made it about 2 feet in. Not too bad.
On Monday we started VBSes, which went surprisingly smoothly for being a first day. Even the first day went really well. The first day we had 12 kids (I believe it was). All of the kids that we had were very attentive also, which was somewhat amazing.
The same morning, Mrs.Moody went to the store to buy things for VBS, and she had met someone at the store who had inquired of her if she was having a party. When she explained the reason for the food, the lady became interested in VBS. So, she came with her two kids. The kids AND the mother participated in everything and had a good time. The mother was very helpful for the purpose of crowd control and help in the art stuff. We are praying for a follow up so that she might go to the Moody's church.
The next day, there were 16, which I myself did not expect. And things seemed to get smoother every day that we worked, too.
All in all, we had 20 people enrolled, and a maximum of 19 at a club at one time. That was far more than I ever expected to come out. I was thinking 15 at most, if we were lucky. And all of the kids, save for the two 4-year olds there, paid much attention and were very good with participating.
On Thursday we finished the last morning VBS, then had a half-hour closing program in the evening, which the parents, grandparents, or anyone who wanted to come was invited. We had some parents come out who were not there all week, which was great to see. I also got to preform my amazing rope trick. And, after doing it 40 times and it becoming routine, was exciting to see that people were amazed by it (It helped that I didn't screw it up in any way, which was a good possibility).
Friday was free, so we decided that we would watch the 3 Moody kids, who seem to like us a whole lot, so that the parents could go out to eat for the night and not get interrupted 20 times in a sentence.
The ride home was insane in that we decided that card games were the only way to go. We played 20 rounds of Rook for four hours straight. 1600 points to 1300 points. That, plus the time before that that we played SkipBo and Bluff.
After driving for quite a lot of hours, we arrived at the Maine border. After passing customs with a smile and a nod from the nice border guard person, the Dean leaned back and said, "Who wants to go straight home?". That would involve 4 more hours of travel, but HEY! Why not. So, we did. And it felt good to sleep in my bed.
As an aside note Canada has the greatest store chain in the world known as Dollarama. Everything there is 1 Canadian dollar (that is, if it is not listed as 2/$1), and the stuff is pretty cool. Most of it is rather cheap, but at least you know exactly what you are buying. You are buying a $1 piece of cool junk. I really wish that they had them in the states, because I'd drop tons of money in there.
So, that is it for now. A general overview of everything. Much more happened in between the cracks, but I am getting tired of writing. Possibly more to come in the future. Pictures will be coming along soon.
I apologize for the crummy grammer and stuff. I am not proofreading this right now.
