To read part four of day two, click here.

Once the tarp was set up we grabbed our bowls and spoons, water bottles, foam mats (to sit on) and headlamps and headed for the “kitchen”, another room in our “house”. We set our stuff down and stood up for Dinner Circle.

For dinner circle, we all stood in a circle and held hands or linked elbows. I think everyone else preferred elbows, but I liked holding hands better. Because after our announcements and appreciations, and after the quote, we either squeezed hands or jerked elbows all the way around the circle. And if someone yanked on my elbow, it would pull me off balance. Plus, the people who I always sat next to were the tall ones, so linking elbows with them was not the most comfortable experience. 😀

After we had passed the movement the whole way around the circle, we all sat down again. You could bring your black foam mat (that you slept on) with you, or you could beg a seat on someone else’s mat. I brought my own mat most of the time, and I almost always shared it with one or two of the guys who had forgotten to bring theirs. (See, I was able to find a way to be prepared in the wilderness too! LOL)

We had a sort of stew with mashed potatoes that night, and I really enjoyed it! The mashed potatoes were really good, and the stew was not bad. And to make it even better, it was from my food bag, so it was less weight for me to carry! 😀

Once I was done eating I cleaned out my bowl, (it was nasty, greasy water again..) and headed back to the tarp to put my stuff away. I guess I did not see a root in the way, because the next thing I know I was down in the dirt, with my foot on its side in an extremely painful position. I hopped over to the girls platform and cried for a minute, holding my ankle. Then I tried putting a little bit of weight on it, and while it was painful, it was bearable. Then other people started coming back from the kitchen so I wiped the tears off my face and put on a smile.

After everyone had put their bowls in their food bag we took care of the bear hang. I stayed out of the way – I was too short to help much, and I just seemed to get in the way when I tried to help. So I stayed out of the way and gave everyone moral support. 🙂

When we were done with the bear hang we moved over to the open space in the middle of camp and played a game. The game is called Essence, and it is a guessing game.

The person who is it turns his/her back, and the other players decide on another one of the other players to be the person “It” is guessing about. They have to all agree, and they can’t make any noise while doing this because then “It” will know who the person they are choosing is. It was really funny watching everyone point their fingers at various people, realize they were not going to get that person and point at another person who had more fingers pointing at him.

The round I remember most had Ben as “It” and I was the person everyone was pointing at. They all put their fingers down and told Ben he could turn around.

Then “It” asks one of the people in the circle questions about the person they had picked, in this case me. Essence was a really interesting game to play at that point in time, because none of us knew each other really well. Because “It” can not ask questions like, “what color hair does this person have?”

“It” has to ask questions like, “If this person went into a hat store, would they buy a propeller hat or a party hat?” (yes, this was one of the questions asked).

I think Ben asked Bobby that, and he answered propeller hat. Which is wrong – I would have bought something like a baseball cap. 😀 But if I had to pick between a propeller hat and a party hat, I would probably pick party hat.

After a few other questions, (like “would this person rather wear blue jeans and a t-shirt or party clothes?”) Ben turned to me and asked me a question. I think it was something like “Would this person rather tell people that they had won a million dollars or _____ (I forget what the other option was)?”

I thought about it for a minute, and said the million dollar one. I thought I did a pretty good job at concealing that it was me, but after two more questions Ben asked the crew if it was me.

I told everyone that they had done a pretty good job – I was definitely a blue jeans/t-shirt kinda girl, but I would NOT have picked a propeller hat. Bobby’s reaction to that was pretty funny… He told me that he had me totally pegged out as a propeller hat girl, and that I had disappointed him. I just laughed at that. 😀

We played a couple of rounds of Essence, then it was time for Twilight Meeting. Since it was dark by then, Jen set up our “campfire” – a water bottle with a headlamp strapped to it. It made the whole water bottle glow, and sent a pretty glow around the circle. 🙂

Jen and Katie started off Twilight Meeting by telling us about how Outward Bound started, and explaining what the symbol means. The blue background with the white square on it is known as the “Blue Peter” flag, and it is the flag ships fly when they are going outward bound – leaving the known space, the safe harbor, the white square, for the unknown, the open sea, the blue background.

They told us how, in 1967 a man named Kurt Hahn started Outward Bound to train sailors how to survive naval battles. Some of those sailors were younger then me! And they were getting killed right and left. So Kurt Hahn started a school to teach those sailors how to survive. And he did it, too! The sailors that went through his school were not quitters – they kept going no matter what.

There was more, but I can’t remember it…

After that we went to bed. I got the edge again, since no one else wanted it and I did not mind it. I actually thought it was nice to be on the edge -if you needed to pee in the middle of the night you were not crawling over people. 🙂

Overall, it was a great second day! I learned more about my crew, learned to trust them more, and had a pretty fun time while doing it, so that was a good thing. 😀

Click here to read the first part of Day Three.

*Everything here is from my own memory and may not be correct. Outward Bound is not responsible for anything I post here.*

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