To read part seventeen of day four, click here.
There was a moment where no one spoke. I’m pretty sure we were all thinking the same thing – “please let us be sleeping in the building, please!!“
Rebecca asked the question no one else dared to ask. “Hey Jen? Where are we sleeping?”
Jen looked at Katie and grinned. It made me nervous – that could either be a good thing, or a bad thing.
“Well… How would you guys like to sleep in a building tonight? We don’t have to, if you wouldn’t like it.”
The car erupted with cheering. We were all so excited! All of a sudden I had a bad thought – were we going to have to go to the bathroom outside?!? I said a quick prayer that we would be allowed to use the bathrooms. I didn’t think they could be that cruel, but you never knew…
Jen started telling us that this was an office building where they let crews sleep sometimes. We would be sleeping in the library, and we had to be quiet because there might be other crews sleeping there. It was almost midnight, and we didn’t want to wake anyone up.
She said that we were going to be allowed to go to the bathrooms two at a time. She said to get your sleeping bag and your toiletries and lean your bag up against the side of the building where she would show us. When she asked if we understood, we all nodded our heads very quickly, looking at each other with excited grins. No one said anything that might slow us down – we wanted to get to that bathroom!
We ran to the back of the car, to the trailer. We pulled out our packs and started hiking through the rain to the building. We went around to the back of the building and sat our packs under the awning. Pulling my gear out did not take me long, so I was one of the first people who walked through the door.
The door opened into a small room, about the size of my bedroom. I wondered how we were going to fit everyone into this room – not only was it tiny, but the walls were lined with bookcases, filled with books and three ring binders. There was also table in the middle of the room with chairs around it. I didn’t think we were going to fit in, and I was right. A couple of people ended up sleeping out in the hall.
Putting my stuff down in the corner and spreading my sleeping bag out only took a minute. I wanted to get my space “staked out” so no one was sticking their feet in my face. I put my clothes sack at the head of my sleeping bag, pulling out my sweater. It was nice to be in air conditioning, but they had it on really cold!
My feet were aching, so I took off my boots. It was a relief to go barefoot – I hadn’t walked barefoot in four days and my feet were tired of the boots! I grabbed my ziploc of toiletries and stood up. I saw Katie leaving for the bathrooms with two of the guys and ran towards them. I told Jen that I was going with Katie as I ran past her, and caught up to Katie quickly.
I opened the bathroom door and stared for a second. Toilet! Sink! Running water! Hot running water! The awe and gratitude we all felt was pretty ridiculous, but after going without things like that for four days, you really appreciate all of them.
Things like brushing your teeth may seem like something so simple, but it was an amazing experience. Instead of having to blow all of the foam out of my mouth, dispersing it, I was able to just spit it out into a sink. I was able to actually get my retainer clean. (Anyone who has had a retainer will understand how nice that was. LOL) I was able to wash my face, and I even enjoyed the roughness of the paper towels as I dried it.
Feeling clean, knowing my retainers were clean… I don’t know how to describe the emotion. 😀 It was just amazing. I was brushing my teeth for the second time when Katie came to tell me (and Tullia who had come in) that we had to hurry up, the other girls wanted a turn. I finished brushing my teeth, put my toiletries away with a sigh and left the bathroom.
Going over to my corner and dropping off my headlamp, toiletries and bug stuff took me a second, and then I was sitting down in one of the comfy chairs. They had a lot of padding, and I think I almost fell asleep sitting there. My eyes were shut and I didn’t want to open them, but I knew we still had to have Twilight Meeting, so I couldn’t fall asleep.
Forcing my eyes open, I looked around to see who was in the bathrooms and who I could talk too. I found myself looking at Luke, who was staring at the half empty bottle of Pepsi on the table. He picked it up, eyeing how full it was.
“You know you can’t drink that, right Luke?”
He stared at the soda, obviously wanting to drink it.
“It’s only about a liter… I could drink that!”
I glared at him in disapproval. With a sigh he put the bottle down. I grinned at him, my grin turning to a glare again as he walked over to the box of pizza sitting on one of the bookcases sitting under the window. He opened it to reveal one piece of pizza. My stomach growled involuntarily as the smell spread through the room.
Luke looked at me, daring me to challenge him. I took the bait.
“Are you really going to eat that? I think the others would kill you if you did that. We all want pizza as much as you do.”
“But Dora, it’s three meat pizza! It’s calling my name.” He trailed off, staring at the pizza. (Remember, Dora is the nickname he gave me?) I got out of the super comfy chair and walked over to him, taking the pizza box and shutting it. I put it back where it had been before sitting down on my sleeping bag that was right there.
“You’re mean. You know that, right? I want pizza…”
I ignored him. 😀
Bobby was looking at a book about Ashville that he had pulled from the bookcase, so I went to look over his shoulder. We saw some really interesting pictures before Jen came in and told us to follow her for Twilight Meeting.
We had a short meeting. Jen and Katie told us that we had done a good job getting Ben down the mountain, and there were a couple of other things that I don’t remember. We were told to go to bed, and I went willingly. It was after midnight, and I was tired!
When I crawled into my sleeping bag, my eyes closed almost immediately. I opened them a crack as I felt Kayce bump my feet, closing them the instant I saw he was moving his sleeping bag a bit. All around the room people were saying good night, except for a couple of the girls who were still talking. I didn’t understand why on earth they were still talking, so I just said good night, rolling over and ignoring them. I think I fell asleep in less than a minute.
Day Four was an interesting day. We had a pretty good morning – the views up on that mountain where we were writing were gorgeous! The oatmeal for breakfast was really good. The huge rocks? I’m never going to forget those. Never ever. I don’t think I’ll ever forget singing kids songs as we hiked down the mountain either. And I know I’m never going to forget getting Ben down the mountain.
Getting Ben down the mountain completely changed our crew’s relationship, I think. We were a family. We would help each other with anything after that. I would have done anything for any of them after that. And I think they would have done anything to help me.
Which is good thing – I was going to need a lot of help the next couple of days on the water.
Click here to read the first part of Day Five.
*Everything here is from my own memory and may not be correct. Outward Bound is not responsible for anything I post here. Thanks to NCOBS for letting me use their photos.*
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Outward Bound – Day Five, Part One