To read part eighteen of day five, click here.

After what was probably close to an hour, Glenn stuck his head out and announced that we could get out. The storm was far enough away, and as a bonus, the rain had stopped!

We all got out and collected our black mats from under the car. We had shoved them there because there was not enough room for them in the car.

One of my crewmates saw his/her wet mat and lost it. I think he/she had been close to losing it in the car, but the wet mat was what set him/her off. He/she went running off into the darkness, down the road.

The rest of us looked at each other, not knowing what to do. Someone said “we need to get to bed…” so those of us who had mats grabbed them and we headed up the trail. Everyone was carrying their bowl and spoon, everyone who had a water bottle was carrying it, and everyone who had their mat was carrying it. It made it rather difficult to walk. 😀

We made it to the spot where we had made dinner and we all stopped. Sitting there on the ground was all the stuff that we had made dinner with.

It still needed to be cleaned up.

I would have stayed and helped, but I still had to lay out my stuff for the night. Most of us headed up the trail, while Luke and his partner stayed behind to clean.

As we were leaving Luke called after us. “Um… Does anyone have a head lamp I can borrow??” I told everyone to wait for me as I ran back to give Luke mine. I caught back up to the rest of the crew and we headed up to camp. I needed them to wait for me because I wouldn’t have been able to see without their headlamps.

The tarp was still standing – the girls had done a good job with it. It was pouring so hard I had worried that it was going to come down. I ran over to check on my backpack. It was completely dry! There were a couple of straps that had been hanging out in the rain, but other than that there was no wetness.

I said a quick prayer to thank God and started pulling my stuff out. I borrowed Maggie’s headlamp and spread out my stuff, trying to keep the wet mat from getting my sleeping stuff too wet.

We heard voices coming up the trail and got out from under the tarp. It was Luke and his partner, (still can’t remember who it was) and our crewmate who had ran down the trail. We all went and stood together and he/she apologized. We all said it was fine, and I thought that was the end of it.

I went up to Luke and asked for my headlamp back, handing Maggie hers. As I was heading back to the tarp, I heard Bobby asking our crewmate what we could do to help him/her from losing it again.

I don’t remember what he/she said, I just remember thinking that it was going to be hard. It was something like “keep the bugs away, keep all my stuff dry, don’t make me hike mile after mile after mile…”

Okay, not really. 😀 But it was something like that, something that we had no control over.

Bobby said “Ok everyone, ____ needs a hug from all of us. Let’s go, everyone get over here and give ____ a hug. C’mon, don’t be shy.”

I gave my crewmate a hug and got out of the way so I wouldn’t get squished. I headed back to the tarp and took off my boots, putting my headlamp , compass, and stuff from my pockets inside them. I crawled into my sleeping bag, getting as far from the opening as I could. I really didn’t want to get wet!

I thought about what had happened that day. Being able to use a toilet had been amazing! And even though we had the phone problem, we had managed to recover from that and come out stronger as a crew. The cheesy grits for breakfast weren’t that great, but I was able to have fun in the car! The whole “I’m the smallest, I don’t fit in half the gear” thing wasn’t the best, but at least I was pretty good at paddling a canoe. And sorry, but I can’t think of a good thing to combat the hour in the car. Oh – yeah I can. The fact that none of my stuff was wet!

I was starting to have fun. Of course, I hadn’t seen the river yet, and that was going to be one of the harder things I did on my trip. 🙂

Click here to read the first part of Day Six.

*Everything here is from my own memory and may not be correct. Outward Bound is not responsible for anything I post here. Thanks too NCOBS for letting me use their photos.*