To read part fifteen of day five, click here.

Bruce and Bobby were coming up behind us really fast. I was paddling as hard as I could, but my strength against Bruce’s? I knew we weren’t going to be the first canoe past Patrick.

Our one chance to win was if we could stay straight, and the started curving. But I knew Bobby was determined to win this, and I knew he was going to do his best to steer. I stopped looking at them, I stopped thinking about everything except paddling. I started going faster, I think. I don’t really know if I started going faster, or if Bruce and Bobby got slower. Maybe they started steering funny. I don’t know.

Jen and I shot past Patrick and stopped paddling. I turned around to look, sure that Bruce and Bobby had beaten us.

I was surprised to see them so far behind us! They still hadn’t passed Patrick. Kayce and Maggie were passing Patrick, and right behind them were Bruce and Bobby. I never asked what happened – I didn’t want it to seem like I was rubbing it in.

Jen told Patrick that she didn’t need the treat, to give it to Kayce and Maggie instead. She said that she was an instructor and Maggie, Kayce and I were the ones who deserved it.

Patrick told the three of us to remind him about our treat later. Then he said it was time to get our canoes out of the water and get to our campsite.

We all paddled our canoes to the boat ramp, and people hopped out of their canoes and started carrying them up the ramp. I stood out of the way for this – I knew I wasn’t strong enough to move the canoes. I just got in the way and slowed everyone down.

Everyone was helping each other move the canoes – Team A would help Team B move their canoe, and then Team B would help move Team A’s canoe.

There was one canoe left, and everyone was in the process of carrying a canoe. Everyone except Bobby. He was coming back towards me and the last canoe.

“Hey Brett, can you help me move this canoe?”

“Um, I guess. I’m not very good at it though, and I probably won’t be able to do it without someone helping me.”

“Nah, you can do it just fine. I’ll carry as much of the weight as I can, and you can do the rest. Got that? You can do it.”

I picked up the end and tried to move forward, almost dropping the canoe as I lurched forward. Bobby was walking slowly, telling me “Let’s go, Brett, you’ve got this.”

Luke came over and asked if I needed help. I was about to say yes, please come help me, when Bobby spoke up.

“Nope, Brett’s got it.”

I glared at him as we kept walking. Luke shrugged his shoulders and went back to help get the canoes on the trailer.

Bobby and I (finally!) made it over to the trailer, where we flipped the canoe so we could put it on. Bobby said I could get some help to lift the canoe up, since it was over my head. 😀

Tullia and I went back down by the boat ramp to grab a couple of paddles that were still down there. I leaned down to pick up the paddle, and heard Tullia next to me start yelling and shrieking.

“There’s a snake on that log!!!”

Click here to read the next 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 too NCOBS for letting me use their photos.*

To read part fourteen of day five, click here.

Once everyone was over by the dock we pulled all the canoes together and held them by the gunwales again. I looked over at the canoe next to me and saw this:

This is just so Rebecca. :D

I started laughing, unable to stop myself. Patrick must have thought I was laughing at him. “Ok everyone, stop talking, laughing, whatever you’re doing and listen to me.” I made the mistake of looking at Rebecca again and we both started giggling. I managed to stop giggling before he could look at me though.

Patrick explained the game we were going to play. It was called Dragon Hunter or Dragon Chaser or something like that. You would throw out your stern (the back) “painter”, the string that was connected to the back. The person who was “it” would try to make you be a Dragon Hunter too by grabbing your painter and pulling it.

Jen and I did pretty well in this game! We managed to keep Patrick at bay for quite a while. We would turn our canoe to keep him in front of us at all times, and we managed to do it for about 4 minutes, which seemed like it was forever. 😀

I think my favorite part of the game was when Kayce was one of the Dragon Hunters. He was in the stern of his canoe, and he was trying to get the painter of one of the other canoes.

He was trying, trying, and trying even harder to get his canoe close enough to the other one that he could reach the painter. I guess he gave up, because all of a sudden he leaped out of his canoe.

I had turned just in time to see him launch himself out of his canoe. He grabbed at the painter on his way down and caught it. He went under the water, and the canoe that he was holding jerked as the line was pulled.

Maggie was in the bow of his canoe, and she started yelling as she almost fell out. He came up to the surface grinning, the painter held up over his head in victory. That was one of my favorite moments on the water. 🙂

After a while we did some more racing. We lined up at the docks, and Patrick went about half of the way out.

“All right y’all. The first canoe past me will get a treat. Are you ready?”

We all yelled to Patrick that we were ready.

“Ready, set, GO!!”

Everyone was doing their best. The people in the bow were paddling as hard as they could, the people in the stern were steering as straight as they could.

Jen and I were out in front, but it looked like we had company. Bruce and Bobby were coming up behind us, and they were moving fast. Jen started yelling at me. (Ok, not really yelling. More like… Um, it wasn’t yelling, but it wasn’t really anything else. :D)

“Brett, we can NOT let them pass us. C’mon Brett, you can paddle harder!”

Click here to read the next 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 too NCOBS for letting me use their photos.*

To read part thirteen of day five, click here.

Paddling is hard work. Just sayin’. 🙂

Jen and I started out in the back, behind everyone else. Not for long! With Jen in the back steering us, we went almost completely straight. I felt bad for everyone else. They were turning back and forth, sometimes even turning in a complete circle. But Jen and I shot straight across the lake, and as a result we were the first ones over there.

It felt pretty awesome to be the first there. I wished we hadn’t won by so much, but it was nice to be “the best” in my crew for a moment. And I put that in quotation marks because I wasn’t the best – it was only the fact that I had an instructor in my boat.

I hoped that none of my crewmates would resent me for getting so far ahead of them. We were still getting to know each other, and I didn’t know how they would react to me being at the far side of the lake before some of them had even made the half way point.

The first canoes started to get within talking distance and we started congratulating each other. Everyone in those canoes was all “Great job, Brett!” which made me feel a lot better. Everyone that is, except Luke. He said “Great job, Dora!” which made me laugh.

While I was on my trip, I pretended to be offended when anyone called me Dora. I actually liked it – I felt like I belonged better with a nickname.

The entire trip, I was struggling with insecurity. I was the smallest, the weakest, the most sheltered. I was the only one who didn’t curse, I was the only one who didn’t go to public school. They didn’t listen to the same music as I did, they didn’t read the same books. We had nothing in common, and it scared me. I didn’t know how to act around kids who were so different from me.

So yeah, having a nick name made me feel better. I don’t know why it made me feel better, but it did.

Once everyone was on this side of the lake, we went back again. And once again, Jen and I were first. I was still worrying about how my crewmates would react, but it’s not like I could slow down while I was paddling. If I tried to slow down, Jen would say “C’mon Brett, go faster!””

It was around this time that Jen started taking pictures.

Waiting for the rest of the canoes to get to us.

Bruce and Bobby in their canoe on the lake.

Click here to read the next 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 too NCOBS for letting me use their photos.*

To read part twelve of day five, click here.

We lined up close to the shore, holding the canoes next to us by the gunwales. Once or twice the person next to me would let go, and I would have to yell at them to grab my canoe again because I was not strong enough to keep our canoes close together. 🙂

As we were all lined up there, I was talking with Rebecca, who was next to me in her canoe. We were laughing over something when we heard all of the others exclaiming “Look everyone, look!!”.

Rebecca and I stopped talking and looked over at the other canoes. The rest of my crew was staring up at the sky, watching something.

I looked up and saw something I am never going to forget.

Right above us, not much higher than the trees, was a Bald Eagle. It was circling the lake, so we got to watch it for a while. It was such a majestic sight, and I remember how when it was gone we all just looked at each other in disbelief. It was so beautiful, and so amazing.

Out there, on my trip, I was constantly amazed at the beauty around me. I couldn’t believe all of the gorgeous things I saw that God has created. Everywhere I looked there were amazing things, amazing views, amazing plant life. Sorry, but I just don’t find insects amazing. All they do is annoy me. 🙂

Ok, so the stinging nettle wasn’t exactly an amazing plant, when you touched it. But it was great to eat! I’m not kidding – if you rolled up the edges so they wouldn’t sting your mouth, it tasted like kale or lettuce. Which was really nice, because we were all craving vegetables. At least, I was.

But you had to make sure you rolled up the leaves. If you didn’t, you would have your entire mouth start stinging. I didn’t find this out, Bruce did. On Day Four when Ben was hurt and we were getting him down the mountain, on one of our breaks Bruce and I were starting to get hungry. I don’t remember how it started, but Katie told us that you could eat stinging nettle.

I said I wasn’t going to eat it first, but if Bruce would and said it was good I’d eat it too. He took one and popped it in his mouth, chewed for a minute and pronounced it good. I picked a leaf and rolled it up – I didn’t want any sharp points poking me. I rolled it so I couldn’t see any of the points before sticking it in my mouth. I was just about to swallow when Bruce opened his mouth, waving his hand in front of it.

“My mouth is stinging!!”

I swallowed, praying that my mouth wouldn’t start too.

Katie came over. “Did you roll up the edges so the points couldn’t sting you?”

“No, why would you do that?” He thought about it for a minute. “Oh, you mean the points did this?”

I felt better about it – I had rolled up the points, so I should be good. I picked another leaf and ate it. It was good, I was hungry, and it was green. It was the first green thing I had eaten since I had left home the day before the airport. LOL

Anyway, back to the lake. We watched the bald eagle fly for over five minutes before it landed in the trees on the other side of the lake. That was when Patrick announced what we were doing next.

We were going to cross the lake.

It was a big lake.

I didn’t really want to cross the lake.

But I had to, and I knew I wasn’t getting out of it. I let go of the canoes next to me and picked up my paddle. We all headed out a bit so we could get enough room to paddle, and then Patrick sent us off.

“C’mon, Brett! Let’s do this. We’re going to beat everyone.”

Did I mention that Jen was pretty competitive? 😀

Click here to read the next 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 too NCOBS for letting me use their photos.*

To read part eleven of day five, click here.

Bruce picked up one of the blobs. I blinked, wondering if it was what it looked like. He picked up the other one and held it up to show everyone on the shore. I laughed – they were his booties. They had fallen off while he was swimming.

I caught up to him for a second, but then he was way ahead of me again. He got back to shore and started telling everyone that they had fallen off on his way out to Patrick, but he had forgotten to get them on his way back to shore. I think he was racing someone to get back to land.

Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure the swim evaluation came before we learned to pack the canoes. Because we weren’t that wet when we got into the canoes a little bit after packing, so we would have had to do our swim evaluation before then.

So this happened after we finished the packing.

We all got into a circle and Patrick explained what was going to happen. We were going to get into our canoes, lighter person in the bow (front), and learn our paddle strokes.

Everyone pulled their canoe off the shore and into the water, except for me. Everyone got into their canoe, except for me. Everyone paddled over to the dock so they could hold on and not float away, except for me.

I couldn’t – I didn’t have my partner! Jen, Katie and Glenn were all talking and when I went and stood by Jen, she told me to go back to the canoe, she would be over there soon.

The rest of my crewmates were already learning their paddle strokes, paddling around in the shallows. And I was still waiting for Jen.

Ten minutes later, she hopped into the canoe. “Sorry about that!” she said as we paddled out to meet the rest of the crew.

Thirty minutes after that, we were still practicing paddle strokes. I was glad – I still had no idea what I was doing. Patrick would call out what we were supposed to be doing, and I would usually do the opposite.

Jen would correct me, telling me to do the other one, and I would correct it. I knew which stroke did what, I just couldn’t figure out their names for some reason. I still don’t know their names, actually. But when Jen would say that we needed to turn right, I was able to do the correction strokes that were needed.

Because I was in the front, I didn’t have to do as much steering. I was mostly the power. The engine, in a way. The person in the stern did most of the steering, but I needed to know the strokes that I would use to correct our direction the next two days. If the person in the stern couldn’t turn us in time to miss a rock in the river, I would have to help.

Patrick said we were done learning the strokes and told us to go line up by the docks. We headed back across the lake to the dock. Jen and I stopped for a second and she took a picture of me.

This is one of my favorite pictures of me from my course. :)

I was a little worried about what was coming next, but I shouldn’t have. Jen and I kicked butt. 😀

Click here to read the next 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 too NCOBS for letting me use their photos.*

To read part ten of day five, click here.

Each person got a mesh bag to store their water bottles in. You tied the bag to your canoe with the drawstring, and then you had the fun of trying to actually fit your water bottles in. It always took a while, but I could usually get it in. I only had to ask for help a couple of times… 🙂

We learned how to fasten our windbreakers to the canoe – you tied it in a knot around one of the pieces of wood. I can’t remember what those pieces were called… Wish I could.

The next job was learning how to close the dry bag. We had several – the one with the first aid kit in it, the one that would carry all of our dry clothes, and the one that would carry our food for the day.

Learning how to close the dry bag – this is the one that had our clothes

After that we learned how to fasten the baby seals, and then we were done! With that part, at least.

It was time for our swim assessment. We didn’t have to wear our helmets, but we had to wear our life jackets and booties.

Patrick took his canoe out on the lake. We would have to swim to him, touch his canoe, and swim back. We all waded into the water – it was cold! I had been hoping that it would be somewhat warm, since it was the end of July. I did start to get warmer after I started swimming, but I was still freezing when we got out.

Once Patrick decided he was far enough out, he told us to start swimming. I hung out behind everyone – I had a feeling that I was going to be one of the weakest swimmers (if not the weakest). When I knew I was going to be able to start swimming without getting kicked in the face, I waded out until the water was over my waist. It was SO cold, and I knew I had to start swimming before my toes froze.

I started swimming, grateful for the life jacket. I am not a very good swimmer, and the fact that I could feel things touching my legs was freaking me out. I think it was some sort of plant, but whatever it was it was freaking me out. I let the life jacket lift me up so I wouldn’t have to feel anything, and kept my feet as close to the top of the water as I could. 😀

I was falling way behind. I tried to speed up, but I’m not that fast. 🙂 I was half of the way to Patrick, and people had started passing me on their way back.

Luke said “C’mon Dora, you can do it!” as he passed me. I stopped swimming for a second and turned around to tell him he was doing a great job, and thanks. He yelled at me to keep swimming, so I started swimming again. I reached Patrick and turned around, wishing I could push off of the canoe. My legs were getting tired, but I had to keep going. I couldn’t just stop in the middle of the lake!

There was still a long way back to the shore. I kept swimming, wishing that Patrick hadn’t gone so far out. I was three quarters of the way there when I saw Bruce coming back out towards me. He stopped swimming after a minute or two, stopping next to these two black blobs floating in the middle of the lake.

What in the heck were they? As far as I knew, big black blobs floating around in the middle of a lake were not common…

Click here to read the next 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.*

To read part nine of day five, click here.

Some of us started glaring at him. (Not me. I would never, ever, ever do something like glare at someone for not telling me something. Never ever. 😀 )

Bobby nodded his head.

“Well, it actually didn’t taste too bad! I kinda liked it! Anyone want me to drink theirs?”

His eyes grew wide as five cans of tuna fish were shoved at him.

“Um… No one else is going to try it?”

No one said anything.

“Ok then…”

He started drinking the juice and I breathed a sigh of relief. I wasn’t going to have to drink it! The girls were all grinning at each other, the relief plain on their faces.

I think some of the others might have actually drank it, but I don’t remember. I do remember that there was not enough tuna fish – that was gone in an instant.

Thankfully, there was a lot of cheese left over. We ran out of crackers too, but I think everyone mostly got their fill. I tossed my extra crackers at Luke, since he seemed the hungriest, and told him to share with anyone who wanted them.

Have you ever had tuna fish with out mayonnaise? It’s not the best. (Really. I wouldn’t recommend it.) My siblings don’t really believe me when I say stuff about the food on my trip.

I think I’m going to make them split a can of tuna fish with another sibling, with only one sleeve of crackers between the two of them. And I’ll make them drink the juice and see what they say about it then.

Ok, I probably won’t make them drink the juice. But I really want to see what they say when they realize that we are having tuna fish with no mayo for lunch. 🙂

When we were done eating, we were told to clean up and get our gear back on. Some of us got in trouble because we didn’t have our life jackets clipped – we had them on, but didn’t have them clipped. “All on, or all off” was the rule..

I’m pretty sure the reason for that rule is because they have had students go onto the water with their life jackets and/or helmets on, but not clipped. That was the rule for everything – if you had it on, actually have it on. Don’t stop halfway.

During all three days, I only got yelled at for that twice. The first time when they hadn’t told us the rule, (or if they did, I wasn’t there for it) and once when I was taking off my life jacket and got called by someone. Apparently I forgot that I was in the process of taking off my life jacket.

Once we were done cleaning up, we gathered by the boats to learn how to store our gear properly. Water bottles, our food, and the “dry bag” containing our warm clothes for when we were off the water.

Believe me, proper storage of all those items was essential. If you didn’t store it correctly, when you flipped you would lose all of it. And everyone flipped, so you couldn’t think that you were going to be the only one who wouldn’t flip. No matter how much you wanted too.

Click here to read the next 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.*

To read part eight of day five, click here.

Lunch that day was interesting. We were having tuna fish, but we had no mayo. And we couldn’t just dump out the tuna juice – we had to drink it.

When Jen told us that we had to drink the tuna juice, everyone looked at her in disbelief. “I don’t care what she says. I am not drinking tuna juice” someone near me muttered. I agreed – there was no way I was going to drink it.

Jen was still talking.

“…might like it! I like it. It’s actually my favorite part of this meal.”

She turned and walked away and we all stared at each other grimly.

“We seriously have to drink this? Can’t we just dump it when they aren’t looking?

“There are four of them now. I think they are taking turns watching us – haven’t you noticed that at least one of them is always watching us?”

“They can’t be watching us, can they?”

“Well, it sure looks like they are watching us…”

I tried to tune the rest of the crew out as Maggie and I started getting lunch out. I cut the cheese into chunks while Mags opened the cans. At first I tried to open the cans, but I couldn’t get it, so we switched jobs.

We told the rest of the crew to partner up – two people had to split a can of tuna fish and a sleeve of crackers. I had three of the guys ask me if I wanted to be their partner. I guess they figured there would be more food for them if they got me as a partner. 😀

The looks on their faces when I told them that I already had a partner? Were hysterical. After the initial disappointment, they all looked really thoughtful for a minute. I had a feeling that they were trying to decide who else wasn’t going to eat their whole share, so they could ask them to be their partner. LOL

Once I got the cheese cut, (Hey NCOBS, you really need to sharpen your knives!) it was time to eat. Maggie grabbed us a can of tuna and I grabbed us a sleeve of crackers.

We looked at the can of tuna in disgust -we had forgotten that we had to drink the juice. All around us partners were arguing… I mean, having friendly discussions about which partner was going to drink the juice.

I guess Bobby lost the fight with his partner, because he was the first person to drink it.

“Ok guys, I’ll let you know how it tastes!”

We all watched in disgust as he tipped the can, leaving the lid in so the tuna wouldn’t come out and land on his face. I said a quick prayer that no one would cut their lips on the can – the edges were really sharp because we didn’t have a real can opener.

He put the can back down, licking his lips. We all looked at him, all of us wanting to know.

“So?!? How did it taste?!?”

He thought about it for a moment, obviously wanting to torture us with his knowledge.

“Bobby! Would you please tell us?!?

Click here to read the next 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.*

To read part seven of day five, click here.

I couldn’t believe it. I was going to have to wear those booties? They literally came three inches past my toes. And they were the smallest size they had.

Bobby saw me looking down at the booties in my hand with disgust and asked what was wrong. I told him that I was going to have to wear them even though they came three inches past my toes and he looked at me in disbelief.

“They really come three inches past your toes?”

“No, I’m kidding.”

He looked at me, confused.

“Yes Bobby, they come past my toes! See?”

I folded the top of the shoe back behind my foot as far as it could go. He laughed as he showed me that his bootie didn’t bend at all. I glared at him, walking over to the pile of paddles. They were next on the list of equipment.

There was a method for determining which size paddle you got. You stood the tip of the paddle on your toe, and it was supposed to come up to chest level (I think).

Any guesses how tall the smallest paddle was on me?

It came up to my nose.

I knew there wasn’t going to be any, but I had to ask.

“Glenn? Do you have any smaller paddles?”

“Nope, you need to get the blue and white one. That is the smallest one.”

“Great.”

I went back over to the pile and tried the paddle again. Maybe it had gotten shorter since I asked Glenn!

I stood it on my toe, leaning it forward so I couldn’t tell how high it was on me. I shut my eyes and pulled it so it would be straight up. I didn’t want to look until it was where it was going to be. I opened my eyes, praying that it would have shrunk…

Nope, it was still way too big. Tullia saw my paddle that came up to my nose and started laughing. When Luke asked her why she was laughing, she said it was because of how big my paddle was.

I didn’t think it was funny, but I was glad I could make someone else laugh. 😀

We were all told to make a pile of our stuff, making sure you remembered which pile was yours. I knew I wasn’t going to have a problem with that – mine was the only one with the red life jacket.

All of the instructors told us we should either have Snack or lunch. Almost everyone voted for lunch. LOL

Maggie and I were on Food Duty that day. We pulled out the crew journal to see what we were having.

“Tuna fish? How are we going to have tuna fish out here?!?”

Click here to read the next 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.*

To read part six of day five, click here.

We started getting outfitted. We had to get our life jacket, booties, helmet, windbreaker, and paddle. Everything was in a pile, and the first pile we visited was the windbreaker pile.

I don’t remember what size or color I had – I only wore it once, in the beginning. After that I didn’t use it again. I think I was in the extra small here – everyone else was in the smalls and mediums. Once we were done fitting our windbreakers, we moved on to the life jackets.

Glenn told us that everyone should fit in the orange or grey life jackets, the medium and large. I waited for a second before asking him which one I would fit in. He told me that I might try the small, but the extra small would probably be the one I needed.

I grabbed the extra small and tried it on. With a little bit of adjusting, it fit well. I laughed – the rest of my crewmates were all in the mediums and larges, and I had the extra small. Typical. 😀

We walked over to the helmets. We were told to try the red first, then the white, and if we couldn’t fit in either of those, try the yellow. I fit in the red. At least most of the other girls did too, so I wasn’t the only one wearing the smallest size in the helmets.

After that it was time to sort the booties. We walked over to the pile and a couple of us almost gagged. They stank! And we were going to have to put them on our feet!

Each bootie had a color on the side of it – we had to match up sizes by matching up the colors. We all sat down around the pile of boots and started tossing colors at each other. Once we had all the piles together, we started trying them on.

I asked Patrick which size was the smallest. He told me to try the green or yellow. I tried both, and they were both way too big. I told him that, and asked if I was going to have to wear them anyway.

“Yep, one of those is the smallest we have. Check on the inside – the size should be written there.”

“But they come over three inches past my toes!”

“You’re going to have to wear them anyway. Do your best.”

Click here to read the next 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.*

To read part five of day five, click here.

As I was considering my options, Luke saw another yellow car. What happened next seemed like it happened in slow motion.

Luke saw the car and shouted “Yellow Car!”

His fist was off the seat. I leaned away from him, knowing that he could still hit me. His fist was in the air coming at me and I shifted, trying to see if I could avoid it. I knew it wasn’t going to hurt that badly, but I wanted to see the look on his face if he missed me. His fist was coming at my shoulder, and I bent over, bringing my head as close to my lap as the seat belt would allow me.

The slow motion stopped as Bruce lifted his hand to intercept Luke’s fist before it could hit me. I grinned as he told Luke not to punch a girl. Luke said fine, he would just punch Bruce. His fist landed back in his lap as he started looking for more yellow cars. Bruce shrugged, dropping his hand too.

After that I didn’t have to worry about getting punched back. It was awesome! If Luke tried to punch me, Bruce would stop him. But I could punch Luke. I “punched” Bruce once to see what he would do – he didn’t even move. LOL

(It probably helped that I barely even touched him. He might not have even felt it. :D)

An hour after we started moving, we got onto the gravel roads. We had a half an hour of driving on a gravel road. *shivers remembering how bumpy it was* That was probably one of the bumpiest drives I have ever taken. And that’s saying a lot.

Half an hour later, we had pulled into a parking lot. The parking lot was surrounded by trees and the lake, and we were the only ones in it. We all got out of the car and formed our circle. Jen warned us that there was poison ivy around, so we had to watch for it when we went to the bathroom.

She asked who didn’t know what poison ivy looks like. Maggie and I raised our hands. The rest of the crew looked at me, the question plain on their face. Why didn’t I know what poison ivy was? They couldn’t understand why I didn’t know what poison ivy looked like. I had told them stories of how my family and I liked to go hiking at home, and I guess they assumed that I knew what poison ivy looked like.

Jen took me and Maggie over and found a spot of poison ivy to show us. I nodded – I could recognize that!

We walked away and everyone split up to go to the bathroom. I walked across the parking lot, entered the woods, and realized that I couldn’t remember what the poison ivy looked like.

Oh well – I wasn’t going to go ask Jen to come show me again. I wasn’t going to remember it if she showed it to me anyway. And I really had to pee, because I had drank so much before we got in the car.

I just did my best to not touch any green stuff at all. I guess I did a pretty good job, because I didn’t starting itching! (Ok, scratch that. I was itching, but it was because of the bug bites.)

Once everyone felt better we all gathered by the vans. It took quite a while to get the canoes down. Once we had the canoes off the trailer, we all got in a line, according to how comfortable we felt on the water. It was a self grading thing, so you fit yourself in the line where you thought you stood.

I was at the very end.

Glenn told us to fold our line in half – the least comfortable being paired up with the most comfortable, and the two people in the very middle being paired with each other.

That meant I was paired with Jen, which made me feel better. I was still a little worried about flipping in the canoe, but I prayed that I wouldn’t flip. Our chances were better than the others – with an instructor in my canoe I should do better than the others.

At least, I hoped I would do better.

Click here to read the next 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.*

To read part four of day five, click here.

Every time we would get in the car someone from the back two rows, (one of the other girls) would ask for the radio. Usually within five minutes of us getting on the road. I always grinned when they said it, said I’d like music too, and then realize what I had just done. I had asked for music.

Normally that wouldn’t be a problem. But when we were in the car on Outward Bound, I was usually sitting next to Bruce, who was sitting next to Luke. And the two of them could be a dangerous combination. Especially when they started dancing.

Dancing is fun. I like dancing. However, when the two guys sitting next to you are dancing in a way that means they are constantly hitting you, it can get old quickly. I ended up leaning up against the other side of the car whenever they started dancing, leaning as far away from Bruce as I could.

He didn’t even realize that I was leaning away from him, he was having so much fun. I didn’t spoil their fun, I just learned to recognize what songs would get them going and I would lean away from them as I could once I could tell what song it was. 😀

As far as I can remember, there were only two songs that set them to dancing, but we heard them really, really often. The two songs? Call Me Maybe and What Makes You Beautiful. I heard those songs so often that when I got home, they were stuck in my head. They are still stuck in my head actually.

The problem is that they are stuck in my head, being sung by Luke and Bruce. Yes, I have songs stuck in my head with my crewmates singing them. It can get pretty bad, especially when I get to the chorus of Call Me Maybe.

Let’s just say that Luke does not have a very good soprano voice. *winces as his voice rings through her head*

The other thing we did in the car was a lot of fun for me. Apparently yellow is the least common color in the set of standard colors for cars. So every time you see a yellow car, you yell out “Yellow car!” and you get to punch the person who is playing the game with you. That car can not be used again, and the other person can’t punch you back unless they see a yellow car. If you both see it, the first one to say yellow car gets to punch the other person.

Luke started it. Out of the blue he punched Bruce. When Bruce asked him “What was that for?!?” Luke said “I saw a yellow car. Don’t you play the yellow car game?”

It probably wasn’t a good idea, but I asked Luke what the yellow car game was. He explained, and then punched Bruce again.

“Yellow car!”

Bruce frowned, staring out the window.

“Ha! Yellow car!”

He punched Luke and the yellow car game began in earnest. After about fifteen minutes of looking, I found a yellow car before Luke or Bruce did. I reached across Bruce and punched Luke.

“Yellow car!”

Luke looked at me in surprise.

“You’re going to play the game? That means I can punch you, you know that right?”

I didn’t even have time to respond before he looked out the window, saw a yellow car and punched me. I yelped – he punches hard! I rubbed my shoulder and glared at him.

“You’re the one who wanted to play!”

I leaned away from him and thought about my options. I could continue to get beat up, or I could tell him that I wanted to quit the game. I didn’t want to quit, for two reason. Number one, I’m a Jonas, and Jonases are not quitters. Number two, I was having fun! It didn’t hurt too badly, and it was fun getting to punch Luke. I wasn’t going to punch Bruce – it was more fun reaching across Bruce and punching Luke before he knew what I was doing.

Luckily, I didn’t have to quit, or get beat up. 😀

**Just to clarify, we were not maliciously hurting each other. We were having fun. 🙂 **

Click here to read the next 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.*

To read part three of day five, click here.

As we were sitting in the car a blue sprinter pulled into the parking lot and parked in front of us. It brought tears to my eyes – it reminded me of home, and I was sick and tired of the 15 passenger van! Those things are so tiny… so uncomfortable… I wanted to ride in a Sprinter.

The driver got out of the car, a man who I’m guessing was in his forties. He had light brown hair with a haircut that looked kinda like a Mohawk. He was pretty tall, and all of the girls started saying that he looked pretty cute. And then Patrick showed up.

He pulled up in his truck and parked in front of the trailer with the canoes on it. We had parked right next to that trailer the night before, so we couldn’t really see him as he got out of the car. But then he walked over to where Jen, Katie and Glenn (the man from the sprinter) were standing.

One of the girls sitting behind me squealed.

“Ginger!!!”

It scared the heck out of me. It also made me think for a minute – Ginger is the name of one of our cats. I actually looked around for her before realizing that I was at Outward Bound and my cat was not going to be there. I looked around to see what they were talking about and saw Patrick for the first time. He had a lot of red hair, and I realized that’s what the girls were all talking about.

Apparently the other girls on my crew found red hair attractive. LOL

We were told to come out of the car and get our backpacks to the trailer. We carried them over, met Patrick and Glenn and then stood around awkwardly. Someone told Katie that they had to go to the bathroom and I said I had to go too. I wanted to use a real bathroom one more time before we left civilization. The thought that I might not see a toilet for another ten days freaked me out.

On my way out of the building, I took a drink from the water fountain. Not as much as I would have drank if we didn’t have an hour and a half drive in front of us, but a good amount of water nonetheless. It was good to drink water that didn’t smell and taste like a swimming pool.

Our drive time was over an hour. It was boring at first, but after a while we turned the radio on and started having fun. I was sitting in the same spot I had sat in the night before – second row, closest to the door. But this time Luke was next to the window and Bruce was next to me.

This is how we sat: I got the amount of seat that I needed to fit my butt on. If I was lucky I’d get an inch or two on the side. Bruce sat two or three inches away from me, and Luke had the rest of the seat. And whenever the three of us sat there, that was the way it was. I never said anything – I was usually having too much fun when we were in the car to say anything about it to Luke or Bruce.

Why was I having fun in the car? That horrible 15 passenger van? There was the singing and dancing. And then there were all the times I got to punch Luke.

Click here to read the next 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.*

To read part two of day five, click here.

I prayed that she wasn’t going to say anything that would make me feel worse – I already felt bad because we had lost their trust. But this time she was only sticking her head in to tell us that we were going to get our resupply bag, which had all of our clean clothes in it!

Clean clothes! The car erupted with cheering. After four days of wearing the same clothes, you really want to change. Katie told all of the boys to get out so the girls could change, and she tossed the girls clothing bag to us.

I was the girl closest to the front (where the bag was), so I pulled my clothes out quickly and passed the bag back. It was easy for me to find mine – I had rolled up all of my clothes in my shirt. The other girls had to sort out all of their clothes from the mix up. Each girl had two sets of clothes in there too, so that just made it more complicated.

Trying to change in the 15 passenger van was difficult. It was actually easiest for me, because I was the smallest and could fit more easily than the others. It didn’t help that the guys were walking around outside…

We managed to get changed relatively quickly, considering the circumstances. We got out of the car, our ducky suits on again. The boys grabbed their clothes bag and went running for the car. Jen told the girls to get our bowls and spoons – breakfast was almost ready.

That breakfast was fun, if not particularly yummy. *insert sarcasm here* I guess it would be fun if your idea of fun is standing around eating in the rain, water splashing in your breakfast and back up into your face. But that’s not really my idea of fun.

Breakfast that morning was cheesy grits. Now if you like grits, they would be ok. If you don’t like grits, like me…

Let’s just say that clumpy, tasteless pieces of potato with chunks of iffy looking cheese in it is not one of my favorite meals. I was one of the few who actually ate until they were full though. I looked around at my crewmates to see who was actually eating it – all of the guys except Kayce, and one or two of the girls. I think everyone who was actually eating it was dumping loads and loads of hot sauce on it. Except me, because I don’t like hot sauce.

Did I ever tell you that we didn’t call hot sauce, hot sauce? My crewmates all called it Texas Pete. The first time I heard that I just stared at them blankly – I had no idea what Texas Pete was. LOL I had to ask what it was, and then it was their turn to stare blankly at me.

“Brett? You don’t know what Texas Pete is?”

“Um, no. What is it?”

“Wow. I can’t believe you don’t know what Texas Pete is. It’s a type of hot sauce. They don’t call it Texas Pete in Indiana??”

“I don’t know about the rest of Indiana, but all my friends and my family call it hot sauce…”

They just looked at me like I was nuts. 😀

See, we were still having fun even though we were in disgrace. I just prayed that we would be out of disgrace soon.

We were sent back to the car, where we all took off our ducky suits immediately. We sat around, small conversations going on around me. I just sat there and thought about the day before. I laughed when I remembered singing kiddie songs while we were hiking down the mountain. I marveled over the fact that we had actually gotten Ben down that mountain. I smiled as I thought about our reaction to using a real bathroom.

Then I thought about what had happened that morning, and I realized that it would probably take a while to get Jen and Katie’s trust back. 🙁

Click here to read the next 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.*

To read part one of day five, click here.

Katie pulled her hand out of her pocket. In her hand was a small cell phone.

Jen told us that they had found the cell phone in the car. She said that she and Katie were extremely sad to say that they had lost their trust in us. One of the rules of Outward Bound is no cell phones, IPods or anything like that. The one thing you could have was a camera. When one of my crewmates brought a cell phone on course, they had broken the rules.

Katie said that she and Jen would like the person who had brought the cell phone to come and talk to them sometime during the day. After that we were told to get our ducky suits on and get ready to go to the car. Jen and Katie would make us breakfast – they didn’t trust us and as a result we weren’t going to be allowed to do things like making breakfast.

It was the first time I had pulled on my ducky suit. It was also the beginning of a hate filled relationship. I didn’t do anything to my ducky suit to make it mad, I swear! But it seemed to have something against me. Every time I tried to walk it would try to trip me. Every time I tried to roll up the ankles, they would roll down so they were two inches beneath my heel. Every time. Let’s just say my ducky suit and I were not the best of friends. And my entire crew knew it. LOL

The ducky suit consisted of a very ugly, very stiff, very yellow jacket and matching overalls. The overalls were horrible! They were also too big – I had the XS, the smallest size they had. Well, I could only pull the overalls up so much because of the crotch, and even with it pulled up as far as it could go the legs were still two inches beneath my heels. It was wonderful. *insert sarcastic smile here*

We hiked around the building with our backpacks. I had to get help to get mine on – the ducky suit made it impossible to get it on without help. We got over to the car and dropped our packs by the trailer before getting in the car.

Four minutes. That was how long it took for people to get hot enough that they started taking the ducky suit off. I held out for another two minutes before I decided that I wasn’t going to try and stay in my suit. It was a pain to get off, and a pain to get them on, but we didn’t care. It was too hot in there to wear them.

All we could do was talk, so we talked. The crewmate who had brought the phone told us that they had invaded his/her privacy when they found the phone – it had been in his/her camera case, behind the camera.

I didn’t say anything, but I wondered why he/she had brought the phone. I was upset that my crewmate valued his/her phone so much that he/she would bring it, (which was against the rules) and make Jen and Katie so upset with us. It makes me happy when I know that I have the trust of the people around me, and the fact that Jen and Katie didn’t trust any of us at the moment was upsetting. Especially when I didn’t know anything about it and had no control over it.

The talking stopped when Katie opened the passenger seat door, sticking her head in to tell us something.

Click here to read the next 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.*