To read part eighteen of day eight, click here.

After dinner the cleanup crew got to work. While they were cleaning everything Luke and I prepped the bear hang.

Luke taught me one or two of the knots, but I couldn’t figure the rest out. I think we ended up having Bruce come and help us with the bear hang, because I couldn’t do the knots, and Bruce was the best at them.

After Bruce left, I asked Luke what had happened in the car.

“Bobby and I got tired of the complaints. They were getting really annoying. So we decided to talk to the girls about it. They didn’t take it that well.”

“Do you think it will help? Because I have to admit, I’m tired of the complaining too.”

“I hope it will help – I don’t know if it will though. I don’t know them well enough. There’s just so much complaining, and it’s really getting on my nerves. Even if they cut the amount in half it will be a relief.”

Um… I had been doing some complaining too. Mostly it was about how I couldn’t do the things that I needed to do because I was too small. But still…

I guess he saw the look on my face.

“It’s not you, Dora. You’re not doing it.”

He left to grab some of the food bags and after a moment I followed him. We finished the bear hang in silence, but it was a good silence. Not like the silence in the car.

I had a lot to think about. I was glad to hear that Luke thought I wasn’t one of the complainers, but I still resolved to complain less.

When we were done with the bear hang, we went to bed. I crawled into my sleeping bag, feeling like I was going to fall asleep in about twenty seconds.

Working with Jamie and Hanni had been lots of fun. And I was really glad that I had been able to send Colter a note, and send out those postcards. The huge stack of letters for me had made me really happy, and even the mood in the van couldn’t change that. The night hike had not been fun – there were a lot of times where I felt like I couldn’t keep going. And the cornbread mac had been… interesting. But overall, it had been a pretty good day!

I fell asleep then, not knowing what the morning would bring. If I had known, there were a lot of things I would have done to help prevent it. Unfortunately, none of us knew.

Click here to read the first part of Day Nine.

*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.*