One of my crewmates actually responded to my emails a while ago, so I started asking him questions. I asked him if I could blog his answers and he said that it was fine, as long as I didn’t include any names. I’m linking things, so that if you wanted to read about them you can. (You might also be able to find the names that he asked I take out. :D)
This happened a while ago, so if something seems wrong date wise (when I said I was writing about solo and then the last day of hiking) that’s why.
Brett: Do you still think about Outward Bound? Or have you done your best to forget it?
Crewmate: I talk about it, but I haven’t forgotten it. But I have moved on, and remember the things I learned.
Brett: Right now on my blog I’m writing about our solo. What did you think about solo? Did you like it?
Crewmate: Yeah, Solo was easy for me.
Brett: What did you do during solo? I mostly sat and wrote in my journal.
Crewmate: Once I set up my tarp, I ate, wrote a little in my journal, and then I went to sleep.
Brett: Cool! What’s your best memory of the course?
Crewmate: Topping Table Rock.
Brett: I know… the moment of triumph when we FINALLY reached the top after that horrible day. Remember how we had to evacuate the mountain because of that thunderstorm? And then we had to all squish into that one platform?
What was your favorite meal of the trip?
Crewmate: My burger at the Banquet.
Brett: Oh, yeah! Those were amazing! Remember the cookies we had with them?
What was your least favorite food?
Crewmate: grape nuts.
Brett: Those things were nasty! What did you think about the cheesy grits?
Crewmate: Good. I eat them frequently, so that wasn’t anything new.
Brett: I’d never had them before. I didn’t particularly like them, but I didn’t hate them like some of the others did. 🙂
What was your least favorite part about the course?
Crewmate: The girls complaining about everything. At first it was funny, because ____, ______, and I made jokes about it, but then we were told to stop. But the girls didn’t, and it all went downhill from there as you recall. At the end even I was starting to get agitated.
Brett: I didn’t know that you guys were told to stop! I just remember when you did. I hated the complaining too – especially when ______ was complaining during our hikes. She was like “let’s go, c’mon we don’t need to stop” and I was physically unable to keep going. It was horrible. What was it like in the van when _____ and _____ talked to the girls during resupply? I wasn’t there for that – I was talking to Josh. But I got in the van and everyone was upset.
Crewmate: It was loud. And by loud, I mean ______. Mainly her – everyone else was calm. ______ explained to the girls how we (the guys) felt about all the complaining that they (the girls) did. That set ______ off, and then they got into for a bit. Then _____ stopped all together. He ignored her for the remainder of the day. Then _____ and I took over, and we all agreed that they needed to stop, or reduce the amount of complaining they did. It was better after that if I remember correctly. ______ still didn’t talk until we got out of the van.
Brett: Wow. I can see why _____ was so upset. I was pretty bewildered – I had no idea what the heck had happened. LOL (This is what I wrote about it for my grandparents). I just remember how uncomfortable it was in the car, and how _____ and ______ were pissed about it for quite some time.
What do you think was the hardest part of the trip for you physically? And for the whole crew too, not just you?
Crewmate: Personally, the hardest day was the first day of hiking. Getting acclimated is not easy. But it only got easier for me; even the steep hill we climbed on day 10 was not bad. Athleticism has its benefits. I think that keeping a solid pace was the hardest thing for the crew. We stopped too many times, and that got even me agitated. I talked to my brother, who also went on an OB trip, and he said that they typically got in around 6-8PM, and one day they turned in at 10AM. Comparing that to what we did, we did something wrong.
Brett: For me, the hardest day was the day we summited Table Rock. I can’t wait to blog about that. LOL. I couldn’t breathe that day. I wasn’t physically getting enough oxygen. You know, that’s part of the reason we had to stop so often. Because I couldn’t physically keep going. I knew that it was annoying people, but I wasn’t able to keep going.
If you’ll remember, there were a few times we were done by 6-8. Now, there were a couple of times where we were up kinda late… Remember the night we were up until 3 in the morning?
We may have been doing something wrong, but in the end everything turned out ok. 🙂
Do you miss anything about/from our course?
Crewmate: I miss the freedom of the outdoors. It was nice to be out there. I also miss of the crew, particularly the guys, we just got along so well.
Brett: I miss that too. I’m glad that you were able to get along well with the guys. I wish that I had been able to get along with the girls more. Unfortunately, with the way I was raised I have never really understood people like them. So I didn’t get along with them as well as I wanted to. I tried, I just could NOT understand them!
What was the thing you liked the least?
Crewmate: Stopping when it wasn’t necessary.
Brett: Yeah, sorry about that. It’s been six months and I still feel guilty because of all the times we had to stop, because of me.
Did you get any good pictures?
Crewmate: Unfortunately, my camera broke so no pictures survived.
Brett: Your camera broke? That stinks! How did it break?
Crewmate: I had it in the same bag as my sunscreen. When my sunscreen exploded, it ruined the camera.
Brett: Oh, that really stinks. Would you like me to send you Jen and Katie’s pictures? They gave me a bunch that weren’t on their FB page.
Do you think you learned anything on our course?
Crewmate: Sure, I’d like to see some of the photos. I learned more than I thought I would, actually. I learned a new knot (which I still know), and what it is like to be away from civilization for an extended period of time. Great experience.
Brett: Which knot was new to you? They were all new to me. 😀
Crewmate: The top line hitch (I think thats what its called) was new.
Brett: Which knot was that? I don’t remember what they were called. LOL
Crewmate: That was the knot that we used to tie the line (what you non sailors call rope) from the tarp to the tree.
Brett: Do you remember how many feet we went up on that last day of hiking (table rock day)? Trying to write that now…
Crewmate: 4900 I believe. Somewhere close to a mile.
Brett: Thank you. I was thinking it was somewhere around four or five thousand.
I’m so glad my crewmate let me post our emails. (If you read the blog posts I linked to, you might have figured out which crewmate it was. ;))
I’m almost done with my recapping, so if you have any questions about Outward Bound let me know! If there’re enough questions I’ll do a q/a post. 🙂
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Life After Outward Bound, Part 2