To read part seventeen of day seven, click here.

Waking up to crickets is actually quite enjoyable. It was a gorgeous morning, with the exception of the freezing cold air that made my nose tingle. I burrowed deeper into my sleeping bag, my eyes barely peeking out over the edge.

I pulled my watch out to look at the time. It was 6:03! I sighed and woke up Rebecca, ready to move out of the way in case she woke up violently. She woke up relatively easily, which was good. I pulled my sweater out from the bottom of the sleeping bag, wrapping it around myself as quickly as I could.

Getting out of my sleeping bag was not easy. I didn’t want to. It was so cold out! But we had to be down at the trailer, ready to go by 7:00, and we weren’t going to make it unless I got out of my sleeping bag. Everyone getting up was the first priority.

Within fifteen minutes, we were all sitting up. Ten minutes after that we were out of our sleeping bags. And fifteen minutes after that, we were still getting ready for the day. (We being most of the other girls – I was ready to go after the first twenty minutes).

It was 6:45, and we hadn’t even started to take the tarp down. I pulled my pack out of the tarp and started to dismantle the side that everyone’s feet had been on. By the time I was done with the second knot, most of the other girls had joined me.

We packed up the tarp and I stuck it in my backpack, wishing I didn’t have to carry it. When everyone was ready we headed up the trail, stopping at Jen and Katie’s sleeping clearing.

Most of the boys joined us and I grinned, feeling better now that we were together again. I don’t know why I needed to be with all of them. I just know that whenever we weren’t together I felt an anxiety that I can’t explain.

We headed for the van, where breakfast was waiting for us. We were having oatmeal, and I was hungry!

Click here to read the next part of Day Eight.

*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 sixteen of day seven, click here.

I heard footsteps behind us, and it wasn’t long before Jordan caught up to us.

“I want to get my hair wet too! I feel nasty.”

We reached the edge of the creek and I could feel the fear almost immediately. It took me a minute, but I was able to talk myself out of it before it was my turn to dip my head.

When you think “creek”, you don’t think huge rocks, lots of little waterfalls, and water rushing through, around and over rocks as big as a toddler. That’s what this was. It wasn’t a river though – my past two days on the river had taught me that much.

There was a spot right next to the edge of the water where there was a waterfall. We took turns dunking our heads in the waterfall, gasping when the water hit our scalps. It was freezing! I ran my fingers through my hair, brushing it out.

I backed away from the waterfall, letting Jordan have her turn. I didn’t stand up until I had wrung out my hair, trying to get as much water out of it as I could. It was already chilly out, and the water was freezing. I had taken my shirt off so that it wouldn’t get wet, and I didn’t want to have water dripping all over my bare back.

Jordan had brought her comb down, so I asked her if I could borrow it and combed my hair out. When my hair was combed out, I wrung it out again. I stood up, holding my (still dripping) hair away from my back while I put it in a ponytail.

Once Jen and Jordan were done rinsing their hair out, I took my headlamp from the rock I had set it up on. I held it in my hand, deciding not to put it on my freezing cold head. Jen and Jordan grabbed their headlamps too and we headed back up to our tarp,

I said goodnight to Jen and sat down on my sleeping bag, pulling my boots off. I took everything out of my pockets and set it all in my boots, which I put by my head like I normally did. I turned my headlamp off and snuggled down into my sleeping bag, ready to sleep. We were going to be doing our last Service the next day, and I wanted to be ready.

The other girls were talking, and their lights were still on, which made it difficult to fall asleep. As I was waiting for them, I thought about the good things, and the bad things that had happened that day.

That dream had been interesting, and I wondered if I was going to dream the next part of it that night. I made a face as I remembered the grape nuts from breakfast, and I prayed we wouldn’t have to have those again. The crew journal had the food plan – I’d check in the morning.

The fact that I was so scared of the river was not cool. I was still embarrassed of the way I let my fear control me. But that was behind me, and I wasn’t going to think about it anymore.

It was really cool that I was going to be able to send the family pictures of me while I was still on my trip. And the lunch was pretty yummy. But flipping was not cool, at all.

Everyone else hadn’t liked cleaning the gear, but other than the way I felt disgusting afterwards, I didn’t mind it. And rinsing my hair out in the creek had totally made up for it!

Dinner had been pretty good, but the fact that I ate all of it was even better. There’s nothing that came even close to beating the fact that I had washed my hair though. That was the best part of the entire day. LOL

Well, I was done thinking about what had happened that day. The girls were still talking though! I prayed that they would shut up soon and rolled onto my side so I was facing out of the tarp. I looked around for the boys tarp, and felt really lonely when I realized it wasn’t there.

I shouldn’t have felt lonely, but I did. I don’t know why I did – I had five other girls at my back, talking and laughing as they got ready for bed. But looking out of the tarp and not being able to see and hear the guys as they got ready for bed too was weird. Even though it was a nice campsite I couldn’t wait to get out of there and move to a new campsite where we would all be together. I couldn’t see Jen and Katie’s tarp from where I was, and I didn’t even know where the guys were.

It took me a little bit of time to stop freaking out because we weren’t all together. By the time I had stopped worrying about that, the girls were mostly done talking, so I said good night and fell asleep. It was still relatively early, but I was tired!

And it was really good that I got some extra sleep – we were going to have a busy day the next day!

Click here to read the first part of Day Eight.

*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 fifteen of day seven, click here.

It was dark as I started walking back to my tarp, so I switched on my headlamp. The light was definitely dimmer than it had been at the beginning of the trip, but it was still bright enough to show me the path.

I could hear the other girls following me and I slowed down so I could walk with them. They caught up to me and I fell to the back of the group, content to follow them because their lights were brighter than mine.

The creek seemed louder than it had been before dinner, and I couldn’t wait to go get wet. I wanted to get my hair rinsed out – it was so greasy, and so nasty. It makes me feel gross just thinking about it.

When we got back to the tarp, I put my food stuff away. A couple of the girls were upset, and I had no idea why. I knew better than to ask though – asking would just make them upset with me, and I didn’t want to start that.

Jen came down to our tarp to check on us.

“Are you girls mostly ready for the night?”

I answered her, glad that even though she wasn’t camped next to us she had come to check on us.

“I think so. I’m pretty sure the tarp is set up well, and I’ve got my bed all laid out.”

“That’s good. Do you want to come down to the creek with me? I want to rinse my hair out.”

Now I could go down to the creek and rinse my hair, but I wouldn’t have to do it alone! That was even better!

“Yes! I would love to. I was actually planning on doing that…”

Jen called out to the other girls “Anyone else who wants to join us is welcome to!”

We started walking towards the creek, being careful to not slip on the mossy rocks as we got closer to it.

Click here to read the last part of Day Seven.

*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 seven, click here.

I looked down at my pita, almost afraid to keep eating. I was still hungry, and I’d already eaten over half of the pita. That was the most I had eaten in the past week!

After a couple of minutes, my pita was gone. I wasn’t hungry anymore, but I had finished the pita. This might not seem like such a big deal, but to me it was. I hadn’t been eating enough since I started the trip. For me to actually finish a whole serving was amazing.

I was cleaning out my bowl when Luke elbowed me.

“Are you going to finish yours?”

I showed him my empty bowl.

“You finished all of yours? I think that’s the first time you haven’t given me some of your food…”

Luke passed his bowl up for seconds, since I didn’t have any extra for him. 😀

After dinner I started cleaning the pots, glad that it was my last day on clean up. I didn’t like clean up. LOL

When we were all done with our duties, we split up for the night. I watched as the boys headed further down the trail before heading towards my own tarp. I wanted to dip my head in the creek before I went to bed!

Click here to read the next part of Day Seven.

*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 seven, click here.

Grabbing my eating things only took thirty seconds, and then I was ready to go. I followed Sarah Margaret up the steep hill, glad I didn’t have my pack on. It was a slippery slope, and I didn’t want to slip and get muddy.

Sarah Margaret led us on the trail going towards the boy’s clearing. Two or three minutes later we were in another small clearing where dinner was laid out. Sarah Margaret showed us where the baby seal and soap were, so we all put our stuff down and washed our hands.

The smell was growing stronger, and I still couldn’t identify it. It smelled really good, whatever it was, and my stomach growled.

“Jen, what’s for dinner?”

“It’s something called Falafel, and it’s really good. We’re going to have it with pita or tortillas, whichever one you would prefer.”

Everyone sat down and we started passing bowls around. I decided that I was going to have a pita pocket, thinking that it would hold the falafel better.

The food started coming past me and my stomach growled again. I said a quick prayer as I passed the last bowl, so I would be ready to eat as soon as I had my food.

All of the bowls were where they belonged, so we were told we could eat. The falafel was really good!

As I was eating, I realized something. I was more than half way through the portion, and I was still hungry!

Click here to read the next part of Day Seven.

*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 seven, click here.

When Katie had said it was a bit of a trek, I thought she meant it was maybe five minutes from the trail head. I wasn’t expecting a shallow creek that I was barely able to jump across, piles of old junk everywhere, and a breeze that made me shiver. It was pretty cool junk though – the place had been used as a illegal dumping ground for a while, and there was some cool stuff in there. There was a whole truck sitting there, completely rusted and without any tires. But it was obviously a truck! There were a couple of other things that were rather cool, but I don’t remember them at the moment.

Ten minutes or so later, the trees thinned out. We could see two little clearings, one of them by the trail and another one down the hill. I could hear a creek in the distance, but I had no idea where it was. I prayed there would be time to rinse off my arms and legs, but told myself to not get my hopes up.

Jen told us to stop and she pointed down the hill.

“See that clearing there, girls? That’s where you are sleeping tonight. Katie and I are going to sleep in this clearing here, and the boys are going to sleep over that way.” She gestured further down the trail, so we all looked that way. I couldn’t see a clearing at all.

“Katie is going to start setting up our tarp, I’m going to take the guys to their campsite, and then I’ll be available to supervise dinner. Whoever is on cooking tonight, take care of your gear and then come with me. Sarah Margaret, I believe you are on dinner?”

Sarah Margaret nodded, glancing down at the clearing where we were sleeping. “I’ll be right there, Jen.” She started walking down towards our clearing and I followed, being careful not to slip. There wasn’t really a good way to get down there, and it was pretty steep. But soon enough we got down there.

The creek was close by – I could hear it rushing along somewhere near our clearing. It sounded like a pretty big creek too!

I set my pack down and looked around me, trying to find the best spot to set up our tarp. The other girls decided that they were going to set it up in a spot that I wouldn’t have chosen, but it wasn’t worth making a fuss. So what if it was going to be a little more uncomfortable for the girls on the edge. (AKA me and the other girl who got stuck on the outside that night. :D)

There weren’t that many sticks we could use for the tarp in the clearing, so I headed into the woods nearby to look for some. I walked a little ways, and it wasn’t long before I saw the creek.

It was pretty wide, with lots of big rocks in it. I really wanted to step out into it and wash off, but I knew that I needed to get back to the clearing with the stakes (decent sized branches) that I had found.

I told myself that I was going to come back, and headed back to the clearing. We didn’t have the tarp up as quickly as I would have liked, but we got it set up before dinner. Everyone started trying to get their packs into the middle, and I knew Sarah Margaret was going to be on the other edge that night. She wasn’t there to claim a good spot, so she was going to get the one that no one else wanted.

Putting my stuff down didn’t take me long – I was right on the edge, the same place I had been every night. Because I was on the edge I had room to maneuver, something that the girls in the middle didn’t get. So I had my stuff set up in about half the time the others did.

I pulled out my postcards, writing one to my family. On the bottom I put this.

“tuckshot.com aug 2nd red canoe orange PFD.”

I prayed that they would understand it, and put my writing materials away. Sarah Margaret had just come to tell us that dinner was ready, and I was hungry! I had no idea what we were having for dinner, but I was ready to eat anything.

Ok, so I probably wouldn’t have eaten Grape Nuts again. 😀

Click here to read the next part of Day Seven.

*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 seven, click here.

No one else said anything, but we were all thinking it. “This would be a really lousy spot to sleep in. There’s no trees to hang a tarp from, it’s gravel so it won’t be comfortable…”

“Nope, this isn’t where we are sleeping. This is just where we are parking the van and trailer. Everyone has to grab their gear, because we don’t want to have to come back for anything. It’s a bit of a trek.”

I grabbed my backpack, struggling to get it on while standing up. I gave up and sat down, a couple of seconds before realizing that there was nothing to help me stand back up.

“Hey guys, can anyone help me up? I’m stuck.”

I could see Kayce trying not to laugh as he grabbed my hands and pulled me to my feet. He already had his pack on and I wondered how he did it. How he was able to get that pack on his back without falling over – I had tried to lift his pack earlier, and I hadn’t been able to make it move, at all.

The weight on my shoulders was heavy, and at first I thought it was because I hadn’t carried my pack for a while. But then I remembered that I hadn’t clipped my straps, which would make it a lot easier to carry. If I clipped my hip strap, most of the weight would be carried by my hips. So it wasn’t weighing down my shoulders, so I could actually walk.

I clipped the straps and immediately felt better. It’s amazing how the weight could change if you did even the tiniest thing, whether it was simply using the hip straps, or adjusting the straps that held the brain of the pack.

When everyone was ready, we started walking. We went around the old, rusted gate, walking along a gravel driveway. At least, it looked like it had been a gravel driveway. After a couple of feet the gravel completely disappeared, leaving us on a strip of grass that was slightly shorter than the grass around it.

The “trail” split, and those of us who were in the front had no idea where to go. Katie yelled from the back of the line that we were supposed to go left, so we started off again.

Click here to read the next part of Day Seven.

*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 seven, click here.

It wasn’t long before we were all in the van, ready to get to our campsite and get it set up before dark. It was a while before Jen and Katie were ready though, since they were talking to Patrick and Glenn.

After waiting about twenty minutes for Jen and Katie, we decided to break out Snack. We opened up a bag of “CRAP” (Chocolate, Raisins, Almonds, Peanuts) and chowed down. We were all really hungry!

Probably ten minutes or so after that, Jen and Katie (finally!) got in the van. They started driving, and we immediately asked for the radio.

Call Me Maybe came on and I was glad that I wasn’t in my normal seat. If I had been in my normal seat, Bruce would have kept hitting my head with his elbow as he danced. (Remember, he was dancing with Luke in the car?)

As soon as the song was over and everyone was done singing, everyone started calling Bruce.

“Hey Bruce, are you still hungry?”
“Bruce, do you want my raisins?”
“So… do you want my raisins, Bruce?”

Bruce sighed and passed his bowl around. When it came back, you couldn’t see the rest of his “CRAP” underneath all of the raisins.

“Why did I tell everyone that I liked raisins? I should have known better.”

I took pity on him and took a handful of raisins from his bowl. Everyone else put Snack away, cleaning up the pieces that had fallen out of their bowls. I slowly munched on the raisins, enjoying my time in the air conditioning.

It wasn’t long before we were pulling off the road onto a little parking lot. There was some gravel, but it was spread around a big area, and there was lots of grass in between it.

“This is where we are sleeping tonight??”

Click here to read the next part of Day Seven.

*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 nine of day seven, click here.

“Yep, you grabbed your gunwales.”

I didn’t reply. Why would I want to hear some more about how I flipped?

We headed out from the eddy once everyone had made it through the rapids. The next rapids was really easy, and it didn’t take long. It was so easy it wasn’t even scaring me. LOL

We went around an island and a bridge came into sight. We went through a small rocky area before stopping under a bridge. I thought we were just stopping to get instructions about our next rapids. But that little rocky spot we had just gone through was apparently our last rapids of the day.

I was thrilled to be done. I didn’t have to worry about the river anymore!

In order to get to the van, we had to carry the canoes up a steep hill. And then we had to carry them all the way across the entire canoeing place. It was a long walk, with our without canoes! Add the heavy canoes into that, and nobody wanted to do it. But we had to if we wanted to get to our campsite, and I know I wanted to get home!

I mean, I wanted to get to wherever home was that night. (It actually turned out to be a pretty nice campsite…)

We saw our crewmate who had stayed behind coming towards us with Katie.

“_____, you missed out on a really fun day!”
“You should have been with us today, _____.”
“It was weird not having everyone with us, _____!”

When the “reunion” was over, it was time to bring the canoes to the van. An hour later, the canoes were all there and up on the trailer. It was time to clean all of our water gear. We had to gather everything:

• The mesh bags that held our water bottles
• The knee straps
• The dry bags
• The lifejackets
• The water booties
• The helmets
• The windbreakers

When we were done gathering everything and putting it in the appropriate piles, it was time to clean it. We took the totes that Patrick gave us and filled them up with water. Patrick added a bottle of soap to one of the buckets, a bottle of some antiseptic stuff (I think that’s what it was…) to another, and left the other two buckets alone.

That was when we started the assembly line. Glenn spread out two clean tarps and told us not to step on them. We started dunking and swishing things in the totes, doing our best to clean them with the things we had. There were sponges in the scrubbing buckets, so you scrubbed everything down first. Then you moved them into the soapy bucket, where you swished them around. After that you rinsed them in the water tote, before dropping them in the antiseptic.

The dirty piles grew smaller and smaller, and the piles of clean stuff on the tarps grew larger and larger. After about twenty minutes of cleaning, we were done. We all felt disgusting, but everything else was clean!

Click here to read the next part of Day Seven.

*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 eight of day seven, click here.

No matter how fast I tried to swim, I wasn’t catching up. We were almost past our crewmates who had already made it through the rapids when I finally caught up to my canoe. I grabbed my paddle from where it was floating next to the canoe, glad to have it back in my grasp.

I grabbed the painter and started swimming for the shore. We were already past our crew – now our goal was to get to shore before we got caught in the next rapids. It was coming up quickly, and there was a pretty good chance that Bobby or I would get hurt if we had to swim through the next rapids.

We had to turn the canoe and start swimming against the river. We were running out of time – the next rapids was so close, I could hear the water crashing against the rocks. I think I told Bobby to swim faster, pushing myself to the limit so I wouldn’t get sucked into those rapids. I thought that going through rapids in a canoe was bad – I couldn’t imagine having to float through it.

My fear of the water was a good thing right then – it’s the only reason I was able to keep swimming against the current to get to shore. It was really hard to keep going, but I’d listen and the sound of the water crashing against the rocks would motivate me to keep going. 🙂

After what seemed like forever, Bobby and I made it to shore. I was exhausted, but I still had to keep moving. We flipped the canoe back and forth, emptying all of the water out of it. When we were done we climbed back in, grabbed the gunwales of the canoe next to us.

“That was the first time I’ve ever seen you grab your gunwales, Brett. Normally you keep paddling, which is probably the reason you don’t flip. But this time you grabbed your gunwales right before you flipped.”

Glenn couldn’t be right. I didn’t remember grabbing my gunwales – I had never done it before.

“I seriously grabbed my gunwales?”

Click here to read the next part of Day Seven.

*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 seven of day seven, click here.

As we were floating near the beginning of the next rapids, Glenn made an announcement that made my heart rate go way up.

“This is the biggest rapids of the day, everyone. After this we have three more rapids, and then we are done.”

He told us what we would have to do to get through this rapids, and I laughed. He made it sound like it was so simple! But looking at the rapids in front of us, I knew it wouldn’t be simple.

“Line up, duckling style! Give me 15 seconds between each canoe.”

Bobby and I were probably the third or fourth canoe in line. We watched as the first canoe made it through, but the next one flipped. After what seemed like ten minutes, but was really only fifteen seconds, Bobby told me to start paddling.

“Brett, wouldn’t it be really funny if we flipped here?”

“No, it would NOT be funny, Bobby. I would NOT be happy. Let’s just get through this without flipping, ok?”

“I think it would be really funny. I might even flip us on purpose! How awesome would that be?”

“Oh, ha ha ha. It would be really funny. And when we were done I would kill you, so you might not want to do it. And I wouldn’t let you share my mat again. And I wouldn’t let you have some of my water. You’d better not flip us on purpose, ok? Let’s just do this the way we have done the rest of the rapids, and we’ll be fine. “

I started paddling, following the trail that the canoe before us had taken. We were doing pretty well, but before I could realize what was happening everything went wrong. We were going sideways, the water pushing against us making the canoe rock. I tried to rock my hips with the canoe like we had been told to, but it wasn’t helping. My paddling wasn’t getting us anywhere either, and the correctional stroke I did just made it worse.

I realized that we were going to flip. I kept paddling, but it wasn’t doing anything. As the canoe started to flip, I took a deep breath, pulling my knees out of the straps. We went under and I panicked. My feet found the bottom and I pushed off, desperate to get to the surface. I found myself thinking of the last time I had flipped, and how I had gotten trapped under the canoe. I was just thinking over what I had to do to get out from under the canoe when my head was out of the water, and I could breath.

I was so glad for the air. I took a couple of deep breaths, unaware that my canoe, paddle, and Bobby were all floating down stream, away from me. I was facing upstream, and I realized that was the wrong way when a wall of white water came and hit me in the face, filling my open mouth with foul water.

That was some of the nastiest tasting water I’ve ever had in my mouth. I spit it out, making a face at the taste. I turned around so it wouldn’t happen again, and saw Bobby, the canoe and my paddle over ten feet away. I started swimming over to them, but it looked like they were getting farther and farther away.

Click here to read the next part of Day Seven.

*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 six of day seven, click here.

“What happened?”
“Where’s the rest of our crew?”
“Did they really just cut in front of the rest of our group?”

I was not happy. I don’t like when people get in the way of me moving on. And because this group had gotten in front of us, we were going to have to wait for a while before the rest of our crew could join us. It was a really big group, and they were taking their time, sending one boat down the rapids at a time.

Which is good. It’s safe. It’s what we did. But the fact that I had to wait for this group that was taking forever really made me mad. 😀

After waiting for over fifteen minutes, the rest of our crew was with us again. I was glad to be back together, but I was even happier to be on our way again.

We discussed the next rapids while we were sitting there, letting the other group get a bit ahead of us. It wasn’t long before we were on our way though, which made me happy. I was eager to get to where we were stopping for lunch!

Lunch that day was pita, cream cheese, and a pasty stuff that I think was called Tabouli. I don’t remember what it was, but I know we had Tabouli one day and I think it was this day. Whatever it was, it was really yummy, and I ate almost half of the pita.

That’s right, half. Now normally, I would have eaten two. I was really starting to freak out because I was not eating enough. I knew that I wasn’t, but if I tried to eat anymore, I felt like I was going to throw up. And the last thing I needed was to throw up all the calories I had just managed to force into my body.

I handed the other half of my pita to Luke, who took it with a grin. By then he knew that I was usually going to give him half of my food, and to not get seconds until he knew that I was going to eat it all.

We took a little break there, on the little beach. It was really nice to stretch out my legs. The position I had to sit in was really hard for me. Because my legs are so short, I had to scoot forward on the bench so my knees could reach the knee strap. Unfortunately, that only left about an inch of the bench for me to sit on.

It was really not comfortable, and it hurt to stay in that position for long. It also hurt my ankle, and I couldn’t imagine how badly it must have been hurting Ben’s ankle.

We got back on the water, and I was feeling pretty good. I was still really nervous before most of the rapids, but there were a couple of them that I knew I could handle without a problem. Unfortunately, the next one was going to be a problem.

Click here to read the next part of Day Seven.

*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 five of day seven, click here.

“There’s a guy who sits and takes pictures all day?”

“Yep, he’s there most days. He has a website where you can buy the pictures of yourself on the river.”

I thought that was extremely interesting, and decided that I would tell Mom about it in the next postcard I wrote. That way she could show all of the kids the pictures of me on my course.

Bobby and I were the third canoe to go through the rapids. It was one of the longer rapids we had done that wasn’t just shallows, and it was pretty difficult.

You could see the place where the photographer was long before you could see him. There was a big building sticking out over the river. I remember praying that he would be there, knowing that it would make my family really happy to see pictures of me while I was still on my trip.

I had to start paying attention to the river. It wasn’t the most complicated rapids we had done, but it was still scary. There was a really big rock sticking out of the river, and we came really close to running right into it. Glenn was sitting on it waving people in the right direction, but Bobby and I couldn’t get our canoe to turn as fast as I would have liked. 🙂

Well, Barry wasn’t going to get a wave from me. I was too busy trying to get us through the rapids without flipping. We managed to make it through without flipping, but it was really close. I don’t remember how I almost flipped, I just remember thinking “That would have been great, for everyone at home to see pictures of me flipping.”

Bobby and I pulled over into a rocky spot where everyone was waiting. We turned around to watch the rest of our crewmates come down the rapids, and were shocked to see that other canoe group instead.

Click here to read the next part of Day Seven

*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 four of day seven, click here.

Our first couple of rapids were about as hard as some of the later ones from the day before. We hadn’t gotten to anything like the final hole yet, and I was really glad of it.

The first day, we had been the only people on the river. This day however, we were surrounded by people. Mostly people on little floaties, and it was really funny watching them bobbing along.

There was this one group in canoes that we kept seeing though. We would keep passing each other, and it got a little annoying.

In this picture, we were getting ready to go through this rapids after taking a break to learn what to do for this particular rapid. We had already let the first boat go when they cut right in front of us. We grabbed at the canoe we had let go and pulled them back – we didn’t want them getting stuck in the middle of the group that was cutting.

You can see the lead canoe of the other group in the background here.

Right after that rapids there was a little island. Well, it wasn’t really an island. It was a bunch of rocks that were all right next to each other, and there were some plants on it.

We took a break there. People got out of their canoes and walked around for a little bit, some people peed, and some of us just sat and held the canoes. I held on to my canoe, but I got out of the water to do it. I sat down, stretching my legs out, and held the painter in my hand.

Approximately three quarters of my crew asked me if I was peeing. LOL

We passed the group of canoes that had passed us, and I fought the urge to cheer. (I might be a little competitive. :D)

The next rapids after that was a special one.

“Ok kids, when you go through this rapids, make sure you wave to Barry!”

“Who’s Barry?”

“He’s the guy who sits there all day and takes pictures of the people coming down the river. “

Click here to read the next part of Day Seven.

*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 three of day seven, click here.

After another twenty minutes or so, we were ready to go. Everyone was in their gear, and we were moving the canoes down to the water.

Bobby came over to me, a worried look on his face.

“Do you want to go in the stern? (the back)”

“No, I actually prefer the front. Remember when they made us switch positions yesterday? (I forgot to blog that part. Oops!) I was in the stern, and that was the closest we came to flipping. And I couldn’t steer right anyway.”

The worried look on his face was replaced with a look of relief.

“Oh, good. I hate the bow.”

We grinned at each other, and then I realized something. We had to paddle on opposite sides of the canoe – what if he paddled on the side I did??

“Bobby? What side of the canoe do you paddle on?”

“Um, which side do you paddle on?”

“I hold the top of the paddle in my right hand.”

He thought for a moment before saying “OK. That’s fine – I can paddle on the other side.”

I wondered if he was used to paddling on the side I was, but didn’t say anything. If I could keep my paddling the same as the day before, it would be one less thing for me to worry about.

We got the canoes into the water and held them for each other so everyone could get in.

“Everyone wave goodbye to Katie and _____! We’ll see them again at the end of the day.”

We all turned and waved, calling things like “Have a good day!” and “Don’t flip too much!” to each other. Then we got the signal to move out, and off we went.

Click here to read the next part of Day Seven.

*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.*