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.*

To read part eighteen of day five, click here.

Waking up with my entire crew around me was a new experience. I was one of the first awake, and it was interesting watching all the guys wake up. Ben and I were the only ones awake, so I asked him how his ankle was feeling. He said that it still hurt, but it was better.

Jen and Katie were moving around out in the hall, so I grabbed my ziploc of toiletries and tried to get to the hall without stepping on anybody. I was in the very back of the room, so everyone was in between me and the bathroom. I managed to only step on a couple of people, (Sorry, Jordan!) and got over to Jen and Katie. I asked if it was ok for me to go to the bathroom and they said it was fine.

I washed my face again, brushed my teeth twice, scrubbed my retainers as much as I could, and finally left the bathroom when Jordan came in and said that Tullia was waiting on me so she could come. I put my stuff away, knowing that it was probably the last time I would get to use a sink on my trip. I walked back to the library, told Tullia I was back and jumped out of the way as she rushed past me. I did not want to get in the way!

Katie said to start putting my stuff away. I rolled up my sleeping bag and put my clothes sack on top of it, putting my ziploc of toiletries on top of that. I took my gear outside and put it away so I wouldn’t have to worry about it later.

As I pulled my boots on, there was a booming noise outside. I wasn’t sure what it was – it sounded almost like a dumpster lid being slammed back down, but it could have been thunder. I looked out the window, praying that it was not a storm.

It was.

There was rain pouring down, missing our backpacks by about three inches. I was glad that I had taken my stuff out already, since I would have gotten soaked if I had tried to take it out then.

Jen came in and told us to go get our ducky suits and come right back in here. It was pretty funny watching everyone try to squeeze past each other to get to their backpacks, while trying to not get wet. I think we all made it back with only a couple of wet sleeves.

We all sat down on the comfy chairs. At least, the first ones back into the room did. The others had to sit somewhere else. I don’t know where they ended up sitting – I got a comfy chair. LOL

Katie and Jen came into the room serious looks on their faces. They both looked a lot upset, a little bit mad, and a little bit mad. I looked around at my crew, who all looked as bewildered as I felt. What had happened??

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 seventeen of day four, click here.

There was a moment where no one spoke. I’m pretty sure we were all thinking the same thing – “please let us be sleeping in the building, please!!“

Rebecca asked the question no one else dared to ask. “Hey Jen? Where are we sleeping?”

Jen looked at Katie and grinned. It made me nervous – that could either be a good thing, or a bad thing.

“Well… How would you guys like to sleep in a building tonight? We don’t have to, if you wouldn’t like it.”

The car erupted with cheering. We were all so excited! All of a sudden I had a bad thought – were we going to have to go to the bathroom outside?!? I said a quick prayer that we would be allowed to use the bathrooms. I didn’t think they could be that cruel, but you never knew…

Jen started telling us that this was an office building where they let crews sleep sometimes. We would be sleeping in the library, and we had to be quiet because there might be other crews sleeping there. It was almost midnight, and we didn’t want to wake anyone up.

She said that we were going to be allowed to go to the bathrooms two at a time. She said to get your sleeping bag and your toiletries and lean your bag up against the side of the building where she would show us. When she asked if we understood, we all nodded our heads very quickly, looking at each other with excited grins. No one said anything that might slow us down – we wanted to get to that bathroom!

We ran to the back of the car, to the trailer. We pulled out our packs and started hiking through the rain to the building. We went around to the back of the building and sat our packs under the awning. Pulling my gear out did not take me long, so I was one of the first people who walked through the door.

The door opened into a small room, about the size of my bedroom. I wondered how we were going to fit everyone into this room – not only was it tiny, but the walls were lined with bookcases, filled with books and three ring binders. There was also table in the middle of the room with chairs around it. I didn’t think we were going to fit in, and I was right. A couple of people ended up sleeping out in the hall.

Putting my stuff down in the corner and spreading my sleeping bag out only took a minute. I wanted to get my space “staked out” so no one was sticking their feet in my face. I put my clothes sack at the head of my sleeping bag, pulling out my sweater. It was nice to be in air conditioning, but they had it on really cold!

My feet were aching, so I took off my boots. It was a relief to go barefoot – I hadn’t walked barefoot in four days and my feet were tired of the boots! I grabbed my ziploc of toiletries and stood up. I saw Katie leaving for the bathrooms with two of the guys and ran towards them. I told Jen that I was going with Katie as I ran past her, and caught up to Katie quickly.

I opened the bathroom door and stared for a second. Toilet! Sink! Running water! Hot running water! The awe and gratitude we all felt was pretty ridiculous, but after going without things like that for four days, you really appreciate all of them.

Things like brushing your teeth may seem like something so simple, but it was an amazing experience. Instead of having to blow all of the foam out of my mouth, dispersing it, I was able to just spit it out into a sink. I was able to actually get my retainer clean. (Anyone who has had a retainer will understand how nice that was. LOL) I was able to wash my face, and I even enjoyed the roughness of the paper towels as I dried it.

Feeling clean, knowing my retainers were clean… I don’t know how to describe the emotion. 😀 It was just amazing. I was brushing my teeth for the second time when Katie came to tell me (and Tullia who had come in) that we had to hurry up, the other girls wanted a turn. I finished brushing my teeth, put my toiletries away with a sigh and left the bathroom.

Going over to my corner and dropping off my headlamp, toiletries and bug stuff took me a second, and then I was sitting down in one of the comfy chairs. They had a lot of padding, and I think I almost fell asleep sitting there. My eyes were shut and I didn’t want to open them, but I knew we still had to have Twilight Meeting, so I couldn’t fall asleep.

Forcing my eyes open, I looked around to see who was in the bathrooms and who I could talk too. I found myself looking at Luke, who was staring at the half empty bottle of Pepsi on the table. He picked it up, eyeing how full it was.

“You know you can’t drink that, right Luke?”

He stared at the soda, obviously wanting to drink it.

“It’s only about a liter… I could drink that!”

I glared at him in disapproval. With a sigh he put the bottle down. I grinned at him, my grin turning to a glare again as he walked over to the box of pizza sitting on one of the bookcases sitting under the window. He opened it to reveal one piece of pizza. My stomach growled involuntarily as the smell spread through the room.

Luke looked at me, daring me to challenge him. I took the bait.

“Are you really going to eat that? I think the others would kill you if you did that. We all want pizza as much as you do.”

“But Dora, it’s three meat pizza! It’s calling my name.” He trailed off, staring at the pizza. (Remember, Dora is the nickname he gave me?) I got out of the super comfy chair and walked over to him, taking the pizza box and shutting it. I put it back where it had been before sitting down on my sleeping bag that was right there.

“You’re mean. You know that, right? I want pizza…”

I ignored him. 😀

Bobby was looking at a book about Ashville that he had pulled from the bookcase, so I went to look over his shoulder. We saw some really interesting pictures before Jen came in and told us to follow her for Twilight Meeting.

We had a short meeting. Jen and Katie told us that we had done a good job getting Ben down the mountain, and there were a couple of other things that I don’t remember. We were told to go to bed, and I went willingly. It was after midnight, and I was tired!

When I crawled into my sleeping bag, my eyes closed almost immediately. I opened them a crack as I felt Kayce bump my feet, closing them the instant I saw he was moving his sleeping bag a bit. All around the room people were saying good night, except for a couple of the girls who were still talking. I didn’t understand why on earth they were still talking, so I just said good night, rolling over and ignoring them. I think I fell asleep in less than a minute.

Day Four was an interesting day. We had a pretty good morning – the views up on that mountain where we were writing were gorgeous! The oatmeal for breakfast was really good. The huge rocks? I’m never going to forget those. Never ever. I don’t think I’ll ever forget singing kids songs as we hiked down the mountain either. And I know I’m never going to forget getting Ben down the mountain.

Getting Ben down the mountain completely changed our crew’s relationship, I think. We were a family. We would help each other with anything after that. I would have done anything for any of them after that. And I think they would have done anything to help me.

Which is good thing – I was going to need a lot of help the next couple of days on the water.

Click here to read the first 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 sixteen of day four, click here.

I don’t remember how they actually got Ben into the car, I just remember it took a while. I remember “yelling” at someone to move over and let Ben have the middle seat so he had a spot for his ankle to rest, but I don’t remember much else.

Sitting closest to the door in the second row was my favorite place to sit, and I managed to get that seat. Luke was next to me, and Kayce was next to him. While we had the car lights on, I opened up the letter that had been handed to me as I was getting in. It was from Matt and Whitney at the NCOBS office, thanking me for sending them soap and telling me good luck. I was glad they had gotten their soap and they liked it – I had sent it to them to thank them for putting up with my endless questions. 😀

Putting my letter away, I pulled out my journal.

“It looks like Ben will be staying with us! I hope so – I would feel so bad if our crew had to split up. Ben getting hurt united us. We are more like a team, a family now. Hopefully by the end of this course we will be even closer.

I wish I could have done more to help Ben. Every time he would thank me for giving him water or making them take a break, I felt weird. I don’t think I did that much. Everyone else did so much more than me. All I did was carry the water.”

Just as I finished writing that, we started moving and the lights went out. I put my journal away and tried to talk to Luke, but he decided that he was going to a nap and if I wanted to keep my head I should leave him alone.

OK, just kidding there. Mostly. 😀

I leaned back against the seat and sang songs in my head, looking around at where we were going. What I could see looked really pretty! Of course, I couldn’t see much, but whatever.

We had about a two hour car ride to get to our “mystery campsite”. It was supposed to be a three hour trip, but the French Broad River, (where we were supposed to be) didn’t have enough water in it for us to canoe on. So we were going to a different river.

After about twenty minutes in the car, I leaned forward and tapped Ben’s shoulder. When he looked back at me I asked how his ankle was doing. He told me that it was ok, it still really hurt but it was doing better. I smiled at him and tried to rest my head against the back of my seat. My head hit something hard – something that was NOT the back of the seat. I shifted so I could see what it was, and because of the dark it took me a minute to realize what it was.

It was Bobby’s head – he had crossed his arms on the back of the seat and was resting his head on them. I glared at the top of his head for a minute before I realized that it was not going to do anything. I tried to mimic him, but my torso was too short to comfortably reach the back of the seat in front of me. I sat back up and looked around.

Maggie, Sarah Margaret and Rebecca were in the back row. It looked like Sarah Margaret was sleeping, and Maggie was showing Rebecca something on what I assumed was her camera. Bobby was resting his head on the back of my seat, and Tullia was using his back as a pillow, while Jordan was using Tullia as a pillow. In my row, Kayce was resting his head on the window and Luke was leaning up against his shoulder. Up in the front row Bruce was half asleep, his head shaking as the window that his head rested on shook. Ben sat staring straight at the rearview mirror, not moving at all.

I wanted to lean my head back, but Bobby was still in the way. I decided that I really wanted to put my head on the back of the seat, so he needed to move.

I pushed at his head, but he didn’t move.

I pushed again. He still wasn’t moving.

Wondering if he was this hard to wake up in the mornings, I thought about asking Bruce and Ben if they knew how to wake him up. I decided that I would try a couple more times before disturbing the silence.

I pushed his head to the side, to the other side, then pushed it up so he was looking straight at me. There was still no movement, no recognition, no nothing. I could not believe how hard it was to wake this guy up, and I did not envy the guys, who had to wake him up every morning.

I had just quit and was sitting in an uncomfortable position when Bobby moved, pulling his arms out from under his head. He slapped at the back of his neck like something had bit him there. Resting his chin where his arms had been, he looked at me and said, quite simply, “There was a fly on my neck.”

The look on my face must have been quite interesting, as I stared at him for a moment. I couldn’t believe what I had just heard. All of my pushing hadn’t done a thing, but he had woken up because there had been a fly on his neck?!?

A questioning look crossed his face as he asked me why I was looking at him like that. I explained, laughing at his reaction. He started to sit up and stopped, like he was only just realizing that Tullia was using his back as a pillow. I tried not to start cracking up as he tried to get Tullia off his back without waking her up, but he couldn’t.

He gave up and shook his back, waking her up. When she woke up and moved it woke up Jordan, and they both sat up and stretched. We talked for a minute before they all settled back to sleep.

Sitting around doing nothing was boring, but what else could I do?

About twenty minutes later, Luke had a bad dream. How do I know he had a bad dream? Because he woke up with a jump, almost pushing me off the seat. He had a wild look in his eyes, and when I asked what was wrong it took him a minute to reply. “There was a bear. You guys all ran away, leaving me, and it mauled me.”

It was tempting to make a reference to what he had said earlier about bears, but I didn’t. Telling him that he had said “I would give any bears a big hug or smile them down” wouldn’t help the situation. I told him that we would never leave him, and that I would be the one who got mauled because I was the slowest. He grinned at me before settling back down and falling asleep again.

We had been in the car for almost an hour. I was getting really bored, so I was happy when Rebecca asked if they could turn on the radio. I wanted music! It had been over three days since I had heard any music, and I wanted to hear some so badly. 😀

Katie turned the music on and most of crew woke up. We spent the next hour or so singing, laughing, dancing if we wanted to. We heard songs like Call Me Maybe, Give Your Heart A Break, What Makes You Beautiful… I had never heard some of the songs before, but I picked them up quickly. Apparently it’s pretty easy to pick up a song if you hear it at least three times in one hour. LOL

We got off the highway and started driving on a gravel road. It was bumpy and anyone who might have been asleep was awake by then. I don’t think they were asleep – we were singing pretty loudly. But they might have been…

We pulled into the parking lot of a building that had a sign out front.

It said something like “North Carolina Outward Bound School”.

Jen turned off the car, turned to us and said, “We’re sleeping here tonight”.

We all looked at each other, looks of amazement and then fear on our faces. Were they going to make us sleep outside with this building right here?!?

Click here to read the next part of Day Four.

*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 fifteen of day four, click here.

When we were all finished packing our packs, Bobby was missing a water bottle, Luke was missing his jacket, and nobody knew what Ben was missing.

They had gotten something else for Ben to put his foot on, so I dragged my pack over to the trailer where all of the other packs were. I pulled out my black mat and headed over to where everyone was sitting for dinner. I put my mat down and within one minute I had two people sitting with me. 😀

I looked over at Luke and Bruce and started cracking up. They were taking a nap. But it didn’t look like they had intended to take a nap – it looked like they had sat down and keeled over. Their heads weren’t even on the mat! LOL

I guess they were tired after helping Ben?

It was time for dinner, and we were all hungry! I was glad to eat – I hadn’t eaten Snack with everyone earlier because I didn’t want to get thirstier, so now I was really hungry.

Dinner was Potato Chowder, Quinoa and Cornbread. It smelled delicious! I was just glad I didn’t have to make the cornbread – it looked like it was really complicated to cook.

The food arrived, and we woke up Luke and Bruce. They sat up and Luke asked what was for dinner. When he heard quinoa, he grimaced. He asked if it was the crunchy one, or the soft kind. I had no idea what he was talking about – I had never heard of a crunchy vs soft thing with quinoa… When we asked him why it mattered, he said that he liked one of them, but not the other. He couldn’t remember which one he liked though. LOL

Our instructors, Josh and Benji said to eat without them, but save them some food. We ate quickly, everyone eating as fast as they could because they were so hungry. At least, that’s why I ate so quickly. I think Luke ate so quickly so he could get it over with – he decided that we were having the kind he didn’t like. 😀

Despite being really hungry, I only ate 3/4 of my bowl. I was really starting to worry – I wasn’t eating enough. And I hadn’t eaten enough since the second evening. But I couldn’t force myself to eat anymore, so I handed my bowl to Bobby.

After dinner it was time to clean up, pack up our gear, filter water, etc. We had to get our water bottles filled by Kayce, pack up the rest of our stuff and take care of our camp chores. Jen told me that since some of the girls had cooked dinner for me and Luke, we should help with cleanup.

I hated cleanup. Scraping the pots was one of the worst jobs. Guess what job I got stuck with? Oh well – I didn’t have to cook the cornbread. That was what I kept telling myself. 🙂

The adults were all still talking. At least, Jen, Katie and Josh were talking to each other. Benji was talking to Jordan and Tullia. I wasn’t there for this conversation – I was cleaning the pots. But it became a crew joke, and by the sixth day we all knew the conversation as well as Jordan and Tullia did.

Apparently it went like this:

Jordan and Tullia: So, is Benji your real name? Or is it something like Benjamin?

Benji: No, no. It is not Benjamin. But you wouldn’t understand my real name – it is from Peru!

Jordan and Tullia: Oh, really? What is it?

Benji: It’s Benhamin!

Jordan and Tullia: Oh, so… Benjamin!

But when they repeated the story they didn’t just say it. They said it in “the voice”. I’m not even going to attempt to explain the voice. Let’s just say that it was something that all of the girls on my crew did, except me. I couldn’t get my voice to do it. 🙂 But two weeks after I got home, I managed to do it. (How do you explain that?!?)

I’m sorry if that didn’t seem really funny – it was funny at the time. I still find it funny, actually. But I have their voices in my head saying it. I can still hear them laughing so hard that everyone else would laugh with them, unable to stop. It was one of those laughs that would make you laugh, even if you didn’t find whatever it was funny. You would laugh just because they were laughing.

Random laughing at nothing happened pretty often on my trip. 😀

It was getting dark quickly, so I grabbed my headlamp put it on so I could see to finish the pots. We got them done and packed them up. It was time to get all of the packs in the trailer – someone packed up Ben’s stuff so we could get it in the trailer with the rest of them, and then it was time to get in the car.

Bobby helped Ben hop over – then we had to get him actually in the car.

Click here to read the next part of Day Four.

*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.*