To read part eight of day ten, click here.

I started gathering a pile of things I could use. It was a pitiful pile – all I could find was sticks, rocks, and rhododendron leaves. But it was all I could find, so it was what I had to work with.

I groaned and got to work. After trying a couple of designs, I just made a box. I outlined a square with sticks, and filled the bottom with rhododendron leaves.

Katie had said that it didn’t need to be fancy, and I wasn’t going to waste time on something I wasn’t going to really use. I scattered the rest of my pile of materials before sitting back down on my mat.

I sat with my journal for a few more minutes, coming up with three more things for our “give and take”. At that point I got up and went to my backpack. I started pulling things out, trying to get to the things that I knew were down in the very bottom.

Wow… I’d forgotten there were so many. I started muttering to myself as I looked through the stack of letters I was pulling out of the stack. There were a ton! I had letters from all of my grandparents, letters from four of my Aunts, letters from six of my cousins (all under the age of ten), and the letters that I had already opened from my family.

I picked up the first letter from the stack and opened it, wishing I had my pocketknife with me. It would have made it so much easier!

The letter was from my Grammy. As I read it I remember feeling so grateful for my family. All of my extended family means so much to me. There is something that’s almost magical when we all get together. We may not get along all of the time, but we’re family. And because we’re a family, we’re stuck with each other.

Maybe someday I will have that kind of relationship with my siblings. Because right now, we act like normal siblings. We fight, and we don’t like each other all the time. There have been people who say “we act perfectly all the time” and I just laugh inside, because we don’t. We’re normal people with normal qualities.

I just pray that someday I’ll have a better relationship with my siblings. I already have a good one with them. But right now, there are definitely some things we can work on in our relationship. 🙂

I put down the letter from Grammy and picked up the next one on the stack. It was also from Grammy! I opened it up and pulled out the letter to open it. As I was pulling the letter out, another slip of paper fell to the ground.

Click here to read the next part of Day Ten.

*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 ten, click here.

I picked up the paper and unfolded it, wondering what it was. There was a list of scores, and each number had the name of a country near it. There was no explanation on the paper, so I found the letter and opened it.

“I’ve included the Men’s gymnastics scores from the Olympics. I thought that you might be interested in seeing them, since you’re not around to watch the Olympics yourself. “

I laughed and made a mental note to tell my crewmates the scores when we got back together. We had all been talking about the Olympics the other night, wishing that we were home so we could watch them.

When I was done reading Grammy’s letter, I put it back in the envelope and opened up the next one. It was from my Grandma.

“I know you’re missing a lot of the Olympics, so I included some of the scores. You like gymnastics, right?”

Underneath that, she had a picture of the woman’s gymnastics scores. I started cracking up as I realized that both of my grandmothers had sent me gymnastics scores, and they probably had no idea that they had both done it!

I moved to the next page of the letter. It had two pictures on it, filling up the entire page. There were captions under each picture, a line of text.

“Meet your new buck, Stash! He’s adorable, isn’t he?”

Yeah, he was a cute little guy. Mom and Dad had gone to pick up up after they dropped me and Colter off at the airport, so I hadn’t seen him. He would make a good addition to our herd.

“Look at what’s happening up at Scottsburg! Exciting, huh?”

I stared at the picture of our new soaproom in disbelief. I put the letter down as I started sobbing, unable to stop myself.

Click here to read the next part of Day Ten.

*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 ten, click here.

After the two years we had been trying to build up in Scottsburg, they were starting without me? There were posts in the ground. They couldn’t have waited the two weeks until I got home?

I picked the letter back up from where I had dropped it, trying to decide which of my siblings was which. The picture quality wasn’t as great as it could have been, and it got a little blurry by the kid’s heads. Once I figured out who was who, I read the letter again, brushing away my tears.

As I was finishing that letter, I heard talking from down by the river. The voices didn’t sound familiar, and I wondered who would be walking around by our solo sites.

I started walking towards the river quietly – I didn’t want the people to know I was there. They didn’t need to know, and I would feel safer if they didn’t. But I wanted to see who it was. I hadn’t been expecting anyone to be walking near my campsite, and I was curious.

The footsteps stopped and I stopped walking, straining to hear anything.

“You stay here, and I’ll go a bit downstream. Ok?”

I crept forwards a little bit more, stopping when a head came into view. It was a young boy, who couldn’t have been more than ten years old.

“Grandpa, should I start fishing here?”

I laughed to myself and headed back to my campsite. I didn’t have to worry about a boy and his Grandpa who were out fishing. I finished reading all of my letters, which took a long time. As I finished the last one, I realized that it was getting dark out! I still hadn’t eaten anything! I wasn’t really that hungry, but I knew that I was going to need to eat.

I grabbed my food out of my bag and pulled out the bagel and orange. I peeled the orange and started chewing on it while I stared at the bagel. It stared back at me.

Ok, the bagel didn’t really stare back at me. I was just kidding. It didn’t grow eyes or anything, because that would be really creepy. If it had grown eyes, I would have had a heart attack and died out there in the wilderness. So you can all be glad that my bagel didn’t grow eyes and scare me to death out the middle of nowhere. 😀

Click here to read the next part of Day Ten.

*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 ten, click here.

I finished my orange and took a bite out of the bagel. It was really, really bland. I stared at the orange peel sitting on the plastic bag next to me, and idea forming in my head. I picked up the orange peels and nibbled on the corner of one piece. It actually didn’t taste too bad!

Picking up my bagel again, I pinched off a piece of orange peel and ate it with a bite of bagel. It actually wasn’t that bad! I could eat my bagel like that. I shredded up the rest of the orange peel and placed it on top of the bagel, eating it like that. I was going to save my apple and cheese to eat together, if I was still hungry.

When I was done eating I put the food away. I still had my apple and cheese, but I wasn’t hungry enough to eat them. I figured I’d eat them before bed. I stuck the food back in my pack and pulled out my little bible. I hadn’t had time to read it yet, and I wanted to see what it would say about something that I had been thinking about.

I don’t remember what I read, I just remember that it did help.

It was starting to get dark out, and I was starting to get tired. I had only gotten three hours of sleep the night before, and I was starting to feel like it.

I was spreading out my sleeping bag when Katie came by. She collected my food and told me they would be back in the morning to pick me up. I thanked her and lay down, thinking that I would just take a nap. It would be a quick nap, and then I’d be awake for a while.

Ha. I should have known better.

Click here to read the first part of Day Eleven.

*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 ten, click here.

Two minutes. That’s how long it took me to fall asleep after I lay down. I thought I was going to sit there for a while, thinking about what had happened the day before, and my day on solo.

The next thing I knew, it was day. There was light around me, but I couldn’t see the sun. I looked up through the rhododendron to look for the sun, but it wasn’t there. All I could see were gray clouds everywhere.

I pulled out my camera and took a couple of pictures of my campsite. I was very proud of my solo tarp, that I had done by myself. It wasn’t too low, which was usually a challenge for me. It’s hard to put a rope around a tree when it needs to go up over your head. And I had done a good job of fastening it, even though I only had four strings.

My Solo tarp

When I was done taking pictures I started packing up my tarp so I would be ready to go when they came to pick me up. I didn’t know how they were going to do it, but I didn’t want to make them wait long! I had already made my crewmates wait for me a lot – I was going to get ahead of the game here.

I had no idea what time it was. I was guessing that it was about 10 or 11 in the morning. I couldn’t believe that I had slept that long! I knew that I had gone to bed relatively early, but sleeping until 10 or 11?

And I had thought I was just taking a nap.

Click here to read the next part of Day Eleven.

*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 one of day eleven, click here.

When I was done packing up my tarp, I rolled out my mat and sat down with my journal. I was able to think of one or two more things for our “give and take” session, but it wasn’t enough. I still had at least 8 more things to think of, and I was drawing a blank. I’m never good at thinking up things like that for people, and doing it with a deadline? Just makes it even worse.

As I sat there thinking about my crewmates, I felt so lonely. They had been my only companions for the past ten days, and I missed them. So much. I had coped really well the day before, but as I sat there that morning I missed everyone so much.

Ten minutes later, I heard footsteps coming down the trail towards me, the leaves on the trail rustling as the person moved towards me. The footsteps got closer and closer, and I couldn’t tell where they were coming from. I looked to the right, expecting whoever it was to come from that direction. That was where Katie and Jen were staying.

“Hey Brett! Good morning!”

Katie’s voice came from the trail to my left, the side that I hadn’t expected anyone to come from. Oh well. She must have snuck past while I was going to the bathroom.

“Are you almost ready to rejoin the crew?”

“Oh, yes. I’ve missed everyone so much! I just have to roll up my mat and put my journal away.”

“That’s great. I’m going to get Luke. When you’re ready, head that way.”

She gestured to the trail to my right, where I had expected her to come from.

“When you pass Rebecca’s campsite, keep going. It’s not much further. If you used your WAGS-Bag, it goes in the red bag. Make sure you squish all the air out of it – if you don’t, it will explode and everyone will have to deal with the smell of poop for the rest of the trip. And when you reach my campsite, continue the silence. There will be no talking until everyone has gotten there. Do you understand?”

I nodded, not sure when the silence was supposed to begin.

“I’ll see you back there!”

Click here to read the next part of Day Eleven.

*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 two of day eleven, click here.

As soon as Katie was out of sight, I got to work as quickly as I could. I was going to be reunited with my crew! I put my journal away, rolled up my mat, and wrestled my pack on. Within less than five minutes, I was ready to go.

I said goodbye to my solo site, glad for the experience but very happy to be done with it. I wanted company again. I was tired of being alone. After living with seven younger siblings all my life, I’ve gotten used to always having someone around. And while it’s nice to get away for a time, after a day or so you really start missing people. 🙂

I started marching down the trail, happy to be on the move again. I wasn’t going to be happy about that by the end of the day, but for a couple of moments I was happy to be hiking. I had a song in my heart and I was hiking towards my friends – how could I not be happy?

There was a lot of rustling happening in the woods to my left. A turn in the trail revealed the cause of that – Rebecca. She turned and waved to me, clearly happy to see another human. I grinned at her and waved back before continuing to hike. It looked like she was going to take a while – she hadn’t even taken her tarp down yet.

There was a clearing coming up, and I decided that it was my destination. I could tell that it was open, and there were splashes of color here and there through the trees.

I could see some of my crew! I felt so much more peaceful when I saw them and knew that I was back with my crew. It’s really strange and I can’t understand it. I just remember it. I remember how happy I was to be back, happy to be with my crew again.

Everyone looked up at me when I walked into the clearing and I was greeted by smiles and waves. Bobby mouthed “well?” at me, and I made motions to show that I was ok. I pointed back at him to ask how he was, and he motioned back that he was fine.

I grinned as I sat down in the circle, knowing that I was back. And I was ready to face whatever needed to be faced.

Click here to read the next part of Day Eleven.

*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 eleven, click here.

There were only a couple of us in the circle, everyone else still back in their campsites. I pulled out my journal and started jotting more things down. It was easier to think of something for someone when I was there with them. I don’t know why, but that’s the way it worked.

Luke arrived, wincing once or twice as he settled down in the circle. We were all sitting on our packs so we wouldn’t have to sit on the ground. It actually made a pretty nice seat! It wasn’t that hard, and it gave you a chance to stretch out your legs, which was nice.

The silence wasn’t uncomfortable like it had been the other day. This time it was a friendly silence, with everyone happy to be back. There were smiles around the circle, and lots of talking without making any noise.

“How was your solo?”

“It was great! Yours?”

“It was scary. I hated being alone. I’m SO glad to be back.”

There were little conversations like that going on all around me. You couldn’t tell unless you were looking at us that we were all talking.

I got Luke’s attention.

“Luke, how’s your back? Is it any better?”

He shook his head, rubbing his hand down his side.

“Nope, not at all. It hurts even more than it did before.”

“That really stinks.”

Everyone turned as the next crewmate arrived, WAGS-Bag in hand. He/she started coming towards us and we all shook our heads urgently, pointing towards the red bag that held all of the WAGS-Bags. He/she turned around and put the WAGS-Bag in the red bag before coming to sit in the circle, grinning sheepishly.

Click here to read the next part of Day Eleven.

*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 eleven, click here.

One by one, the rest of the crew came straggling in. I had been there for what seemed like two hours, but was probably only 30 minutes, when the last person arrived.

Jen and Katie came to sit in the circle with us, smiles on their faces. Jen broke the silence.

“It is good to be back together. I have a feeling that we will hear all about everyone’s solo experience, but that is for later. Right now, it is time for our Give and Take exercise. Everyone, please get out your journals.”

I already had my journal out, so I sat there and watched everyone. The looks on their faces varied – there were a couple of panicked people, and some who seemed to be happy to be doing this.

“So, um… I didn’t finish writing everything down.”

“I didn’t either! I’m just going to have to come up with things when she asks!”

“I managed to get something for everyone. They’re not very good, but it’s something.”

Hearing my crew’s panicked whispers around me made me realize that I wasn’t the only one who had not done well with this assignment. I was fine with the others, it was this one that I couldn’t get.

I prayed that I would be able to come up with things as I needed to, and opened my journal to look at it. I counted – I was missing things for five people. So out of the twenty things I needed to come up with, I was only missing five. That wasn’t too bad, and hopefully I would be able to come up with the remaining five things before I needed to say them!

I’ve always had trouble coming up with things about people. For some reason it is always really hard for me to do. So I was actually impressed that I managed to come up with that many!

Click here to read the next part of Day Eleven.

*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 eleven, click here.

“This is how we’re going to do this. We’re going to start with one person, and everyone is going to go around in a circle and say their things about that person. Then we will move on to the next person. Got it?”

Everyone nodded, and we started. Jen pointed at one person, and going around the circle we shared with that person the things we had written for them. Then we moved onto the person who was sitting next to him, and did it all again.

I’m not going to post most of the things I wrote down. I feel that those are private, something that my crew wouldn’t want put out for anyone to see. There are a couple of ones that I don’t think they’d have a problem with though.

I “gave” Luke a better back. I “gave” Jordan a love of spiders. I wanted to “take” the way Rebecca could make people laugh. I wanted to “take” the way Tullia could make friends.

After a while, it was my turn. This was going to help me figure out what my crewmates thought of me. I remember feeling a bit apprehensive as it started, but the apprehension disappeared as my crewmates started telling me the things they would give to me, and the things they would take from me.

I wish I could remember more of them. I only remember three things.

Bruce would take the relationship I have with my family.

“From all you’ve told us, I can tell that you love your family. And they love you. Yeah you disagree with them sometimes, but everyone does that. So I would take the relationship that you have with your family.”

Kayce wanted to take my goat farm.

“Your goats sound like they’re lots of fun. So, I’d take your goat farm.”

And Rebecca would give me stronger muscles.

“I know you’re trying your hardest, but it’s still not really enough. So I would give you stronger muscles. That way we wouldn’t have to take breaks as often.”

I laughed as she said that, knowing that I really needed stronger muscles. It would have made the whole trip a lot easier.

Click here to read the next part of Day Eleven.

*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 eleven, click here.

It was probably almost an hour before we finished our “give and take”. No one seemed upset at the end which was a good thing – with some of the things we were giving each other, I thought that one or two of us might get upset.

“Here are your watches, Brett, Tullia, and Bruce.”

I jumped up and walked (quickly :D) over to Katie.

“Thanks.”

She grinned at me as she handed me my watch. I put it back on, glad to have it back. It’s very unsettling, not knowing what time it is. I glanced at my watch, happy to be able to do something that I used to take for granted.

It was one in the afternoon!

Well, that explained why I was hungry. I had only eaten oatmeal, a bagel, and an orange the day before, and I hadn’t had anything to eat since I went to bed the night before. It couldn’t have been after eight… I had slept for over twelve hours? More like fourteen or sixteen, actually.

I laughed as I realized how much sleep I had gotten. At home, that would have been a ridiculous amount of sleep. On my course, I figured that it would just count towards the night before when I had only gotten three hours of sleep.

“So, who’s hungry?”

We all turned to Katie as she pulled the lid off one of the pots. Inside was a bunch of food that looked familiar, and not in a good way.

“We’re having cheesy grits again? Those tasted like crap last time!”

Actually, my crewmate used a different word. But I’m not going to write it down. 🙂

“I don’t really care. I’m hungry enough to eat those grape nuts.”

Everyone gasped when one of the guys said that. Who would want to eat the grape nuts again? They’re good with yogurt, but with powdered milk they just tasted like cardboard.

Katie lifted the lid of the other pot and a delicious smell filled the air.

“Um, Katie? What is that?!?”

Click here to read the next part of Day Eleven.

*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 eleven, click here.

Katie laughed.

“That? Why do you want to know? I thought that someone just said that this breakfast was going to stink?”

One of my crewmates spoke up.

“Katie? I didn’t say that. Can you tell me what that is? Because that smells amazing!!!”

My crewmates all nodded their heads, eager to know what the things in the pot were. I had a guess. It looked like some kind of roll, and from the smell of cinnamon in the air, I had a feeling that was in there. And there were little black clumps in the rolls too – raisins?

“Hmm… do you think I should tell them, Jen?”

“I don’t know, Katie. Maybe we should make them eat the grits first, and then tell them.”

“You know, I think I’m going to be nice. Is everyone listening?”

“Nope, no one is listening. We’re all just sitting here with our fingers in our ears, staring at you but not listening to a word you say.”

Everyone grinned as one of my more sarcastic crewmates delivered that line. Everyone was listening, and we all wanted to know what that was.

“It’s cinnamon raisin bread! Everyone gets a hunk of it – split it up evenly, ok?”

Someone started cheering and a couple of the others joined in. We were all craving something sweet. It would have been even better if there had been butter and a toaster, but just the bread itself was going to be amazing.

“Everyone, let’s check out our roles for the day so we can get moving! It looks like it’s going to rain, and soon, so lets get out of here!”

My instructors gave me a bunch of these pictures, and this one was in with them. It’s Katie making breakfast for us! You can see the bread next to Katie’s knee, in the round, black pan.

In the background of the picture, you can see the water filtration bags hanging up. And ignore the mess – they had to find the things for the cinnamon raisin bread, with no idea who’s food bag it was in. 😀

Click here to read the next part of Day Eleven.

*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 eleven, click here.

Sarah Margaret found the crew journal and opened it up to the page that listed everyone’s roles for the trip. I listened halfheartedly, not really caring about anything but what I was.

I was happy to hear that I was on self-care that day – it meant all I had to do was remind everyone to drink and make sure we took enough breaks. They didn’t have to worry about that. I made sure we took enough breaks whether I was on self-care or not.

Everyone jumped when out of the blue, lightning struck, the thunder quickly following it. We all realized that we were going to get wet soon, so we all pulled out our bowls and lined up to get our food.

The cooks dished it out as quickly as they could, but it wasn’t fast enough. Before they were halfway through the line, it started pouring. Like, the kind of rain that makes people say it’s raining cats and dogs.

Most people ran to get their rain gear, covering their food with their bodies. I was thankful that I had set my pack down under a tree – it gave me a little bit of shelter. It wasn’t enough to keep the rain off of me, but it definitely helped.

Everyone ate as quickly as they possibly could. Most of us were half dressed, only wearing half of our ducky suits, which meant that we were getting cold, really quickly.

The white spots are all the raindrops on the camera, which makes it kinda hard to see us. But this was us deciding what we were going to do. Everyone was listening to the thunder, counting. And counting. And doing more counting. I’m pretty sure that if the thunder got to 15 seconds after the lightning, we were going to have to go into “Lightning Drill”.

And no one wanted that.

Click here to read the next part of Day Eleven.

*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 eleven, click here.

As soon as we could, we got out of there. No one was in a great mood, but no one was in a really bad mood either. We weren’t happy about the rain – it meant that we were getting soaked. And it was a freezing rain too, the kind that chills you to the bone. Everyone put on their ducky suit bottoms pretty quickly. 😀

We were hiking along, slowly but surely, until we were forced to stop.

Lightning drill.

I will never forget Lightning drill. The thunder was coming at 18 seconds, then 16 seconds, and then it stopped for a moment. And then all of a sudden it was at 11 seconds.

“Everyone, get into Lightning drill position! Set your backpack down on the trail and sit down on it, feet up on your pack. Spread out on the trail too. Got it?”

We had to get into Lightning drill, and we couldn’t even be close enough to talk to each other? Really?

We sat there for a half an hour. I know, because I kept looking at my watch. It was ridiculously boring, sitting there in the rain. We couldn’t talk to each other – the rain was too loud. We couldn’t turn our heads, because then rain would drip down our necks. We could only sit there, in the rain.

Eventually, we were able to start hiking again. But it had been raining so hard for so long, the trail was a mess. There was water running down the trail, two or three inches deep. Our boots were all soaked through, and there wasn’t anything we could do about it.

I didn’t need to take too many breaks during that section of the hike, which was really good. I always felt so bad when everyone had to stop because of me. And I really don’t think there was anything I could have done about it. I was doing the best I could, but it just wasn’t enough.

Click here to read the next part of Day Eleven.

*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 eleven, click here.

An hour or so after we started hiking again, I could hear the sound of rushing water. It’s not a sound you forget, especially if you are terrified of it.

It wasn’t as loud as it had been the other night, and I prayed that we wouldn’t have to cross it. Maybe it was just running along the trail, and we wouldn’t need to do anything with it.

I started reasoning with myself, trying to not panic as the noise got louder, and louder. It was ridiculous, my fear of the water, and yet it was so real.

As we hiked along, the sound got even louder, and soon I realized that I wasn’t hearing just a creek. That was a waterfall I was hearing. I was starting to feel better about it, thinking that the trail wouldn’t go right next to a waterfall.

Well, I was feeling better until I saw what we were going to have to do.

On our right was a waterfall coming down the mountain, splashing a few feet away from where we were crossing the creek. Yes, we were having to cross it. It looked like it would have been a cute little creek the day before, but the heavy rain had made it overflow its banks.

The creek overflowing its banks was enough to make me nervous. It was rushing along very quickly, and I knew that if I lost my step it would sweep me down stream. There was a problem with that though. Five or six feet downstream was another waterfall, dropping over ten feet down the mountain.

One of the only good things at this time was that the rain had slowed down a bit, making it easier to hear everyone.

“You’re going to be fine. I’ll go right behind you if you want, so you don’t get swept downstream. Do you want me to do that?”

I think the look on my face answered Sarah Margaret. When it was my turn to go she walked right behind me, balancing me every time I threatened to fall over.

“Thanks, Sarah Margaret. I wouldn’t be able to do this without you guys.”

“Nah, you’d do just fine without us. C’mon – let’s get ready to go again. We still have a lot of hiking to do today!”

Click here to read the next part of Day Eleven.

*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.*