the love/hate relationship August 19, 2008

On the drive home, I pondered all the things I’ll miss about Colorado and Camp IdRaHaJe… and all the things I wont miss! ☺ So…thought I would share a few. ( a dear friend Kristie blogged a similar post about her time in India… not trying to copy her, but i found it interesting,so… kudos to Kristie)

I Will Miss:
-beautiful mountains and scenery
-rushing rivers with fresh snow melt (aka not brown water)
-my narrow way family/ co-workers
-all the wooden cabins with amazing views and huge windows
-the quiet and lack of tvs and other noise
-the pretty much perfect, cool, dry weather
-showers
-the amazing environment- encouraging notes and words, hugs, smiling faces, living life with other people seeking after Christ
-going somewhere just about every weekend and seeing an amazing part of CO and having a good time

-always traveling and making plans with 11 other people

-being able to hang out and do adventurous stuff all the time

-hanging with kids and hopefully impacting their lives in a positive way
-the smell of the woods and vanilla trees
-incredible thunderstorms with the most beautiful lightning imaginable
-weather changing every 20 min

-incredible sunsets

-people who love the outdoors and doing stuff outside all the time

I will not miss:
-my uncomfortable plastic mattressed bed
-walking 50’ to the shower
-dust being everywhere and my skin being dried out all the time
-not being able to take a bath and always having dirty feet
-not being able to cook whatever I want whenever I want
-driving 20 min to the closest grocery store
-paying $3.75 to wash a load of laundry… but it never came out very clean
-always traveling and making plans with 11 other people
-fearing that I will get eaten by a mountain lion or bear every time I walked out of my cabin at night
-eating meals on a tight schedule

-required lights out at 10:30pm.!!!… that’s just when the creative juices start flowing! ;0 at least for me…

So, for the most part the good outways the bad. Nothing was ever unbearable… just not the best at times. But i’ve been reading this book called the Irresistable Revolution by Shane Claiborne. It’s an incredible book that i highly recommend that you read if you have not already. It’s very thought provoking and calls us as Christian to live lives of true love, to everyone, not just the people we like or are comfortable with.  Its a call to a different kind of life, especially challenging for the typical, comfortable American Christian.  But such a good thing.  I’ll include a quote here just to give you an idea of what the book is like.. hopefully it will encourage you to read it for yourself.

“We need converts in the best sense of the word, people who are marked by the renewing of their minds and imaginations, who no longer conform to the pattern that is destroying our world.  Otherwise we have only believers, and believers are a dime-a-dozen nowadays.  What the world needs is people who believe so much in another world that they cannot help but begin enacting it now.

Then we will start to see some true conversion vans- vehicles that run on veggie oil instead of diesel.  Then we will see some converted homes – fueled by renewable energy- and laundry machines powered by stationary bicycles and toilets flushed with dirty sink water.  Then we will see tears converted to laughter as people beat their swords into plowshares and weld their machine guns into saxophones, and as police officers use their billy clubs to play baseball.”

Conversion is not an event but a process, a process of slowly tearing ourselves from the clutches of the culture.

I just watched Moulin Rouge last night for the second time.   It had been a while since I had seen it and in some respects the Bohemians reminded me a little bit of Shane Claiborne and this counter-culture lifestyle… only he encourages a lifestyle that’s maybe a little less experimental.   “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return”. -Moulin Rouge quote

I want to a revolutionary.

Last days in CO/Road tripping with Pops August 17, 2008

My Dad flew in on Wednesday night into Denver. He wanted to help me drive back home, so.. we slept at camp Wed night. Thursday morning I showed him around camp and I packed up the last few things, including my sweet mountain bike that I bought from camp that I’m really excited about. So that was cool for him to get to see where and what I had been doing all summer. I wish I could have sent him down the zipline or something, but.. oh well. We had already turned in our keys to our boss.

Dad and I with the T-Rex!

crazy dinos

I had wanted to do something cool/fun with my Dad in CO before we headed home so I had researched a couple of kinda typical tourist attractions and asked him what he wanted to do. He decided he wanted to go to a dinosaur museum in Woodland Park. I was not surprised. He’s always been fascinated with these creatures. So we headed of to Woodland Park and checked our their Dinosaur Resource Museum. It was pretty interesting. They had life size replicas of about 30 different dinosaurs.

probably fav pic of daddio ever! ha

We probably spent about 2 hrs there, 1 hour was a little tour, the other hour we just walked around and read about everything. I had thought he would have liked to go up Pike’s Peak, you can either drive up the Pike’s Peak road up to the summit, or take a COG Railroad, which goes on the inside of the mt and there is a tour guide that explains all kinds of historical things like where the old wagon trails used to be and an old hotel along that old route. I’ve done them both and hiked it twice. So I suggested we do that too. Before that though, we went and had buffalo burgers at a restaurant called CO Wines, and of course he had some CO wine. I tried his… yuck.. I just don’t like alcohol. I’ve come to that conclusion. After lunch we were going to do the COG railroad, but they had stopped sending trains up for the day, so.. then he suggested we go to Garden of the Gods… I was like ok, sure. I was kind of surprised because every other time we’ve done road trips it’s like he gets there then we take off and don’t really do anything fun. So I was excited he wanted to play tourist. Well we got on the highway the wrong way and ended up trying to turn around at a place called Manitou Cliff Dwellings.. then he decided he wanted to check that out too. It was pretty interesting. Some Indians built their homes into the side of a cliff.

the cliff dwellings that are centuries old...pretty cool

this was the little opening you had to climb up to to get to the 2nd story bedroom

Dad scoping out the area

You could walk around in it and they had plaques describing what the rooms were used for and everything. It’s been there forever. They had pictures from like the 1800’s when people would go and visit in horse and buggies and it looked pretty much the same as it does now. It was pretty cool. We stayed there and walked around. Apparently they have Indians do dances and used to have them making things, but I guess since it’s the end of the summer, there was nothing like that going on that day. We then drove through Garden of the Gods, which he wasn’t that impressed with. We did get to see some rock climbers though, which was cool because he’s never seen me climb, so now he has an idea of what its like. I had thought we would have left after that, but it was about 6pm and he wanted to see Pikes’ Peak, so he suggested we sleep in the Springs and then wake up early, catch the first train up to Pike’s and then head home. So we got a hotel room. Well, I got sick and threw up twice in the night and in the morning it was raining and cold, so… we didn’t end up going to Pike’s. I was bummed because it is cool and he seemed like he really wanted to see it. Hopefully some day. So we took off about noon, I still wasn’t feeling well. So he drove all day. As the day went on I felt a little better, but still not myself. I drank a sprite, water, and vitamin water all day and slept off and on. We stopped in Texas at the nicest hotel I think I’ve ever been to. It had high, soft, fluffy beds with soft and hard pillows and like a down blanket with another blanket on top of that instead of the nasty bedspreads most hotels have that never get washed. It had granite counter tops, huge bathroom with the curved shower bar, and little kitchen area with disposable plates and silverware, microwave, fridge, sink.. it was really nice. It was just a Holiday Inn Express, but super nice. So I slept great and woke up feeling much better thankfully.

We drove the rest of the way home, and arrived to a not too muggy, but wet La home about 9pm. I pretty much immediately began unpacking the car and trying to organize my room, which was and still is a bit of a disaster because I had to move out my rent house before I went to CO for the summer, but I couldnt really move into my room at my Dad’s because my brother was living there are the time. So.. needless to say I’ve got some work ahead of me. I stayed up til 3am cleaning, organizing, going through my closet and getting rid of some clothes, and taking a glorious bath! i finally felt really clean! and didnt have to walk back in the dirt to my bed after bathing! and i washed and washed laundry! in hot water… and separated loads…for free!!! it was incredbile. i’ve never enjoyed laundry so much before so.. i will continue to move in and get ready for school! to begin, Aug 25th, hopefully find a job and visit with family and friends. im off to baton rouge for the next couple of days to see my sis and her husband and their new house and all the cousins out there too! cant wait

Utaw August 17, 2008

After camp there were 6 of us adventure staff who were going to be at camp/not going home right away. We tossed around quite a few ideas of what we should do… then we finally decided to go camping in Utah at Canyonlands National Park. It was really fun and relaxing. We took our time getting there. We left Monday morning and arrived there that evening. We stopped at the CO National Monument on the way, which is in Grand Junction, CO I think. It was pretty amazing as well. Really funny.. there was this couch and loveseat in the middle of the monument…pretty comfy too! Completely against the Leave No Trace (LNT) principles, but had a great view. (more pics on facebook, check them out.)

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2051235&l=d3f5c&id=68602654

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2051231&l=1113d&id=68602654

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2051280&l=105b5&id=68602654

crazy couch in the middle of the co natl monument

When we got to our campsite we cooked up some Zatarain’s jambalaya, pretty yummy! Really good for camping or backpacking. We slept in our tents, the weather was really nice. Not too hot or cold. The next day we went down to the visitor center of the park and found about a creek about 30 min away with a nice little hike, so we went there. It was really fun because it was pretty warm out. We took our time and played around in the creek. At the end of the hike was this really cool land bridge. It was way above our heads so you couldn’t really get to it and I don’t think you were supposed to walk on it anyway, but it was really cool looking. And there was the this little spring that came out of the rock which was the source for the creek. It was so tiny.

really cool land bridge

amazing little creek

And there was poison ivy everywhere!!! And it was huge, like in trees! I’ve never seen so much of it or seen it so big before. I was a little paranoid, but thankfully I did not catch it. We went into the town of Moab after our hike. We went to the Peace Tree Leaf, this cute little juice bar, ice cream, café place. I would like to own a place like it one day. I got a parsley, carrot, apple, beet juice. It was yummy. I know.. you probably think I’m crazy, but.. it grows on you. And its so good for you too. We walked around the town a bit and went into the shops. It was so crazy because literally every person we passed spoke another language! A lot of French people were there. It was really strange because Moab is in the middle of the desert and in the middle of NOWHERE, so these people weren’t just stopping through. Then we went back to our campsite. It was so beautiful just hiking around and looking at all the canyons. It just stretched for miles and miles. It was only like 7 hours from the Rockies of CO, yet looked completely different. What an amazing and diverse world we live in. What a great Creator we have. We slept another night and then in the morning on our way out we stopped at Mesa Arch. It was beautiful. The miles of canyons reminded me of star wars or some type of space movie.

beautiful canyons that stretched for miles! this was the view through the mesa arch

It was nice camping without having to worry about little teenagers and just hanging out and eating whenever we wanted and it was just really relaxed. We drove back and made it back pretty quickly.

me, madison, chad and abi at mesa arch

camp is…. over August 11, 2008

Camp is over! So strange.  We had a good, pretty full week at camp the last week.  Nothing out of the ordinary happened, but it was good.  The Narrow Way adventure staff slowly departed.. it was a slow and painful death.  One of our guys left a couple of weeks ago, then one of the girls left last week, and two girls left yesterday, and two guys left this morning.  There are only 2 girls, myself and one guy left now.  Really strange to not see each other now since we’ve been together since May 15th!  Thankfully a lot of them are from the south, so we’re hopefully going to have a reunion/backpacking trip in some neutral state.  Our little group is going to go to the Canyonlands in Utah!, for a couple days of camping.. A little adventure for fun, without little middle schoolers , before I go back to Louisiana.

advanced rock week! oh yea August 11, 2008

yea, im one belayer with attitude.. and this is Riley, one of my campers

My last week of campers, Advanced Rock Week was GREAT! There were only 2 girls and 2 boys. Monday we went climbing at a place not far from camp called Bucksnort. It was really nice. We started climbing early, to beat the storms and blistering hot rocks… the kids all climbed I think like 4 different routes, and I got to climb one giant crack climb. It was so good to climb on rock again. So fun too. We had lunch on a huge boulder in the river, then after that all went wading in the river. It was so nice. There were these huge boulders that were just like laying on top of the river, which created these sweet cave like over head things. Hard to explain, but really cool. And then there was this waterfall. The whole water area is called the Hillbilly Waterpark. You can slide down some of the smooth rocks into the little waterfall. We didn’t because none of us had suits on or knew how deep the water was. But it was really cool. Then on Tuesday we left to go to Eleven Mile Canyon, out in Divide. We got a great campsite that was pretty much nestled amongst some boulders, and we got to climb there until Thursday afternoon. It was beautiful and not too hot. It was sunny and warm, and the kids got to climb a lot and I got to climb at least once everyday.

my girls and i acting silly

On Tuesday I got to a multi-pitch, where, you basically have two different ropes that you have to tie into. The first pitch was like a 5.8, which is the rating of the hardness of the climb. 5.5 is easiest, 5.12c is the hardest I think. So, it wasn’t too hard, then once we finished that climb you clipped into the anchors on the rock with a carabiner and rope type thing and tied into a different rope to do the next climb which was like a 5.7 I think. So you’re just hanging out about 150’ above the ground on the rock before you do the next climb. It was cool. I also learned how to clean a climb, which you just take out the carabiners you put at the top for the rope to go through for you to climb with. Sorry if this is really confusing, but anyways, I learned a lot and the campers were really chill and great. They had all been here before. I got ot lead the trip with my co-counselor, Travis Rickards. He’s pretty much good at anything outdoorsy he tries, so.. but he was funny and fun too. We got to play in the river on Wednesday night too, but it was freezing, so we didn’t last too long. On Friday we drove out to Golden and climbed there. I got to leadclimb for the first time, a 5.6 climb, so that was SWEET!!!

here i am lead climbing

Basically you have to climb up the route with the rope and the person on the ground is belaying you (keeping you safe). Because you don’t have a rope coming from the anchors at the top, so.. (top roping). You have to use carabiners and clip into bolts along the route and then put the rope through those carabiners. If you were to fall, you would fall to wherever your last bolt was. Thankfully I did not fall! I kinda almost did, but caught myself. We then had ice cream and slacklined in the park. So that was a lot of fun. Good last week of campers.

here’s the links to lots more fun pics:

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2050283&l=21da4&id=68602654

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2050286&l=314ae&id=68602654

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2050322&l=9bb78&id=68602654