A VERY High Adventure, Part I

Whew... been a while since I last posted here, huh? Well, I just got home from possibly the most adventurous trip ever just an hour and a half ago, and it was cool enough that I've decided to resume blogging starting with telling all about it!

To start, I borrowed some really neat camping stuff from Aunt Linda and Uncle Eric when we visited them last Sunday night: a huge hiking backpack, a light sleeping bag, and a self-inflating sleeping pad! Cindy and I went shopping for all the stuff it said to bring on the info sheet for the trip (called our "High Adventure", last year it was the Oregon Coast bike ride which you can read about here), like snacks, a mess kit, etc., at REI and Tar-jay (for those who haven't heard it called this before, it's our way of saying "Target"). I also got $60 of spending money, as well as my very own tent!

I took advantage of some of my spare time by practicing putting the tent up and taking it back down, and packing it away, first with Cindy's help, then eventually all by myself.

The fun began when our young men's group and three of our leaders (Bishop Betteridge, Bro. Bateman, and Bro. Carpenter) met at the church at 5pm on Tuesday. We packed our stuff up in our three vehicles and took off for Lake Chelan!

We stopped at the McDonalds in North Bend for dinner, where I went all out, getting two McDoubles (double cheeseburgers), a Reeses McFlurry, and a medium fry, all paid for with my own money. We then continued on over to the dry side of the state, headed up US-97 to US-2, and from there to Wenatchee, and from THERE to 25 Mile Creek State Park.

We stayed the night here, and the next morning drove up to Fields Pt. to catch a ferry that would take us across the lake to a nice little place called Stehekin.

After the long 3-4 hour ferry ride (going clear across the lake, lengthwise), we got off, grabbed our stuff, and wandered around for a while, eating a quick sandwich lunch at some point. Then we boarded a "shuttle", basically a short school bus with the words "School Bus" painted over with black, though you could see "YAKIMA SCHOOL DISTRICT" through the paint ;).

We rode up to Harlequin Campground, where we were staying for the majority of our trip, and got our tents set up and everything. We were then going to go out for a swim, but the bus left before I even got on!!!!

All right, before you get angry at any of our youth leaders for doing something like this, let me explain: there were 15 of us total on this trip, so the shuttle was very crowded, and as it was explained to me later, everyone was split up into two groups, and each group figured I was with the other group, so it wasn't until some 20 minutes later that they finally realized I was missing, at which point Bro. Carpenter broke into a run back towards our campsite to find me.

Meanwhile, I was initially appalled that my group would just leave without me and not come back. I ran down the road a ways, then went back, then again and back, thinking they might have returned on some back road after they realized I was gone, and they'd come back and see I was missing... Anyways, I eventually decided this was a job for my Heavenly Father, so I sat down and prayed for help. On my third attempt to run back towards town, a couple that I had run by twice already spotted me and asked me if everything was OK, and I told them about my situation, and they said they would head back to town (they were on bikes) and give my group a message that I was alone back at camp. Shortly afterwards, the guy (never got his name, unfortunately) rode into the campsite to tell me he had flagged down a shuttle to take me back to town for free!

In the end, I was reunited with my guys, and Bro. Carpenter met up with us back at the famous Stehekin Bakery, and was VERY relieved that I was all right. We all got something good (I got Strawberry Cheesecake ice cream and a bottled A&W root beer), and made the long hike back to our campsite. Oh, and apparently I didn't miss much, most of the guys said the water was freezing cold, and if you weren't already aware, I'm not a huge fan of freezing cold water...

(continued in Part II)