A VERY High Adventure, Part III

(Make sure you've read parts I and II first!)

Yikes, it's taking a whole ton of space to document this trip in it's entirety! :o

All right, so we came home from rafting, and we all just kinda lazed around. I followed Bro. Carpenter off down the river, and deeper into the forest, where he was fly-fishing. While out there, I saw a bunch of puffy clouds in one side of the sky, but no other clouds were up there. If Michael Sawyer hadn't come running to us with news from the bishop that we had to go back, I never would've guessed that those weren't clouds, that was smoke from a forest fire that had started on the other side of the river!!

Bro. Carpenter, me, and some of the guys who were out there as well (Luis Ocasio, Donnie Lake, and some third person) raced back to camp as fast as we could (we had to climb around fallen trees to get back there). I, frantic, had my stuff packed up in practically 10 seconds flat. We couldn't really go anywhere yet, though, because there was no way to make the rangers aware of us being in potential danger. We prayed and then had our dinner (spaghetti again), while I was still convinced the fire would be on us within half an hour (overexaggerating the speed a forest fire moves through the trees), and really didn't have much of an appetite (I was convinced to eat anyways, so I would have "fuel" to run from the fire).

Luckily for us, a certain park ranger was looking out for us, and told us we weren't in any real danger, as the fire was NOT headed for us. Also, a nice old man named Mike Barnhart (he and his wife Nancy are photographers who have had a number of photo collections published) took us all in the back of his truck, along with some shovels and other digging tools, not to mention a few gasoline containers (we didn't use those...), to some of the historic buildings so we could help save them from the fire by removing any firewood near them and digging around them. One was an old building of which I can't remember the purpose, and the other 2 were the old Stehekin School (built in 1921, top photo; I went inside there earlier on the trip to explore and found an issue of LIFE from April of 1940!) and the new one (built in 1988, bottom photo)

We then went back to our campsite at Harlequin, and packed everyone's stuff into Mike's truck, and then Bro. Bateman, Donnie, and Javonte' climbed in with all the stuff and rode all the way back to town, where we'd stay outside the Golden West Visitors Center, on the grass (they usually prohibit camping on the grass; we were very privileged that night). Mike turned around and went back after we got all of the stuff out of the truck, and just 15 minutes later the truck returned with everyone else, safe and sound.

None of us put up our tents, instead just lying there on the grass on our sleeping pads. Some guys stayed up to watch the fire to see how much further it would spread (admittedly, though I didn't think so at the time, it WAS kinda cool).

Next day, we ate breakfast, packed up, I took a short swim in the lake, we all wandered (I bought a 3 Musketeers bar and a Stehekin shirt as a souvenier), and then boarded the ferry back to Fields Pt.

We got there, drove back to 25 Mile Creek Park, and stayed one more night there. Most of us went to take a swim that evening, with this being the first time I can remember jumping right in instead of inching into the water to "get used to it" like usual, another change for the better. We had a devotional and went to bed, most of us without tents...

Some time around 3-4am, I woke up, and I could've sworn I saw a flash of lightning, and I was proven right by the thunder that sounded shortly afterwards. Bro. Carpenter got right up and told me to move over so he could get his tent set up, and that I should set up my own too, as it was starting to rain. (God was proud of us for our efforts during the whole forest fire thing, so he decided to give us one more good challenge to make it through)

I personally thought the rainstorm was cool at first, with the lightning and everything, but after I got my stuff into the tent, I was glad I had done so, because that's when it just started POURING down on us. I had to go numero uno around this point, but was smart enough to hold it until the storm finally died down.

(As a side note: my tent partner for this night ended up being Loren Franz, who graduated from Curtis High School this year, and also has Asperger's Syndrome. Most of the guys in my young men's have poked fun at how he "snores like a bear", which has irritated him to no end, but frankly, I didn't really mind, since the storm and the lack of a pillow kept me from getting to sleep anyways. Not to mention his snoring wasn't THAT bad; have you ever heard YOURSELF snore? Try it sometime.)

So we all got up around 7 or 8, ate breakfast, packed up, and drove out of 25 Mile Creek Park for the final time. We then finished off our trip by going to Slide Waters Waterpark (also in Chelan).

At the park there were a couple of "kiddie" (as in not too big, but still pretty fun) slides, then there was the new downhill racer, in which three contestants raced down water slides neck-to-neck on mats. There were 7 "main" slides, which were numbered according to excitement. The first 4 were all white slides that kind of intertwined with each other, like the green slides at Wild Waves, called the "Sidewinder", "Devil's Corkscrew", "Bonzai Pipeline", and some other name for the first one. Then #5 was the "Thunder Rapids", where you went in an innertube and continuously got stuck in these little "rapids" pools, which you had to make it out of by holding onto a rope attached to the wall (or a lifeguard held out a pole for you to grab on to so they could push you towards the slide to the next pool).

#6, probably my favorite, was called the "Tube Blaster", in which you rode in a single OR double innertube (for two people) down a twisting blue slide. Then there was #7, called "Purple Haze", a completely-closed tube slide (colored purple, of course) on which you mainly had to lie on your back, and you got going super fast; but the best part: it was pitch black from beginning to near the end, when you could see light from the exit. I took a long time to convince myself to finally ride that one, though everyone else had gone on it, but I eventually did it, and ended up doing it twice more (conquering another fear). :)

We went to a place called "Tony's Pizza" (I think) for lunch, where we got Pepperoni, Meat Lovers, House Favorite, Supreme, and Ranch Chicken (that last one had ranch sauce in place of regular tomato sauce on it, mmmm...). After that, we headed off for the Tacoma area. In the middle of our drive back, we went through a torrential downpour, which we were convinced would totally soak our stuff that was packed in the trailer behind Bishop Betteridge's truck, but luckily it had dried off by the time we got back to the church parking lot.

Well, that's the whole trip for ya! I think it's something I'll remember years from now, and be telling my children about. Hope you enjoyed reading about this as much as I enjoyed living through it! (at least in retrospect!)

Andrew Brinkerhoff, back in the house and signing off!

(P.S.: Thanks Uncle Eric for letting me use your camping gear for the trip!)