What She Wrote When She Was Only a Child

This journal belongs to:

Celeste

April 29th 2013

Dear Journal,

I’m Celeste Carsello,

Middle schooler. Right now I’m sitting on the bus to my doom. Car sick, I sit in the front waiting for departure. I’ve come prepared, bug spray, band aids, itch relief, ect. Behind me, I hear clapping and chanting, girls already getting into the spirit.

The bus has just started off and it’s 9.35.

Bye school!

Hello Lake Geneva, ticks, and mosquitoes.

Hello WIlderness!

“We’re on the highway to…”

Only four minutes into driving and my stomach is starting to play mercy with me; and it’s winning.

Looking outside my window, I see fields and lakes and forests.

Don’t be mistaken, it’s not a beautiful sight; the trees dying, the water a polluted brown, the grass turning gray.

9:43

And as one of our other buses pass us, there are loud cheers from the girls in the back.

All I hear is the rumbling of the bus, clapping of the hands and;

“We’re gonna die young, let’s make the most of the night like we’re gonna die young”

They should be careful what they wish for, for we just might die young at this rate…

Conversing with Yetong about the ropes course…

“Since we have a harness, I just wanna climb 100ft into the air and jump”

“Sky diving!”

Ahead of us are the boys buses, mocking us from the back window. 

Boys!

I smell smoke. But from where? It’s not like a gas smoke, or is it. At first it was like a barbeque, then a really bad fart. 

But the smell’s gone now, gone with the same breeze that fills the air.

10:04 – Conversing with Yetong

Y- “I’m going to have trouble sleeping tonight, how am I supposed to fall asleep at 10:15!”

Unlike most (or all) girls I have a tendency to go to bed at about 9:00-9:30 (on school nights)

C – “What room are you in, I’m in B”

Y- “Oh, too bad, I’m in A.”

Even so I agreed to walk to her room in the morning, and wake her up.

(Oh, I forgot to tell you when she said she doesn’t get up in the morning easily)

It’s now 10:20, and I have to pee! I hope we get there soon. And that the bathrooms don’t have spiders and unknown disgusting muck. Or else I’ll have to take a “Nature Break”.

Something about this camp scares me. Besides the reason above, the name of the camp is Snake Road, which stands for itself.

It’s 10:25, and we should be there soon.

Yetong is crazy about strawberries. And with our luck, we passed a strawberry farm (yes there were many attempts to get out of the bus by Yetong…and much screaming!).

10:34, and we are in civilization, or, as close as we will get.

There are houses and playgrounds, but there are lakes and cabins too.

From persistence by the girls in the back, the truck behind us honks, followed with cheers from the girls.

The time is 10:37, and we’re still on the road.

The singing from the girls has muted, now arising with screams.

My breath was just taken away as I looked out the window and saw the most beautiful water. 

Right this moment we drive past a pond, so sad to see how people treat the beauty of the world, trees dying, the pond brown with much. Looking outside again I see a farm, with cows and chickens! (And newly planted grain. It was too late to take a photo, but I’ll draw it for you. 

I also see baby trees only a couple feet tall. I always appreciate the people who plant trees, we really do need more.

10:55 and we have arrived at Lake Geneva!

11:01 and we are at the camp!

11:50 – Team Building Activities

After we unpacked we went to the big field and met all our “helpers”, then did some activities.

Our first activity was cross country scream, or that’s what I thought he said at least. The way it works is that you take 3 big breaths, on the third breath you scream as loud as you can and run. Once you run out of breath you stop. We made a lot of noise!

One of the helpers (I forgot his name) told us that if we had had just one person go at a time we wouldn’t have made nearly as much noise. He said we worked as a team, and that’s what outdoor ed is all about. 

AhhhhhhhhH!!!!

After that we played some more team building activities including fox tails.

12:37 – Lunch!

I’ve heard a lot of horrible things about the food here. Though I’ve only been told what food items they are serving, it sounds pretty good!

1:04 – Done with Lunch!

Lunch was pretty good, not like hotel food good, but like eating out taco bell (we had tacos).

I had refried beans, rice, and a pb&j sandwich. Delish! Oh and a churro for dessert!

After we took a little “potty break”, our leader said we were going to go on a “journey”.

We pretended to be pirates and if we didn’t do the right thing we were sent to the “brigg” it was kinda like Simon says.

Next we played a game where we had to pass a bear named Honey as fast as we could, we had to say the name of the person we were passing to, and the bear couldn’t touch the ground or else we had to start over. After many failed attempts we made it all the way through, and with extra practice we beat the “world record” with 17 seconds. 

After that we did a ropes course. The story was that we were in a cave with bats, if we touched the sides of the cave (the ropes) the bats would eat us. We had to escape from the “cave”.

Everyone had a partner who had to go through the gaps together. Once a person or group went through a gap it would “close up” and no one else could go through it. After trying many different techniques we all made it out. What an activity!

We then headed over to another ropes course. This time we were in a “sinking ship”: and we had to get to the island ahead without going into the “piranha infested water”, if you fell in, you would lose an ability, like a leg, arm, eye sight, or ability to speak. You had to capture the trope that was dangling between you and the island. 

Oh, I forgot to add that during our cave challenge it started raining. By the time we started this activity the “storm” had seized.

Adrenaline rushing through our bodies we decided on a tactic: a sweater rope.

After a couple of attempts (sorry for the people who’s sweaters were dragged across the ground) we got a hold of the rope and about 2 people across. Then someone who had “lost their eyesight” tried to go across and fell. And when someone falls we have to recapture the rope. We were frustrated but at the same time laughing our butts off. We repeated this many times before we all finally got to the “island”. Before we got off we all were forced to sing our favorite song. Someone decided it was “baby” by Justin Bieber.

Our whole group of 14 people all scrunched up on a 3ft by 3ft platform awkwardly sang the lyrics, 

“Baby, baby, baby, oh!”

And trust me, we were horrendous. Even during this horrendous moment, there was excitement in the air, a feeling of great satisfaction. 

We trudged over to our last challenge. 

After we finished our fruit snack break, we started the zig-zag. We had two wood planks we had to (in a zig-zag) get to the last set of logs (or as they were called: Lilly pads). It took as a long long time but we finally all got across using the tactic of balancing each other by holding each other’s hands.

One person was on the logs, safe, while the other held the safe person’s hand and went across. 

After that we went back to the gym and played this game where we made a machine with our bodies (our’s was the best!). We made a hat machine, but not just any hate machine, you shoulda seen it! 

Now we head off to dinner!

5:40 pm – Dinner

As I pour myself a glass of water  my stomach groans. I’m starving!

At dinner we discussed whether or not we were going on the late night hike. I’m content on going for many reasons. 

After dinner – we did relay races, even though we got last, it was soooo fun!

9:49 – After the late night hike 

As I write I am on the top bunk of a two bunker. I have just come back from the late night hike. While I listen to girls fight, I try to record the wonderful experience I just had. After hearing a little story about a nature boy we head on up for our hike. After a couple of stops we hatched “firefly eggs”. What we really did was put lightsabers in our mouths and comped on them. Our mouths lit up! Glowing in the dark!

After a little more walking we went to a big field/hill, and looked up at the skies, and stars. 

As I looked up at the heavens it looked like a baby’s velvet blanket, with little holes poked through it. 

I almost died from the beauty.

10:40 pm – In the Cabin

Sky and Sarah sang for us, I’m not just being polite, but they could win “The Voice” singing it. 

From all of this I feel as if I’m getting the true meaning of outdoor ed: making friends, true friends.

Goodnight Journal!

April 30th 2013

7:20 – Morning!

At about 6:40 Alex woke me up to take a shower.

“Wake up” Alex said as she pulled on my arm.

While I was still “rejuvenating” I thought it was my mom, and when I looked around, I was confused about where I was. 

Then with a slap in the face I realized where I was: Outdoor ed, the place of friendship, fights, and late night hikes.

Interested In Reading More?

or

Subscribe to The Girl Newsletter to stay up to date.

or return to the homepage to enter another living story