It's Over

Summer camp season is officially over. While the last day is bittersweet, now that it's over, I'm kind of glad it is. In a way, it's like my "summer vacation" finally started. And of course, I'm going to spend my summer in a very Phineas-and-Ferb-like manner. It started off right after the final summer program with big-swinging, four-wheeling, and other things that I for some reason never do at camp. Then today I went to church and then bought some picnic-type food to take to the Fremont Lakes. I actually haven't been there in over a year, so the last time I went there, I was not yet a geocacher. So between caching, hiking, eating, sightseeing, and wading, it was a fun, tiresome day. But before I continue on my fresh start to summer, I'd like to look back at some of the highlights of camp:

Thursdays: Before the summer began, I had some "Staff Kids" shirts made for all the staff kids. They were kind of like the staff shirts, but they were black and white instead of blue and green. Well, of course instead of saying "staff" on the back, it said "staff kid". But with that, I may have ordered two different shirts displaying our name-calling antics. Thus was the birth of Jerk Thursday. (Also known as Bully Thursday.) Just knowing the day's dress code automatically made Thursday my favorite day of the week. During Junior High One camp, the speaker even incorporated a story about how the "Bully" was dominating 9 Square during free time that day. I don't remember what point he was trying to make in that session, but it's true that I did spend most of my time in the king square.

High School Camp: If Thursdays were my favorite weekday, then high school camp was my favorite week. For one, it was super easy. Teenagers have a tendency not to complain about their minor illnesses and injuries. Plus, since it was the last week, I didn't have to prepare any paperwork for the upcoming week. That meant I could do fun things, like read more often and dominate even more at 9 Square. This camp also had a few unique activities, like playing in the mud pit and swimming in the river.

So yes, summer camp season is over. But just to clear the air about the assumption that camp people don't do anything except during the summer, there is still plenty to be done here. There are nonstop retreats all throughout August!

Weekend Fun

It feels kind of weird to know that I am experiencing my last weekend of the summer camp season. And although I'll get the last Sunday in August off, I probably won't experience another weekend off for the rest of the time I work at Rivercrest. 

I do feel kind of bad just writing about the weekends, but it's not like there's much to write about the actual summer camps. After all, most things repeat week after week, so it's kind of routine and possibly "boring" for me. Plus, I can't write about specific events, like "Johnny came in three times this week. He threw up five times and then scraped his leg. He is probably also homesick". Even if I wasn't legally required to keep information like that confidential, I would still do it for the sake of privacy. But weekends are usually a lot more fun and different from each other. Best of all, I can get away from camp! 

Since I already described most of what went on in June, I'll start with July. Fourth of July weekend is our extended break, lasting from Wednesday evening until Sunday afternoon. It started out well, but quickly went downhill. The first night was spent watching the newly-released Despicable Me 2, which was great, albeit not as great as the first one. The next morning, I had a job interview with Heartland Outdoor School. Then, I decided to spend Independence Day geocaching. Since there were four caches at a nearby campground, I decided to go to this fateful place:

The wildlife was great. 

I didn't find the first cache. I realized I had been on the wrong trail the entire time, and I couldn't find the right trail, so I just kind of gave up. I was also really tired since I stayed up late and woke up early, so I decided to lay my blanket out next to my car, munch on some leftover movie popcorn, and take a rest. I eventually decided to try the next cache on my list, which is where everything started going wrong.

Although I did find the right trail, I could tell that the cache was a little off trail. I started following some deer trails as I got closer to the coordinates. That's where I must of touched the plant I was allergic to.  On my first deer trail, I actually did find a treasure: a skull of some sort of animal. It was too big to be a squirrel and too small to be a raccoon, so I'm not really sure what it was. I ended up giving it to my boss' son the next day, who has a pretty nice bone collection. A few deer trails later, my hands were super swollen. The only other time that happened was at the staff airboat rides. I figure it happened that time because I was playing sand volleyball with a ball that had rolled into the brush several times, so I couldn't tell what plant I was allergic to then. I couldn't figure it out this time either, since there were a lot of different plants. But the plant that seemed to dominate this time was stinging nettles, which I had conveniently avoided my entire life up to this point. Ouch. 

Alas, I did find the cache. It was indeed off-trail, but not as off-trail as I expected it to be. The name of the cache was "Do You Measure Up?" and it made perfect sense when I saw it: 

(You can also see part of my swollen hand in this picture. Don't worry, it got worse later.)

I was only about halfway through the trail, but I was feeling really bad by then. As soon as I found my way back to the trail that led to where I parked, I was ready to go. I don't know why, but I thought I wanted to stop for one final cache at a restaurant on the way home. It took me two minutes to realize I was hardly in a condition to drive, let alone hunt for yet another geocache. I went home, took some Benadryl, and fell asleep while watching Facing the Giants. (I also ended up watching a lot of Mister Rogers while trying to recover, but I won't go into too much detail about that for sake of embarrassment. By the way, did you know that the tales of Mister Rogers being a navy seal and hiding sleeves of tattoos with his trademark sweater is all a myth? On the contrary, he was an ordained pastor that weighed 143 pounds his entire adulthood!)

Benadryl makes me feel really bad, so between that and the actual allergic reaction, the rest of Fourth of July plus Friday and Saturday were written off as a loss. The Awana kids who had finished their book over the year did come to spend the night at camp on Friday, so I ended up watching a movie with them, but I spent the rest of the time laying around. Finally, on Sunday, I was tired of being trapped at camp, and I knew that starting in the afternoon I'd be trapped for yet another week, so I went to church, bought cookies and milk at Food 4 Less, and then went geocaching again.

Did I find it?

Nope! (The name of the cache was "Aw, Nuts".)

Oh wait, here's the real one! Where did that come from?

Hmm, anything mysterious about this hole? Perhaps the wire stuck just out of sight?

Aw, nuts! I found it at this tree!

Since I wasn't ready to go out in the middle of nowhere to geocache again, I chose a place with a lot less dangerous plantlife: Barnard Park. I drive past it all the time, but never stopped at it.

It turns out that this is in a historic part of Fremont. (You can even see the old-fashioned brick road that made my already-bad suspension even noisier.) The park area was once a cemetery. I think they even left the original entrances, which you can see below. Eventually all of the graves were moved to a new cemetery across town, but it is believed that there were several unmarked graves where the bodies were never relocated. There have even been ghost sightings at this park at night, especially of a woman who died while traveling the Mormon trail. Sounds fishy to me, but I can guarantee that there were no "other beings" there when I visited.

Even though my Fourth of July was pretty much a bust, I still had the next weekend to look forward to: John C. Fremont Days! It's the one weekend a year where Fremont actually tries to do community events. I started off by going to Christiansen Field for the county 4-H fair. Jaci was camping there for the weekend to support her brother. I even found the cache I couldn't find the time I visited before (and almost got arrested while searching for it), and I even returned to a couple of the old ones just to show off.

After visiting Jaci's cow and pigs, we took a break from the outdoor heat and took a look at the indoor entries. Besides chickens and bunnies, there were some really neat craft projects...even minion cupcakes!

After that, we ended up at the central location for John C. Fremont Days, which I guess I didn't take any pictures of. After enjoying some overpriced fair food, we walked around the sponsor booths and I won a few random prizes. I even toured the Opera House (and looked for a cache next to it, but no such luck). It was pretty cool, although the room where the original theater was was hotter than outside. 

The next day, I didn't return to John C. Fremont Park, but I did go to another park to geocache after church. It turned out that park had some activities too. I think there were three period fairs going on at the same time: Medieval, Colonial, and World War 1. 

I didn't find the cache there, but I did find the one next to Wal-Mart. Here it is up close:

And here's where I found it. Do you see it? No? 

How about from this view?

Last night, I went to a birthday party for a fellow staff member. Since it was in Elkhorn, I opted to hop into someone else's car to save on gas. A few minutes later, I noticed that the road I normally took to get to Fremont was different. Very, very different. The new bridge over the Platte River had finally opened! Furthermore, the super-scary bridge I've always had to take into Fremont was already torn down. I actually looked on the Fremont Tribune's website this morning to read about the new bridge. The bridge(s) that cross(es) the Platte River from Dodge to Saunders County actually has a pretty interesting history that I never knew about. Here's the link to the article I read: http://fremonttribune.com/news/local/bridge-opens-new-chapter-in-platte-river-history/article_bc3e6bf7-4717-547d-b100-4e1eea528e66.html. When I came here two years ago, I could already see what I thought were the beginnings of a new bridge, but who knew it went even further back than that!

The party was pretty fun too, even though we accidentally went into Omaha first. And the peanut butter birthday cheesecake was the best stuff ever!

Now it's back at camp, but there's still more to be done this weekend. Gotta enjoy the last weekend while it lasts!