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!

Camp Crafts

A few years ago, before I came, Camp Rivercrest had a craft time. But because kids have lost interest in arts and crafts, it is no longer offered as an activity. However, that doesn't mean that there are no crafts being made at camp!

For several months now, I've been setting aside all my Rivercrest tees, saying that someday I'll do something with them. Finally, two weekends ago, I began my project. Here's what I have so far:

It's only 2 by 4 right now, but I'm hoping to find at least three more lost-and-found camp shirts this summer so I can add another row. For now, it's the perfect size to drape over my chair in the health office. Although it took a long time, this blanket was no-sew which made it somewhat easy for me to make, especially since I lack a sewing machine. 

First I collected all my camp t-shirts that I have duplicates of or were willing to part with. One at a time, I laid each one flat on the ground.

I measured each one out and, with a pencil, drew a square where I would cut. The Solid Rock shirt was tricky because the brown was too dark for the pencil to show up on it. 

After looking around for a few minutes, I discovered that Blixtex works great in this instance! 

After I had the squares cut out, I made a two-inch fringe on each square, and then proceeded to tie the fringe together. A lengthy process, but I think it was worth it! 

Although time to do artsy projects is limited, here are a few other creative things I've been up to:
-I made most of my own health room decorations. My favorite is a tea-stained and burnt-edges poster with 1 Peter 5:6-9 on it.
-I found some fabric markers in the laundry room from when there used to be crafts. My used-to-be-boring white shoes are now super colorful.
-I dyed my hair reddish on Wednesday. Not exactly an art project, but it did involve coloring stuff, right?

And a few other things I've been up to when I'm not curing headaches and bandaging wounds:
-Last Saturday, I got my oil changed. I had a coupon to try a new place (there are a TON of auto shops in Fremont!) so I got the oil change, tire rotation, inspection, and car wash for under $20! Of course, the very next day I was about to go to church, but when I went out to my car I discovered I had a completely flat tire. How does that happen the very next day? But the cool thing about working at a camp is that I just left my car there, which was magically transported to the shop and today I could drive it again because it magically got fixed over the week.
-After I got my oil changed, I went farm-hopping with a few friends. No, farm-hopping is not a typical Nebraskan activity. At least, I don't think it is. We started by going to a friend's house to ride her horse, and then we wanted to see her baby cow, but it was currently at another farm. When we got to that farm, we were informed that it was at yet another farm. When we got to that farm, we couldn't even see the baby cow because it was in tall grass behind an electric fence. But not all was a loss; we rescued a goat who got its head stuck in a fence!
-After those farm activities, we decided to hit the city. We went to Village Pointe in Omaha to watch Monsters University. Definitely a great movie! I'm also excited to see Despicable Me 2 this Wednesday with a few of my favorite people.
-I gave blood today. I tried giving it last week, but my heart rate was too high. I even had a high heart rate before giving today, but it fortunately went down by the second time they checked it.
-After giving blood, I stopped by Moller Field on the way home to do a bit of geocaching. It was tricky, but I found what I was looking for! My GPS was a little jumpy, so I first thought it was at the foot of a light pole. Then I realized it might be at a nearby shed. Just as I was about to give up, I backed away and saw a piece of PVC pipe underneath the shed. It was the cache!

Adventuring

After a night of little sleep due to the tornado warning, I got up and was determined to enjoy my Memorial Day. After a bit not-so-extreme couponing to score some free/cheap stuff, I decided to have a day of geocaching at a couple different parks and cemeteries.

I quickly learned that it's not a good idea to geocache in cemeteries on Memorial Day. Too many "muggles" as the regular cachers say. So at the first cemetery, all I found were these critters:

 I know that second picture was of a bunny, but was that first one a groundhog? I don't think I've seen one before!

I decided to go to a park. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find the cache there either. I think several of them must have been disturbed by the high winds. But it was right next to this train museum. Although the museum was closed, their trains were right out in the open.

I then went to Christensen Field, where I finally found some caches. Three, to be exact. (Unfortunately, there were still others that I could not find.) Christensen Field is part expo, part senior center, part RV park, part baseball diamonds, and part soccer fields. Since it was a pretty big park, there was a lot of ground to cover. 

Where was this cache found? 

Hmm... perhaps in the suspicious spigot?

Another cache in a tree.

This was my first cache with trading items! I got this plastic seaweed in exchange for the striped headband. 

The coolest part about geocaching is that it really slows you down and allows you to see things you wouldn't have noticed otherwise. I found these two baby birds on the ground underneath a tree.

 While there are many cool things about geocaching, I found one thing that wasn't a perk that day. While I was looking for a cache (that I never actually did find), a cop drove by. Apparently someone at the park thought I was acting suspiciously! Oh well. Below is a pic of my last cache before I left... can you see the cache?

Two days after this adventuring, staff training began. And what better way to start off the first evening than with my second-ever tornado warning? Instead of being all alone like in my first experience, this time I had about 20 people to hang out with.

I would say that, since the title of this is "adventuring", that staff training is the start of a new adventure. In a way, I guess it is. I think that's even what I said last year, especially since last year's theme was "The REAL Adventure". But since this year's theme is "Unbound", I wanted to admit that it sometimes feels more trapped than freeing. I could go on and explain the reasons that it's both an adventure and a trap, but that would probably take too long. But, whether it's the end of many adventures or the start of some new ones, that doesn't really matter. I want to make this summer count! 

Tornado Warning

It's 1:55 am. At least, that's the time it is when I started writing this post. I may lose electricity shortly, so I might have to publish this at another time.

Before I moved to Nebraska, I assumed that hanging out in tornado shelters was a normal part of everyday life for Midwesterners. Fortunately, I soon learned that was not the case. Every time I heard the tornado siren, it was for either testing, or just to tell the public that it was lunchtime. Tonight was the first exception.

After a weekend of family camp, I was tired. But for some reason, I still didn't crawl into bed until 1:20 this morning. I never had the chance to fall asleep, because I noticed it was really windy outside. Then I saw lightning. Then the siren went off. My entire basement apartment is a tornado shelter, but since my bed is right next to a window, I decided to get up and sit on the other side of the room at least.

The alert is no longer active as of this point. We still have a severe thunderstorm watch active for the next three hours. (I never pay attention to those though. For some reason, I've never really been scared of thunderstorms. In fact, the sound of thunder may even help lull me to sleep.) I guess I'll go back to bed now then. I really am tired.

Geocachin' In

I made an unofficial goal to visit all 22 City of Fremont parks while I'm still here. Today I went a little out of the way to visit a park I had never even driven near before, and I also tried out a new hobby.

I have wanted to go geocaching ever since I found out about the concept. It's pretty much a treasure hunt for grown-ups. It all started with an article about geocaching in Brio magazine. After reading about that adventure, I was ready to set out on my own, but soon found out that I was lacking a several-hundred dollar piece of equipment. I remember when I was in my young teens and going for a walk with some friends, and my best friend's neighbor showed us a geocaching container he'd found before. While it was interesting to see it, how much cooler would it be to spend weekends actually finding these things? Since I got a Garmin for Christmas, and the weather has (finally!) warmed up, I decided that, at last, I would try out geocaching on my own.

This morning, I logged onto Geocaching.com and found an easy cache near Fremont, and wrote down the coordinates. After church, I ran a few errands, and then I drove over to Wildwood Park, which is in the vicinity of Fremont Lakes. It was a very beautiful road and reminded me a lot of the Rogue River area- minus the mountains. In fact, it was such a nice drive that I didn't even care that my GPS took me right past the entrance and told me to turn on several roads that didn't even exist. (I had just learned a few minutes earlier how to enter coordinates instead of an address, and soon after this I learned how to switch from driving mode to pedestrian mode- that made things easier!)

Wildwood Park is a natural park, with a trail looping from one entrance to the other. I knew this cache was a pill bottle. I thought it might be difficult to find such a small cache, especially with beer bottles and vagabond belongings strewn about. Yes, this is a place where I definitely wouldn't go to after sundown, but I felt perfectly safe walking it alone in the middle of the day. I only ran into one other person in the park, and he was very nonthreatening. He asked if I was mushroom hunting. I told him I was actually geocaching, and I had to explain to him what that was. As I got closer to the target coordinates, I began looking intently for the cache.

I was so happy when I found it. I literally said, "I found it! I can't believe I actually found it!" I'm actually surprised that I found it right away. The bottle was wrapped in camouflage duct tape, and it was hanging by a wire in a tree. I guess it was a good thing it was close to my eye level, because I noticed that there was something odd stuck to the tree before I realized that it was exactly what I'd been looking for.

Inside were two slips of paper- one was instructions and the other was the log list. I proudly added my name and date- in bright orange marker, no less. I put everything back in the capsule, and then continued on the walking loop back to my car. (The other guy at the park found me again, and I proudly told him about my finding!)

I took a scenic drive home after that, with a smile on my face and a desire to set out on another geocaching adventure soon. Of course, this is just one of many things that I ended up doing this weekend (others included giving a speech at the homeschool co-op, discovering the delicious flavor of cherry avocado smoothies, having a late-night Duck Dynasty marathon with friends, making giant peanut butter cups, having the kids over, and discovering that I can have semi-intelligent conversations in my sleep). But out of everything, geocaching was definitely a highlight!

Journey Through Photos

There are a lot of things I've done living here in the Fremont Area besides just work at camp. I took an EMT class. I got involved with church's Awana. I'm speaking my way to a CC in Toastmasters. I volunteer at the Jefferson House. (Last week, I was even able to bring the J-House kids to camp for an afternoon of climbing the wall, seeing the river from the observation tower, swinging on the giant swing, and cooking dinner over a fire. That was definitely the work highlight of the month!) But the highlight of living in this area is that I can GET AWAY! (I'm not being snarky; it's actually a nice centralized location to use as a "launch point" to see America.)

Sometimes I'm disappointed that I haven't afforded more travel, especially after I got my own car. But looking back, I actually have traveled quite a bit. I guess I'm just one of those people who could travel full-time! (I decided the other day that my dream job would be a traveling nonprofit ambassador.) Even before my "big trip" of moving from Oregon to Nebraska in August 2011, I spent that summer visiting places like the Rogue River via Rafting, Newport Beach, Monterrey, Camp Tadmor, and Crater Lake (all pictured above). Since that time, here is a little photo journey through my real journeys!

Black Hills, South Dakota- August 2011

Lifelight Christian Festival, South Dakota- September 2011

Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado- October 2011

Kansas City, Missouri- December 2011

Amtrak Ride from Omaha to Klamath Falls, Oregon- December 2011

Covenant Harbor and Geneva Lake, Wisconsin- March 2012

Adventureland Amusement Park, Iowa- July 2012

Nashville and Martin, Tennessee- September/October 2012 

Southern Oregon- December/January 2012/13

Crown College, Minnesota- February 2013 (I went in 2012 as well, but didn't bring a camera that time!)

Silver Birch Ranch, Wisconsin- March 2013

Central Nebraska- March 2013

It was fun to take a walk down memory lane and relive these memories. Not to mention there were so many local "trips". Some pictures I haven't seen in a long time, and I know that several of these trips were never really blogged about. I especially wanted to relive the moments spent in Tennessee. The dream for that trip began years ago, and it was amazing to turn that dream into one of my most adventurous trips! I actually wrote this blog post because I thought I might need to look back at the trips in the past, because, lately, I've been looking to the future.

In two weeks I'll be catching up with the rest of my family in Walt Disney World, Florida. People who haven't been there wonder why a family with adult children would want to go. While I admit that some of the attractions are cheesy and created just for kids, there's actually plenty to do as an adult. (But knowing my family, we'll be doing some of the "kid stuff" like character meet-and-greets, but we usually only do that when there's no line and we have the chance to interact with the characters- I once got several smooches from Eeyore! Oh, and we'll be doing absolutely everything that's related to Phineas and Ferb because we love that show and those things have only been added in the past couple of years.) The last time I went to Disney World was when I was turning 18, and I actually found more thrills than when I was a kid. I would actually consider taking a solo trip to Disney World myself, but there's so much more of the world that I have yet to explore.

My first, and so far only hostel experience was in Nashville a few months ago. And after getting my feet wet last year with a three-day Amtrak ride, I realized that there is more than just car and air travel. I found out recently that Greyhound is the actually safest form of transportation- who knew? Well, at least the prices are worth trying out- a round-trip bus ticket generally costs less than a one-way train or plane ticket! Between Disney World and prepping for family camp and summer camp, May is pretty much booked, along with the months of June and July. And while I don't know where I'll find myself in early August, I think that might be a good time to break up the transition between summer camp and whatever comes next. This weekend I've been looking up Niagara Falls. By taking the Greyhound and staying in a hostel, I could take a week-long vacation for around $300. That doesn't include food (most of which I'd bring) or attractions, but admission fees didn't seem too pricey, and I can take advantage of AAA discounts. It would also allow me to finally get to Canada. I made a "New Year's Goal" to get out of the country, but costs have been holding me back. Crossing a few feet over the border into Canada counts, right?

At this point, I know I'll go to Niagara Falls, but I don't know if it'll actually happen in August or if it will end up like my Tennessee trip and not happen until a few years later in a way I never would have guessed. Now that I think about it, my original Tennessee plans were put on hold because I had a rarer- and much cheaper- opportunity to serve in Mexico that summer. But no matter what happens, I have faith that something better will come this summer.