So much has been going on lately--I don't know what I should focus on!
Friday we put on a talent show at a local nursing home: lots of people sang, played instruments, and some even read poems. I just came and sat and talked with the people there...I think/hope they enjoyed it. But going to nursing homes always makes me so sad =(. I always feel so sorry for everyone there...
It snowed all day Friday and into Saturday--so Saturday night we went midnight sledding! We went off Hurricane Hill, a large hill we have behind camp. It's tricky, because it curves a lot, so going down I usually wiped out before I got to the bottom. But once or twice, I actually made it to the bottom where we built a ramp. You got SO MUCH distance on that ramp, even though it was comparatively small. Going off it, you could fly forward in the air for like six or seven feet--crazy!
Gettin' crazy speed
Group Picture
After sledding, I made a snowangel!
Then last night we all swingdanced! It was so much fun—I love swing dancing, if only I was better at it, haha. I think this summer I’m going to see if they offer any swing dancing in Wisconsin. And next semester I’m totally joining the underground swingclub at APU.
On another note, yesterday I bought my tickets to Seattle to go visit Stac and Dave. I’m SO excited to see them, agh! I’m really bummed I couldn’t afford to make it to Hawaii, but hopefully I’ll be able to visit there before I/Josh graduate.
Now to go find someone on staff to replace the battery in our smoke alarm...it's been beeping non-stop since 5:30 this morning >_<
I've mentioned it before, but we often dress up here. Because High Sierra also functions as a summer camp, there is a whole room dedicated to dressing up. It is appropriately called “The Dress-Up Room.” Today during lunch we spontaneously decided to dress up as our celebrity look-alikes for dinner. I had no idea who my celebrity look-alike was. I'd like to think Kiera Knightly or Megan Fox, but...I think we have slightly different chin structures =P. Then I had an epiphany: everyone asks me if I'm Native American as it is, I'll just go as Pocahontas! That one never gets old, lol
There were some amazing costumes. One girl, after applying heavy eyeliner, looked JUST LIKE Avril Lavigne. Two guys dressed up as Jacob and Edward from Twilight, and someone even dressed up like Lady Gaga.
Roommate Picture!J
The dog I'm holding is actually my raccoon, Meeko. Because I couldn't find a Native American costume in the closet (I was surprised--I mean, really? That place is packed full of stuff and they don't have a single "Indian" outfit? Whaaaat?!) So I improvised with Lisa's skirt and by draping a fur cloak over my shoulders. Probably more Native American that way anyway.
You can probably tell, but Alex is Ms. Frizzle from The Magic Schoolbus, and Lisa is the girl in Jurassic Park.
The first day we got to Yosemite we set up camp then had our solo time—five hours of prayer, reflection, reading, and writing on the Rostrom. It was so beautiful.
Part of my view from solo: From where I was sitting, I could see 4 waterfalls.
Then that evening we attempted a night hike to the Devil’s Bathtub. Unfortunately, because of the six feet of snow Yosemite received over the past few weeks all melting, the path was turned into a waterfall—not only was it dangerous to climb up to the Devil’s Bathtub, it was almost practically impossible to do so without slipping or getting soaking wet. Soo…we didn’t.
Day 2:
The Second day we did an all-day (9 mile) hike to Preston Falls, a beautiful waterfall not many know about. When we got to Preston Falls, DJ dove in! Although it was overcast out, it was warm so we all went for a swim! How many college students can say they went for a swim in a waterfall with their professor!?
Preston Falls
Swimming in the freezing-cold water!
The water was so cold (colder than or equal to Lake Michigan), that after standing in it for five minutes I couldn't feel my toes!
That evening we played mafia—it was so much fun. We also did affirmations. The first trek we had each told our life story, so this trek we took turns affirming each member of the team.
Day 3:
The third day was by far my favorite. Initially, we were going to go caving, but then Nols, the director of operations at High Sierra (and a total beast), set up a swing for us in an alcove of El Capitan, the largest single piece of granite in the world. We hiked to this alcove in the morning and spent the whole part of the day swinging from it. It was amazing—the view was beautiful, and swinging from El Cap, although it was scary, it was definitely one of the most exciting moments of my entire life! What was really cool is that few people know about the swing, and even fewer get to swing on it.
Hopefully this video will give you a glimpse at how amazing it was:
As explained in the video, to get the swing started you had to run off the cliff--agh! That was the scarriest part. You can also see the view from the top: beautiful!
Swinging off El Cap'
After we had all gone off the swing a few times we hiked down and went rockclimbing. It was hard, but so, so fun. I really need to practice rockclimbing more: I’m so bad at it, haha! But I did get to the top of this really hard one, even though it took me forever:
Climbing the tricky one!
This one was a bit easier...
That evening we played silent football (a REALLY fun game I’ve never played before, but definitely plan on playing again), and we did more team affirmations.
Day 4:
Today we packed up camp—it was really muddy, so everything was pretty dirty. We had set up all our tents in one area; it was like a tent village, haha.
Yeah...it's pretty muddy.
After packing up, we finished affirmations then went to Rostrom to meet with all the other teams. There we had a short chapel then our leaders took us off one by one to pray for us. After that, we headed back to High Sierra
I’m so glad I got to experience parts of Yosemite most visitors don’t get a chance to see. Preston Falls, the El Cap Swing…it was such a beautiful experience. I guess that was the point of second trek: At High Sierra we’re so close to Yosemite, Rob Simpson (the camp director) figured it would be a shame for us to leave High Sierra without having adventured there.
Today I went kayaking! The water in Bass Lake was finally a decent depth from all the snow that melted from our recent blizzard, so we decided to take adventage of it and go kayaking. It was a gorgeous day today—the high was probably 75 or 80—but walking to go kayaking we had to walk through snow. It was so weird, haha.
Walking through the snow to get to Bass Lake
Kenny and I gettin' our kayak on!
Tomorrow we’re heading off for Trek 2! But I have REALLY good news! I guess it’s this huge camp secret, but Trek 2 we actually don’t do much backpacking: we go into Yosemite and go camping. So we set up camp, we have running water and a toilet (praise the Lord!), and we don’t have to carry all our stuff with us everywhere we go. Then, the four days we’re there we go rockclimbing, caving/spelunking, and hiking. I’m so excited! This is going to be SO much more fun than Trek 1, lol.
Our last day in San Fran we visited the De Young Museum.
Here are a few of my favorite pieces from the De Young:
George Washington made out of George Washingtons
This piece was really cool. It was called "Anti-mass," and is composed of hundreds of pieces of burnt wood hanging from the ceiling. The charred wood is actually wood from a black church that was burnt down by the KKK. The suspension of the wood symbolized the church being taken up into heaven, regardless of the color of the church members.
The De Young was a really interesting museum, but I feel like I didn’t have enough time to really look at everything. After the De Young, we left to go back to Bass Lake, but we made one important stop on the way:
The Golden Gate Bridge!
Instead of going to the top of the bridge with everyone else, Alex, Skylar, and I went through an underground tunnel, down a windy road, and to the foot of the bridge. Then Alex climbed on some rocks and got soaked. Oh Alex…
Underground Tunnel
When we started heading back, it began to rain, so we had to run all the way back in the rain. Almost the whole car ride back we were soaked..but it was so worth it =).
Thankfully, I did not end up in prison on the San Francisco Trip. At the bottom of the itinerary which Katie and Rob (the director and RD) gave us was a little disclaimer:
“It is not the policy to bail out students from jail if they get into trouble, but we will come and hold your hand through the bars and sing praise songs with you for comfort while your parents travel to SF to pick you up.”
This is a belated post from about..wow, two weeks ago now.
Saturday morning we caught a cable car to Grace Cathedral. Grace Cathedral was beautiful--probably the most magnificent of all the churches we visited.
Grace Cathedral
From Grace Cathedral, we walked to the Museum of Modern Art. on our way there, we stopped and listened to this street performer, Robert, who was an amazing opera singer. I guess it's tradition for our art professor to bring students to listen to him every semester when they visit San Francisco
Robert singing opera
The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), had a lot of interesting pieces in it. At the entrance, there was a spotlight which people on the upper floor could control. When we were waiting to leave, a little boy was chasing the spotlight around with his sister--it was the most adorable thing. Kel got a really great picture of it:
SO cute
After the MOMA, Alex, Kylynn, James, Kel, Mads, Abby, and I joined a protest! We hadn't known about it beforehand, but what I gleaned from talking with the protestors was that it was an anti-war protest which was specifically protesting against Hindley in front of a hotel he was speaking at and the war on Libya.
Kel kept trying to chant "Hell no, we won't go!" We had to keep correcting him and telling him that that was no longer applicable lol.
I’m not 100% sure if I agree with the protest’s view of the war on Libya, but I really don’t think I have an educated enough basis to make an opinion either way. Whatever the matter, I’m glad we got to experience a classic part of San Francisco: Protesting.
After protesting, we worked our way over to Haight and Ashbury, an area of San Francisco notorious for its bohemian ambience. Although there were a lot of hippie shops, everything was very expensive and tuned to tourism. It was nice to explore, though.
We walked around the city (in the rain =( ) for a while after leaving Haight and Ashbury, then decided to call it a night and head back to the hotel.
However (!), on our way back to the hotel Kylynn, Kel, and I decided to stop at the Marriott and check out their pool. That hotel is SO fancy! The pool was on the fourth floor, and it was so big you could swim laps in it! It was late at night, so not many people were there, so we decided to...go swimming!! With all our clothes on. It was so great! haha.
Opera. Art. Protests. Haight and Ashbury. Swimming. It was a successful day in San Francisco.
Posing by the statue at the entrance to China Town
After visiting the Mission Dolores Basilica, Grace Cathedral, and the Legion of Honor on Friday then getting arranged in our rooms, I went with a group of people to China Town.
After exploring China Town, we walked to a small Indian restaurant for dinner. We all ordered something, then split everything buffet style: it was pretty cool (except I could only have two dishes since all the rest had meat in them...)
After this, Lisa and Kylynn and I split off from the main group to do some window shopping in a huge downtown mall. At one point, I left Kylynn and Lisa to go to the bathroom, got hit on by a black man who was trying to convince me to have a one-night stand with him, and then got lost. (Don't worry mom, I'm fine, and I remained close to Lisa and Kylynn after that. Plus I had my pepper spray in my purse =) )
It was delicious.
After the mall closed, Lisa, Kylynn, and I got Coldstones. Oh Coldstones, how I love thee.
When heading back to the hotel from Coldstones, we met up with the rest of our group! So we decided to do more adventuring. Walking around, we found an ice rink! They were closing in 30 minutes, so they didn't charge us to rent skates!
The beautiful night lights
ice skating!
Right outside the skating rink we found a park--because it had just rained, the slides were super slippery!
Alex sliding down one of the slides in the park
Then we took some silly pictures...
We also met lots of crazy people. Lots. It was a great taste of San Francisco night life...I'm glad I don't live there, though...
