Celebrate Good Times

It's been another quiet week at Echo Ranch, my home for this summer.  Actually, I'm not sure it could be even close to quiet when 90 high schoolers show up for a week of camp.  This month the theme for camps is holidays so each day is a different holiday- Thanksgiving, birthdays, Christmas, Easter, etc.  It's been fun to dress up for each holiday and the party never stops.  This week my co-counselor was a mechanical engineer.  For talent night each cabin had to do a holiday themed skit.  We decided to do a skit about National Pi day.  We dress up as nerds (tweed jackets, plaid ties, crazy hair, and huge glasses) and talked about math which we thought was great.  The skit ended by pieing a few counselors in the face-- who didn't see that coming with Pi day?  This week for Crud War it was a huge birthday party.  We basically made birthday cakes on our faces.  Our ammunition included pancake batter, chocolate syrup, eggs, flour, glitter balloons, and whip cream.  It was the sweetest Crud War ever- literally and figuratively.  I enjoyed licking the crud off my face this time and eating the ammunition.  And in Echo Ranch tradition it ended with an exhilarating polar plunge into the ocean.  On Wednesday we celebrated three holidays in one day- Halloween, Christmas Eve, and New Year's Eve.  I dressed up as a tiger and we had penguins, cowboys, Spider Man and Batman, and a lot of other random costumes.  That evening we had a block party and stayed up till midnight to usher in July 21, 2011 and watched the ball drop-- add in party hats, snacks, and good music and it was quite the party.  Christmas Day was pretty much amazing.  It started with getting breakfast in bed since it was delivered to our cabins- this meant we got to sleep in which is a wonderful gift in itself during Sr. high camp.  We also went "sledding" Echo Ranch style on the slip and slide.  That evening we had a banquet and several counselors dressed up to be a living nativity scene.  I played the part of a sheep.  It was possible the warmest I have ever been during a living nativity scene- I guess that's what I get for wearing a wooly jacket during July.  The evening ended playing Mission Impossible searching all over camp for gold, frankincense, and myrrh and following a star to find the baby Jesus at the barn.  It's so great that I only have to wait a week to celebrate my birthday and Christmas again.

While this week of camp was a lot of fun it was also probably the most challenging week as well.  Most of the girls in my cabin come from rough backgrounds and had a lot of different struggles.  The first few days it was difficult to connect with most of them but finally towards the end of the week they started to open up more and share their stories.  It was great to see God work but always difficult to see the kids get on the bus and head back to their lives in the real world.  But God has the power to change lives.

Painting is the Lord's work

Certain verses from Ecclesiastes describes my past week (July 6-10).  Eccl. 1:23 says "Utterly meaningless!  Everything is meaningless.  What does man gain from all his labor at which he toils under the sun."  I spent this past week "toiling" on work staff at camp.  A lot of my time was spent sweeping, mopping, and doing dishes.  My attempt was to clean but in all truth I think achieving "clean" out here is somewhat futile.  There are pine needles and sand that get tracked everywhere especially when it rains like it did this week.  There will always be dirty dishes to do and once something does get washed it will be back in the pile in a few hours after the next meal.  Actually I had a good time on work staff.  I love the adrenaline rush of trying to have another load of dishes ready for whenever the dishwasher finished or the joy of sweeping up mounds and mounds of dirt and knowing at least you removed some of it.  Our other task this week was painting.  We were priming and painting all the bunk beds in camp.  I enjoy painting but after trying to squeeze under the bottom bunks and attempting to paint with a roller it became slightly annoying or the paint fumes finally got to me.  I'm convinced that painting is truly the Lord's work.  No matter where I serve God painting is usually involved in one form or another.  God must really appreciate when anything in His kingdom gets a fresh coat of paint.

On Saturday afternoon I hiked out to the Point with 5 guys on staff.  The girls were getting hair cuts and watching a chick flick but I declined so I could hike instead- not a tough choice.  Most of my hiking experience in life has been done with guys.  My brothers have left me on the side of a mountain a couple of different times (once I was having an asthma attack so I was slowing them down- at least they left me with granola bars).  We started out by canoeing up the beach so we could canoe across the creek.  The plan was to canoe up the creek but they forgot to figure in the current of the creek plus at low tide all the water is being sucked out of the creek making it pretty hard to paddle-- especially if the water is only a few inches deep.  After struggling for several minutes paddling as hard as possible without making much progress we pulled to the bank and hiked from there.  This hike would probably take over an hour at the most but a few guys carried full packs just because they could.  I should also mention I was the only one who neglected to bring a pocket knife, hunting knife, or machete.  I brought the first aid pack instead (which was good since one guy about dropped his knife on another guy's hand).  It was determined early on that trails are for sissies so we headed off through another meadow.  Eventually we got to the beach and caught the trail.  Once we got to the Point we sat on the rocks and watched salmon, seals, sea  lions, and ducks.  The conversation then turned to what type of knife or gun they would like to have with them if hunting a certain animal.  Finally it was time to head back so of course in typical male fashion we had to time it to see how fast we could go.  When we reached the woods the group decided that we could either take the boring trail around the beach or use the machete to bushwhack through all the devil's club in the woods- the decision was unanimous- the woods.  We found the canoes again and raced the 10 minutes back to camp.  It was a fun hike with a great group of guys- I felt like I was almost right at home with my brothers.

Saturday evening we hung out at Wilderness camp.  We not only ate s'mores but experimented with deluxe s'mores including peanut butter and honey, marshmallows stuffed with snickers and then roasted, and much more.  We played some whiffle ball and tossed around the pigskin a bit but the real party was down at the creek where everyone was fly fishing.  The salmon are coming upstream so it's like fishing in an aquarium.  These guys catch 15 a piece most evenings.  They kept a few so I watched them filet and cook the salmon.  Nothing beats an evening around the fire eating salmon and s'mores-- very Alaskan.

4th of July

This is the weekend we have all been waiting for- our return to civilization.  For over 5 weeks we have all lived just a few miles beyond where the road ends.  At camp there is no pavement, phone service, vehicles smaller than 4x4 truck, or shopping besides the Trading Post’s offering of Echo Ranch sweatshirts and candy for the campers.  Needless to say the excitement this past week about making the 40 mile trip into Juneau was high.  We boarded the Blondina, the camp’s landing craft, with a float for the parade, 40-odd people (you can interrupt this as an estimate over 40 or that it’s a group of strange folks- either is correct), and backpacks and sleeping bags for the weekend.  In town we split into shoppers and hikers- guess which group yours truly was a part of.  We headed out to hike up to Mendenhall Glacier.  In true Juneau fashion it rained steadily the whole time.  Juneau is in the middle of the Tongass National Forest which is the largest rain forest in North America getting an average of 90 inches of rain a year. (I’m sorry to share this with everyone in Kansas during the month of July).  Since there is plenty of rain everything is lush and bright green.  After awhile the well groomed trail stopped and a sign was posted saying “Hazardous Unmaintained Trail”- just what we were looking for,  We had to scramble a ways up some steep rocks which were fairly slippery but at the top was an incredible view of the glacier and the lake below.  It was impressive.  When we finished we looked like wet dogs, were muddy and tired, but it was well worth it.  Next we headed downtown to the docks where there were 4 cruise ships in that evening and ate at The Wharf with a view overlooking the channel.  A few other counselors and I wanted to try some seafood so we split an order of Alaskan cod and a halibut salad—after all we are in Alaska just for the halibut (that joke never gets old around camp).  We drove across the channel to Douglas island to watch the fireworks.  All along the beach people had bonfires blazing and were setting off fireworks.  Some more Juneau background info is needed here.  There fireworks are set off at 12:00 in the morning on the 4^th since it doesn’t get dark enough before midnight.  Also it was 50F and raining so I watched fireworks in a long sleeve shirt, fleece, and rain jacket (Once again I’m sorry to all my readers in Kansas in the triple digits- it topped out at 75F last Monday and I about couldn’t stand the heat).  The fireworks are set off on a barge in the middle of the channel so they reflect on the water ant the sound echoes back and forth in the mountains surrounding town which is kind of eerie.  The next day- July 4^th everyone from camp walked in the parade.  I’m always surprised by Alaskans and I wasn’t disappointed.  The local dance studio had a float so all the girls were in tutus and XtraTufs- such a classy look.  Instead of tractors, many floats consisted of truck hauling boats on boat trailers.  Echo ranch had a float so we handed out candy and fliers about the upcoming camps, sang camp songs and danced, and had a lot of fun as usual.  Another great part of the parade was seeing previous campers who ran up to greet me or seeing the positive response from the adults since they went to Echo Ranch 40 years ago.  There was a great turn out for the parade and beautiful- no rain.  The route looped through downtown and in front of the cruise ship docks.  Afterwards we spent some time downtown which was crowded from tourists.  They always ask entertaining questions.  The best one is when they ask what elevation Juneau is at after stepping off a boat--- sea level might be a good guess. 
Our final stop was Fred Meyer’s which is kind of like a supped up Super Wal-Mart.  The store itself is over a quarter mile long- Alaskans just do everything on a grand scale.  Hopefully we all got stocked up on everything we need for the next 6 weeks.  Spending some time in Juneau was great since it provided a nice break, we got to see a ton of kids who have already come to camp, and also get a better idea of what Juneau is really like so we can relate to the kids a little bit better. 

Bear Hunt

We are finished with the first month of camp.  Overnight the dinning hall was transformed from a pirate ship back to a regular dinning hall- I kind of miss the gang plank.  Camp went well- we played Crud War again and this week Mission Impossible took place in the rain so it was almost dark at midnight—almost.  I spent quite a bit of time hanging out on the beach supervising canoeing this week.  One day it was raining pretty hard so I decided to take a nap on a pile of life jackets in the canoe shed which was great.  I spent one day dressed as a pirate and wore a Hawaiian shirt another day.  I love camp dress code- anything goes and we have some great costumes.  Some downsides of the week was getting booed by all the Jr. High campers during a quiz game since I didn’t know the governor of Alaska—if you guessed Sarah Palin you’re wrong too.  I also got a fat lip since my co-counselor accidentally punched me in the face when she gave one of our campers a hug—there’s a good reason I don’t like hugs.  My other “shining moment” this week was during a relay race where you spin around with your forehead on a baseball bat.  I spun and then the world spun as I tried to take my first step and I totally wiped out.  I jumped up (dazed and confused) and took off running across the field in a not so straight line and proceeded to wipe out again.  I finally finished and have had several requests for a repeat performance-luckily for those wanting an encore performance we play that game every week.  I’m really enjoying the fact that at camp I can act younger and even more unprofessional than I really am- and it is strongly encouraged.

I have been in Alaska for 5 weeks and have yet to see a bear.  Actually the last live bear I saw was in the Omaha zoo.  I thought it was pretty funny that Jules wrote about the possibility of more bear sightings due to flooding.  Maybe I didn’t have to leave home after all to see a bear.  Anyway, a few others decided this weekend that if the bears won’t come to use that we would go find them so I joined in a hunt to shoot a grizzly bear (with cameras- although in hindsight a gun might not have been a bad idea).  The group consisted of 2 Kansans and 2 from Ohio so we have a ton of wilderness experience.  At least one has worked at camp several years and the rest of us have pretty good bear knowledge from watching nature specials on public television.  We hiked out to Wilderness camp and crossed the creek.  Since we wanted adventure we decided to break our own trail instead of taken the beaten path.  We started off crossing what appeared to be an open meadow to get to the tree line on the other side.  The grass was at least 5 feet tall so our heads just bobbed over the top.  This prevented us from seeing the marsh and pond until the leader of our group stepped into it.  All Alaskans were boots called XtraTufs that come up to your knees all the time—fishing, hiking, playing tag, going to church, etc.  We all had these on which is always a good idea when wading through a marsh a foot deep.  Most of the time the ground looked solid until you stand on it and it’s just a clump of moss on top of the water.  It was like walking on a waterbed and you would start to sink if you didn’t move fast enough.  There is nothing more exciting than tromping around marshes.  We came to a point where there was a beaver pond we couldn’t cross so we had to retrace our steps back to the main trail.  We  took the trail for a while and then decided to cut back towards the creek and camp.  Once we started bushwhacking through several clumps of blueberry bushes we started to keep our eyes on the look out.  We got down to the creek bed and in the sand we saw some rather large grizzly tracks from earlier that morning.  We were running out of time before we had to return to camp so even though we were hot on the trail—kind of, we had to find a place to cross the creek back to camp.  We didn’t find an option that would keep us from getting really wet so we stood on a sand bar for awhile.  At that point we were surrounded by the creek we couldn’t cross and a dense thicket of trees that was probably home to whatever bear left the tracks we found so we didn’t really want to hike through there—we weren’t that desperate yet.  We were just about to resign to hiking the long way out when the silence of the wilderness was broken by the sound of a boat motor coming downstream from Wilderness camp.  Perfect timing.  We stood on the bank and hitchhiked a ride back to camp on the river skiff.  We had to admit defeat since we didn’t find a bear but we also realize if we had come across one where we were at it could have been either really cool or turned out really bad so we were okay to miss out on too much excitement.  While I was somewhat doubtful we would see a bear I’m all about enjoying the journey and this journey was a unique experience.  There’s not many times I’ve been up to my knees in water with grass almost over my head surrounded by majestic mountains looking for grizzly—I don’t think I’m in Kansas anymore. 

So after writing this I went on a trail ride out to Wilderness camp and saw a bear wandering through the meadow when we crossed the creek at the same point we were saw the tracks on Saturday.  Finally, a bear sighting.

Keeping everyone up to date on what's going on in Kansas City

For the most exciting news:  My brother Ryan and his wife Lydia are moving to Wichita in a few weeks, and I am going to be an aunt!!!!!  I’ll get to meet my niece or nephew in January.  Already have a blanket done.  And I am saving up vacation time, too.  

For other news, I’ll start with cooking.  I really haven’ t done as much as I thought I would since Alex has been gone, but I did have a mishap  with making her favorite granola recipe. I let it cool & harden too much on the pan, and my attempt to remove it resulted in about ¼ of it flying all over the kitchen and the counter.  I’m still coming across some  of it.  I also decided to try to eat out once a week, and I have had some excellent Chinese and Vietnamese food and eaten at Jacks Stacks twice.   

One of the things I’ve enjoyed the most this summer is the beautiful flowers that cover our balcony.  Here is a picture of them:  Miss Patty Petunia, Betty Begonia, Elephant Ear Earl, and the others I was too Impatient to name. Unfortunately, the indoor plants, especially Nort, need some more TLC.  

 

I also met some people at a musical at Midamerica Nazarene called  “the Pastor.”  It was about the man & his wife who started Voice of the Martyrs after being imprisoned in Romania when the Soviets invaded.  It was very touching, and I am going to get a dvd copy of the performance, too.  

I also saw  Les Miserables with some folks at the Theatre in the Park (something they have at Shawnee Mission Park every summer).  That was fun, and we did some frisbee throwing before the show began.  The performance itself was so so.  They left out some of the story and spent too much time on certain nonessentials.  

There are a few things that I have enjoyed doing that Alex would be glad to avoid (besides the Chinese and Vietnamese food, of course).  I watched a couple good foreign films.  One of them, The Classic, will be on my list of favorite foreign films.  It’s about a girl who falls in love, and while reading her mom’s letters the film flashes back to her mom’s story of when she fell in love.  Other favorites:  Life is Beautiful, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, and Vivah.  

My mom and I went to go see the Princess Diana exhibit at Union Station.  Something else  Alex would rather skip.  We purchased the tickets to it but had to wait 3 hours to get in, so we wandered around a bit before deciding to go see the World War I Memorial.  Unfortunately, the memorial closes pretty early & all we had a chance to do was go up in the observation tower.  And since I had to climb up a rather confined, winding stairway, the claustrophobia started to kick in.  And I don’t really like heights unless I am safely behind glass.  

I did go back this weekend, and it was interesting to go through the museum and see the timeline (by month) of the war’s events.  My dad and I were surprised that one of our favorite authors, J.R.R. Tolkien, fought in the Battle of the Somme.  Other interesting facts/thoughts:  almost half of the people who died from the U.S. died from the Spanish Flu, and 20-40 million people died from that epidemic in 1918-19.  Did you know that Japan entered World War I against Germany?  

I also enjoyed refreshing my memory on historical events, especially since I am reading the latest bestelling biography on Bonhoeffer, the German theologian who was executed after opposing the Nazis.  Bonhoeffer lived in Berlin during World War I, and it is interesting to read how it affected his family and Germany and precipitated WWII.  

As for other events in the Midwest, I was just watching the news the other night, and they were discussing flooding in Missouri and Kansas and Nebraska.  With all the melting snow in ND, there have been quite a few levee breaches and towns evacuated along the Missouri River.  I-29 has been closed north of Rock Port, MO.  Not sure how far north it’s closed.

Anyway, they showed a local news clip saying that all the flooding may increase the chances of encountering a bear while camping.  It just struck me as ironic as I’m sitting in Johnson County.  And I don’t think I have ever heard of bear encounters anywhere between here and Omaha.  

Other atypical events for Johnson County:  We were under a boil water advisory for the past two days after a water main break.  They determined the cause to be a racoon who chewed through electical wires at the water treatment plant, causing a loss in pressure. 

Yes, things here don't quite compare to Alex's adventures in AK, but I kept reminding her before she left that the heat and humidity when she gets back will just be another adventure for her. 

Crazy Quotes:

Since Alex has been gone, this section is quite short; however, I do have one from a while ago when I was riding with Alex to the store.  I was obviously pretty tired.

Jules rambling about nothing:  “This shopping center has the Green Apple (frozen yogurt place) and Applebees.  Now all they need is Ray’s Apple Market.”