Senior Retreat

We love the senior retreat because it's a chance to get just a few kids out of town and away from the craziness of the end of the year for a weekend. We also have a little trouble with it because it's such a small event, we don't take planning as seriously as we should, and usually forget something... this year was no exception! This year our only senior who could go was Ruth, which ended up being a really good thing by the end of the weekend! We headed to Ha Ha Tonka State Park, which is just outside of Camdenton. It is known for its karst topography (caves, sinkholes, rock bridges, etc.) and is a really neat place to hike. The not so nice part about it is that the only camping available there is for Boy Scouts and youth groups, so there isn't any running water... that's right, no showers, no flushing toilets, no place to wash hands, etc. But the latrines they had weren't too bad (except for the one right by our campsite... that one was horrible, and required super-human breath holding abilities in order to use it). Anyway... we got to the campsite and set up camp, and realized that the rain flies for our tents don't fit in the bag, so they weren't with the rest of the tent! Seeing as how it wasn't raining, we didn't worry too much about it... we just left our stuff and headed off to enjoy the park. The cool part of this park is that at the turn of the century a guy bought it and built himself a castle there. The castle burned, but the ruins are still there, and it's really neat. So we headed first to the castle. Here's a picture of Ruth and I at the top of the bluff... check out the Frankenstein hair, clearly it was windy! :)


Josh and Ruth at the castle ruins. By the way, my husband is a huge dork...

After we explored the ruins, we decided to just hike a big circular route all around the park (yes, the pregnant lady was hiking, it wasn't pretty). It was beautiful, and we got to see this really neat natural spring that has water at like 56 degrees all year round. Unfortunately, we couldn't get in the water, but we had fun hiking anyway. Until it started pouring down rain. At which point we sat under a shelter and thought of all of our things in our tents across the park with no rain protection... But we figured at this point, there wasn't anything we could do, so we just enjoyed the rest of our hike, during which it rained off and on. But the hiking part was really neat.
Ruth in a tree...

Unfortunately... when we got back to the camp, everything in our tents (sleeping bags, clothes, pillows) was pretty much soaked. And it looked like there was more rain on the way. So we found the best available spot for drying that was still under a roof, and managed to hang two sleeping bags, two pillows, and a sweatshirt underneath it! Then we had to figure out something to do with the tents, since it was obviously going to rain again. We found a fly for a different tent that had been left in our trunk since last year's float trip, and rigged it over the tent Josh was sleeping in. Then we took the 3rd tent (our tent is 3 tents that zip together, one big and two little) and draped it over the top of Ruth and I's tent. It looked... well, interesting, to say the least, but you judge for yourself! :) Between the tents and the shelter draped with sleeping bags, I'm sure the boy scouts (always prepared, you know) were laughing at our camp!



But we decided it was good enough, so we left to go fishing. We found a spot with a cement retaining wall and fished off of it. It was horrible fishing (thanks to the drunk idiots in boats blaring rap music and screaming and scaring all of the fish away) but after the amount of hiking we had done, we were happy just to sit down. There's no doubt we looked like a couple of Huckleberries sitting on that wall though! :)


After we headed back to camp, we decided to go ahead and make a Wal-Mart run. We realized we didn't have paper to start a fire, or lighters, and everything we owned was wet. So Ruth and I headed to the Walmart in Camdenton, where we picked up the necessities (lighters, paper, lighter fluid-all the charcoal was wet, too- and towels to dry stuff off). We also got to enjoy the luxury of flushing toilets and sinks! Of course, when we got back to camp we realized that we had also forgotten plates... but we worked without them! We grilled burgers and brats and corn on the grill, and set our "table" with napkins instead of plates! Hey, it worked!


As we finished up dinner, the storm clouds started to roll in, so we packed everything up and headed for that little tiny shelter where we hand hung our things to dry! There, Josh, Ruth, and I huddled in bag chairs underneath the shelter and played with Josh's new toy, an ice cream ball. It's this ball that you put ice in one end and ice cream mix in the other, and then shake and roll it, and it makes homemade ice cream. It worked wonderfully... of course, with rain drops pouring down our backs, we weren't really in the mood for ice cream, but it tasted awesome anyway, as we all three ate it straight from the ball (napkins don't really hold ice cream). Oh, what a night...



We sat for a long time making and eating ice cream, waiting for the rain to stop, but it seemed the storms had settled in for the night, so we eventually just gave up and went to bed. Our sleeping bags and pillows were (mostly) dry, and the makeshift tents were holding up, so sleeping wasn't awful. I didn't sleep much because I'm supposed to only sleep on my side, and my shoulder kept going totally numb. And at about 1:00 am, it started monsooning, though the tent stayed pretty dry, all things considered. But it was certainly not a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed crew that woke up the next morning! We did manage to get the fire lit (thanks to lots of lighter fluid, because, of course, the wood was wet, too) and we got the grill going. So, in our one skillet, we cooked bacon over the fire, then moved it to the grill for french toast. Then, we discovered another flaw in our plan... napkins don't really do well with syrup, either... so we ended up cleaning out the skillet, filling it with syrup, and all of us dipped our french toast in that. Hey, we were all family! :)


After breakfast, we broke down camp, went fishing again (pointless, again) then headed to Camdenton for some mini-golf. We found this course that was all about Blackbeard the Pirate, so, of course, Josh and I had to do some sword fighting with our golf clubs (pretty sure that's not an approved activity, but oh well!). Josh kicked all our butts in putt-putt, but we had a good time anyway.


Afterwards we headed home, exhausted, but we actually had a good time, despite the rain, the forgotten staples of camping, and the horrible fishing! We definitely got to get away from the craziness of the end of the year, even if it was just for the craziness of camping. It was still great to enjoy God's creation, even if His creation was raining on us! :) Despite the general general chaos, we all enjoyed it!