Spring Break Synopsis

Vacation from school wasn't supposed to mean a vacation from this much-celebrated blog. However, for the third time this year, when I tried to publish my blog, something screwy happened and lo and behold: all that hard work was flushed down the toilet!

Last Sunday (meaning the 20th of March), I joined ten other young men from the hallowed halls of Hotchkiss on a journey to the wilds of Northern California. We trekked to place without showers, without satellite television, without sanitary bathrooms, and yes...only a fire to keep us all warm! Yosemite National Park was absolutely freezing cold! We arrived in very rainy conditions around 3 pm and two days later we left in the same very rainy conditions.

We spent much of our first few hours there setting up three tents, a canopy I borrowed from my church, some tarps to cover the fire and firewood, and chopping wood for said fire. After about two hours it started to snow a little bit which was very exciting since I have only been in falling snow once in my life and that was about a decade ago. Soon, the snow was falling very heavily and being the intelligent, college-educated young man that I am, I ran around in it for about thirty seconds before realizing that my only pair of shoes (yeah, forgot the other pair. I don't recommend it) were completely soaked. That night we ate, chatted, had a devotional from I John 1, sat around the fire and went to bed early. Then the real fun started...

Our tents were already soaked when we went to bed, but around 1:30 am, the tent that four guys were in (see picture above) collapsed from the weight of the falling snow. My friend Eric awoke to the ceiling of the tent sticking to his cheek. Much ado was made about many things and the whole campsite turned into a war zone, with most of the guys rearranging the tarps. However, I can only tell you this secondhand because I was definitely asleep throughout the whole catastrophe! The next morning our campsite looked vastly different.

Well, Monday was blessedly clear, so we took turns driving around Yosemite Valley to see the sights and take pictures. Eric, Nick, Jared, Ruben, and I hiked up to the base of Yosemite Falls where my camera was subsequently soaked and didn't work for several hours. Some guys played Risk and Poker back in camp and some of us read some books we had brought along. That night, we all gathered around the fire and ate some beans and sloppy joes. Then, we talked of many doctrinal and practical topics for several hours and then read through I John 2. Around 9 o'clock, as we were getting ready to go to bed, it started to rain again, and soon it was coming down steadily. That night, nine guys slept in our biggest tent and Kent and Nate slept around the fire. We could hear the rain ominously intensifying and soon could feel it. I woke up at 4:20am when Matt Telle was too wet to sleep and so left the tent for the warmth of the fire. The rain had not let up one bit. I followed him about half an hour later. By 6 o'clock, six of us were around the fire and we decided we couldn't enjoy ourselves spending all our time around the fire and sleeping in giant puddles. So we started packing up about an hour later and were all packed up at 8:30am, and still the rain was falling.

So, we did have plenty of fun, but had to head home early. We are not the peerless pioneers that our ancestors were! But I did catch up on tons of sleep and got to hang out with Amy a lot, so that was a plus. Oh yeah, I also did some homework, too!

I'll update again soon!