Camp. Work. Play.

The photo above is me, shoveling a driveway (obviously). It has significance because it was the first time I had shoveled a driveway. I was 21 years old. It was the first time I had done any "work" outdoors. I'm sure I've helped move things here and there but I haven't really been very productive in the yard throughout my life.

This photo is from the only time I actually REMEMBER camping. I went when I was 17 with my friend Paige and her family. We slept in her car (Chevy Blazer) and I don't remember what we ate or how - but someone probably cooked it for us and served it to us. We didn't do much work. In fact, THIS is how I felt about camping, before this past week happened.

This past week changed my life. I know, it sounds dramatic. But it really did. We left last Sunday for Camp Lake Stevens in Oxford, MS, 4 hours north of Vicksburg. We stayed in fully air conditioned cabins with clean, functioning bathrooms - for free. But what we all know in life is that nothing is free. In exchange for our stay and use of the facilities, we were asked to do projects around the camp. Teams were split into different sites and spent a full day doing work. My team was assigned to build a cross-tie retaining wall. The group who did it before us started it, and we had a couple pieces of the wall and some ground dug out. We spent the rest of the day digging more, leveling the ground, leveling the cross-tie beams, drilling huge holes, hammering (with sledge hammers), and building the walls. It was so satisfying to see a job so close to finished at the end of the day (the group after us finished it off), and to know we went well beyond their expectations felt awesome. My hands hurt, I was sweating more than I ever thought possible, I was covered in bruises, but I felt so good. We had just accomplished a huge task that helped out the camp, and found out that they would be filling the space with fig trees and blueberry trees. How awesome is that?!

The next day wasn't labor, it was team-building. Still a lot of work, but a different type. We did a ropes course at Ole' Miss. The low ropes stuff was mediocre, but the high ropes was awesome. I climbed a utility pole (it had small steps on it) to walk across a catwalk beam that was suspended in the air and didn't hold on to anything, and from there I walked across a rope that had ropes hanging over it to balance with. All in the air! It was pretty terrifying, but awesome. I also did this thing called the flying squirrel. You're harnessed in, and there is a team of people behind you who are harnessed to the rope too. They run as fast as they can away from you, and you get pulled into the air and feel like you're flying. It was the most fun I had that day. The next one was another utility pole to climb, but then you have to stand on top of it, and jump off to try to reach a trapeze. I made it up, but couldn't stand up. My left leg was bent, foot on top of the pole. My right leg was straight, on one of the peg steps. I was shaking. I did not think I could stand, because I had to put all of my weight on my left leg to straighten it out. Everyone was telling me I could do it and trying to cheer me on, but I needed to think for a second. I was walking myself through the process, and knew that I had to straighten my upper body before I could stand. As I started to straighten my spine and lift my chest/shoulders, muscle memory kicked in and I realized that I have stood on someone's hand, so I could stand on the top of the pole. I counted it out 1, 2 - 3, 4 - 5, 6, (bounce on 7), (stand on 8). Left lib, stand on both feet, and suddenly I just applied cheerleading to a high ropes course. It was awesome. We ended the day with a zipline into the sunset, which sounds just as cliche as it felt, and we all went back to camp tired and hungry, but feeling pretty good about ourselves. 

Day 3 was departing at 6am to Camp Gray. I woke up at 4:45, hadn't slept much at all in the past week, and was suuuper cranky (sorry, team). But I tried really hard and managed (for the most part) to keep myself together and focus on getting everything ready and departing on time. We got to camp gray, had a class, and then got started on our next round of physical labor (things aren't free, especially use of campgrounds, remember?) So we got all of our tools and got to work clearing a bunch of trees and brush and invasive species. IT. WAS. AWESOME. I have no idea why it was the highlight of my trip, but it felt SO GOOD. I didn't mind the spiders and walking into webs, and I didn't mind the gallons of sweat pouring from my body. I honestly loved it. I had really cool (I use that term loosely) yellow safety goggles and steel-toed boots. And I had SO. MUCH. FUN.

I was exhausted. I slept in a tent, without a mat under me, in a sleeping bag on the ground. And it was the best night of sleep I have had since coming to Mississippi. I slept a solid 9 hours, and didn't wake up to anything in the middle of the night. I woke up feeling like a whole new person, and I was a million kinds of happy. 

Camping was pretty cool. Cooking was a challenge and keeping food fresh was hard, and we couldn't keep a lot of food so I had to shop a lot, so that was annoying. But really, it wasn't all bad and I didn't really mind it overall. We had a lot of people to help with everything, our STLs did a lot of the ops and I had money to keep us fed, and we were luxury camping at Camp Lake Stevens. But I definitely have a new outlook on it, and a new appreciation for manual labor and those who do it on a regular basis. OH that reminds me. Other than that time I shoveled a driveway at 21, this was the first experience I've had doing physical/manual labor. We wore long pants, long sleeves, steel boots, and gloves in the Mississippi summer heat and humidity in the middle of the day. And I would definitely do it again. I don't know why I loved it so much, but I had a great time and I'm even more excited excited that I'm TL of a mixed team that includes logistics specialists. It's going to be a great year, and it keeps getting better every day.