"Peace, Love, Biscuits, Dessert, and Wild Horses" -Ian (camp director)
We are back on the road again after a week at Flathead Lutheran Bible Camp!! On Sunday we arrived and slept in tent cabins together one last time before splitting into our sailing and rafting groups.
The rafters trip started at the North Fork of the river near the Canadian border and came South towards camp. The rafting group included Jimmy, Kari, Elijah, Roni, Kristen, Connor, and Katie. They have written a summary of their time to share with you...
After rafting the North Fork river this past weekend we experienced nature, fellowship, camping, and a lot of rain. During our four days out on the river, we saw otters, mergansers, deer, and bald eagles. Our rafting counselors were Jonner, and Jackie. They were super fun and taught us a lot of new riddles, games and jokes. Of corse camping isn't always glamorous when you can't shower, use deodorant or have a normal running toilet. Setting up camp everyday, even in the pouring rain, was pretty memorable but I think one of the best memories of all was using the rocket box. Picture this... an old ammo can from the cost guard that was turned into a small porta-potty that you could set up to view the most scenic area around. "The most majestic dump you will ever take" - Elijah
Our times out on the river were around 5 hours a day but they seemed to fly by so quickly. Once when we were floating a long we ran into a couple of Montana folks fly fishing. They gave us the typical Montana interaction and asked us if we had any beer on our raft. Another group of fly fishers past us and Elijah asked them if they had caught any flies, we thought they would laugh in response but instead we received straight faces and a sarcastic, "real funny bud."
Along the way we stopped to eat lunch and Jimmy found a new wardrobe that perfectly fit him and twenty five dollars that was in a pair of shorts he found. On the last day we ended the trip with laughter, sun, and throwing people off the raft to swim. Ian picked us up off the North Fork, on Thursday, and we stopped at Dairy Queen with the twenty five dollars Jimmy found.
The sailing trip consisted of sailing twice every day with one overnight sail at Wild Horse Island State Park. Despite many, many mishaps, we still had a fantastic time learning how to sail and getting closer as a group. The sailing group included Hannah, Walter, Abi, Gunnar, Miles, Troy, Geoff, and Jennifer.
On Monday, we went out for the first time on the water and learned the basics of sailing. (How many ropes are on a sailboat? How many pulleys? the answer is at the end of this post). All seemed to be well until Geoff got a little seasick. Then, being the learning sailer that she was, Abi performed an accidental jibe and Geoff took a beating from the boom. We returned to the docks and got a surprise visit from our friends Brock, Trent, and Dylan who's road trip just happened to line up with ours. We also had our first experience with camp cooking that night.
On Tuesday, we woke up early and ready to give the sailing another go. We were doing so well that the boat tipped at just the right for our counselor Ben's phone to slide into the lake. We then returned to the docks, ate lunch, and took a nap in the sun. We woke up and went back out onto the lake, but it wasn't long before we had another problem. In the process of hoisting the main sail, we pulled a little too hard and ripped it right across the middle.
Wednesday morning we woke to rain and possible thunderstorms later on. For a while we were concerned that this could cancel our trip to Wild Horse (sailing a large metal mast out into a thunderstorm can be considered dangerous), but it eventually cleared up and we began our voyage. We arrived after a few hours and anchored the sailboats. While we were making dinner, we had the huge privilege of seeing the wild horses come right down to the shore to drink. Ben had never seen them in his several years of working at camp, which shows how rare this really was. After dinner we rode dinghies to shore for an evening hike. We also got to use the Phoenix 200, a $50,000 porta-potty. Continuing our hike, we saw the wild horses again, this time hanging out in a run down barn. That night we slept on the sailboats.
Thursday morning we woke up and made breakfast on the boats (Walter is a professional pancake flipper). We then returned to the island for a little while to use the bathroom and explore. We then returned to camp a bit delayed because of motor issues and reunited with the rafting group. Everyone went to go do the high ropes course together before dinner. All the off site camping groups had a barbecue together and performed skits of their adventures for each other.
Friday we all woke up, had a quick breakfast, and drove to go white water rafting together. We braved several class 3 rapids, with one class 4 at the end (which resulted in one raft flipping over completely). We returned to camp and took showers for the first time all week and then went to go do laundry at the laundromat/casino. We returned to camp later on and went right to sleep.
Saturday we woke up at the delightful hour of 4:30 to get a head start on our drive to Washington. We all fell back asleep until we stopped for breakfast around 7. We were all surprised when we arrived at Walter and Miles' aunt's house for a barbecue lunch. As former senior luther leaguers, they were happy to host us for the afternoon. We arrived at Holy Spirit Lutheran Church around 5 and were all relieved to have the rest of the evening free. We enjoyed frisbee and showers, as well as delicious food provided by the church for dinner. After a long day of driving, everyone was very ready for an early bedtime.
Stay tuned...
There are 0 ropes on a sailboat and 0 pulleys. In sailing lingo they are called lines and blocks.
