Yeah. So. It's been a month (almost). And Widji = amazing. So I shall post.
TUESDAY, MARCH NINTH
BORING STUFF (SUMMARY)
I woke up, ate food, went to school, got on the bus, drove for a while, pummeled people with snowballs, drank Ben's Monster, and finally got to the mine.
THE MINE
- Got out of the bus, stretched our legs, walked around. Checked out the gift store thing and bought an awesome turtle mood ring thingie. Hung out.
- Watched this boring movie about the mine.
- Got our hard hats and headed into the mine shaft elevator, which went at 15mph to about a half a mile underground. Laughed at all the people who were spazzing out.
- Rode in an ore train to a huge space, where the miner dude talked about the mine and we all stood there.
- The miner dude was showing us tools and suddenly he pushed a button and this HUGE FREAKING CHAINSAW went off behind us. I just turned around like "What the heck?" but a bunch of people screamed. :D
- Talked more, then went back in the train, back up the elevator, and to the engine room.
- Hung out in the engine room, inhaling fumes and watching the huge engine spin around (basically getting really nauseous and dizzy :P) while the 2nd group explored the mine.
- Left and drove for a long time.
- OH. Went to Mickey D's. I got a filet o' fish. (gimme back that filet o' fish! Gimme that fish! :D oh yeah.)
WIDJI!!
- Got to WIDJI!! :D Unpacked stuff, brought it to our cabins, chose a room/bunk.
- I was in a room with Genesis, Aylin, and Kelsey (stalker-girl :( but anyway..), which was survivable. Sat there for a while.
- Went to dinner, which was spaghetti. Ate the spaghetti, then cleaned the table and plates and stuff.
- Got our small groups. Mine was: Trevor Parsons (friend in 6th grade, hardly talk anymore), Jake "the Boss" Wallace (elementary school acquaintance who asked to be called "the Boss" and, without fault, was), Jake McFarland (I know him, but we don't really talk), Aylin, Tony Frosig (ditto Jake M.), and me.
- Went on a mini-tour of Widji with our small groups and met our small group counselor, Nate "the Plate". Who's awesome. Came up with a really stupid (but amusing, cuz we were all hyper) rhyme that goes something like this: Nate the plate hates great dates who bake steaks. Amazing, right? (Not really)
- Went to the game field, which is by Burntside Lake (the Lake), to play capture the flag. Did so.
- Watched LaQuisha.
- LaQuisha, whose real name/identity none of us know, is a guy. Let's just get that out there right now. He's probably a counselor or something, but he wasn't the leader of anyone's small group...so...yeah. And LaQuisha, named so because of his, um, LaQuisha-ness, acts really weird. Examples:
- He wore skin-tight purple skinny jeans. Yes. Scary.
- Instead of just standing somewhere, he would pose there. In really creepy, girly ways that would make me and lots of other (more feminine) girls feel awkward.
- He ran...indescribably. SO WEIRD.
- Purple. Skinny. Jeans.
- He walked weird, too.
- You know that weird hand thing that super girly people do where they just let their wrists go limp (and sometimes hold their arms up by their bodies) and stuff? Yeah. He did that.
- So yeah. LaQuisha...ahhh, so funny.
- Got ready for bed, talked, played cards, talked, and stuff. Yeah.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH TENTH
BORING STUFF
- Woke up, brushed teeth, got dressed, hung out. Ate breakfast (which is on "THE MENU" at the bottom of the post. Cuz I was bored. :P), talked, etc., etc. Hung out in the cabin for a while after breakfast, mostly playing (more) cards and packing for the survival hike thing we were going to be doing.
Um, yeah. I gave up on the detailed-ness. So here's a quick outline of what we did. :D
SURVIVAL HIKE
- Hiked up this vertical hill, almost killed myself several times, made a fort (which was an epic fail), roasted weenies (:D) and marshmallows, slid down the vertical hill on my butt, REALLY almost killed myself, and...yeah.
ANIMAL STUDIES
- Hiked. Looked for tracks. Found: a moose rack, Starfleet dog tags, a waterbottle, tracks (wolf, coyote, deer, moose, etc), the scene of a wolf pack killing a moose.
ECOHIKE
- Hiked for 6 hours straight. Got pretty tired from hiking up the hills. Persuaded Nate not to go up SkyTrack (the vertical hill) again or I really would die. Ate a delicious lunch. Was pumped.
DEBRIEF
- ...Never mind, that wasn't very exciting.
WOLF SEMINAR
- Brief explanation about Derek:
- So we (me, Ellen, Genesis, Mitchell, and other people) were walking to the dining hall for lunch and this random dude is walking the other way. None of us have seen him before, but he has this huge beard and long, greasy hair and he looks like a hobo. So we laugh a little and go "HI!" really loud (I swear I was high on something this whole week. No exaggeration). He waves back. Then he turns out to be a teacher dude who was on TV for living in the woods for a month. T_T
- Anyway. We learned stuff about wolves and how to howl realistically and stuff. And yeah.
SAAAAAUUUUUUNNNAAAAA!!!!!!
- Most amazing experience ever. Oh my god. I'm gonna timeline this in more detail, like I did before I gave up, cuz the sauna was AMAZING. Ohkay. Here we go.
- Got our stuff (which was carefully documented on a whiteboard) and went to the gift shop (they were out of sweatshirts :( but yeah).
- Went to the dining hall, took off our boots, put our backpacks on the benches, etc.
- Hung out on the rug.
- Nate came in to explain the sauna process to everyone.
"So, you'll go out of the dining hall and down the hill in whatever clothes you have on. Then you'll go into either changing room one or two. Number 1 is for the guys, and number 2--you guessed it--is for the girls. So you go into your changing room and take off your clothes until you are wearing only your swimsuit and socks. You carry your water bottle to the hallway and put it down...then you have choices. You can do a:
- "Sauna", which admittedly is not the best choice, where you simply go into the sauna room and hang out there for a while. You'll sweat out all the toxins and feel super great...but then you'll be all sweaty.
- "Dip sauna", which is slightly better but still not that great. You would go up to the lake and get all nice and washed off, and then you'd go into the sauna and sweat out all the toxins. You'd be less sweaty and gross, but still pretty sweaty and gross.
- "Sauna dip", which is a much better choice in my mind, since you would get all those toxins out of your body and then wash 'em all off in the lake. Overall, this is a good plan, but it's not taking it quite to the max.
- "Dip sauna dip", which would definitely be my choice. You'd go from the changing rooms right to the lake, get yourself nice and wet, then go up to the sauna to warm up and get those toxins out. Then you'd go back to the lake and wash yourself off, get cooled off again, all that good stuff.
- Blah blah blah. He explained the process and how there's a dude living on the hill nearby and that he'd sic his dog on us if we screamed. And stuff. :D
- The first group left, and we filled out a survey thing about our experience while the butterflies slowly built and the first group did whatever. I was really nervous, since I'd seen the "lake hole", and it was just this little hole in the ice of the freezing cold lake...Plus I don't/didn't like saunas that much, since my body naturally doesn't sweat (which is why I'm overheated all the time).
- At some point or another, Nate and the counselor lady who were taking us down told us all that we should get ready to go, so we did.
- We walked down the slushy, icy, snowy path, which really didn't boost my nervousness about jumping into a freaking frozen lake, and FINALLY got to the changing rooms.
- Went into the dressing room, stripped down to my bikini and socks, and walked--ON THE ICY, SLUSHY GROUND. IN MY SOCKS--to the lake. Butterflies were eating their way out of my stomach by this point.
- I stand in line for a while, watching as person after person jumps nervously into the icy cold lake water, then gives a really loud almost-scream thing and pretty much literally flies up the ladder and out of the water. My thoughts: "Oh. Crap."
- Of course, I inevitably reach first and just blindly jump in, closing my eyes and hoping I don't scream. Somehow, I don't, and before I can even have a coherent thought (literally. It was insane.), I'm out of the water and halfway up the hill to the sauna.
- Genesis catches up to me and we enter the sauna, sitting in the middlish of it and drinking lots of water to make up for the buckets of sweat (cuz you needed a description. I know you did). We started singing stuff for some reason, and we stayed in there for about 20 minutes with small groups breaking off at random intervals.
- After the 20 minutes were up (the max time we could be in the sauna), Genesis, Ellen, and I all got up and walked out the door. I almost screamed right there, cuz by then it was like 20 degrees outside, and it was around 95 in the sauna...yeah. Nate was standing right there, and he laughed at the looks on our faces. :P Meanie Nate.
- We speed-walked down to the lake; Ellen went first, and I was second, so we got it over with pretty quickly. While I was waiting in line, Nate yelled at us to dunk our heads under (which resulted in a bunch of other people chanting "DUNK, DUNK, DUNK, DUNK" at us), sooo...
- ...when I jumped in, I held my breath as well as I could so I didn't scream and dunked my whole body underwater, soaking myself even further in the ice-cold lake water. I took my time this round (then again, it was pretty much impossible to go faster than I had the first time) and walked up to the changing room to get my clothes back on.
- I dried myself off and put my clothes back on, including my AMAZING Jefferson hat, and eventually we all made our way up to the dining hall again to meet the first group.
Anyway, it was just super refreshing and freaking amazing. (:
PUMPED
- The reason I'm "pumped" is that Nate was super excited about like everything. He would be explaining some random hike and be all enthusiastic, and when I'd ask him if he was excited (sarcastically) he'd go, "Yeah, I'm pumped!" and yeah. He was very pumped about everything.
THE MENU
TUESDAY
Lunch - McDonald's Filet O' Fish :D
Dinner - Spaghetti
WEDNESDAY
Breakfast - Pancakes
Lunch - Soup, salad, sandwiches
Dinner - ...I totally forgot.
THURSDAY
Breakfast - Banana bread
Lunch - Sausage, cheese, choco chips, pretzels, etc, etc
Dinner - Pizza (and delicious cookies)
FRIDAY
Breakfast - Obese waffles
Lunch - a McChicken :P
Dinner - Walleye
\/|\/ - .
-Emilee
QUOTAGE!!!
- "Whoa, poopage!" -Trevor, about deer scat.
- "I'm pumped about eating some pancakes with peanut butter later." -Nate. "Really, Nate? You're pumped?" -Me. "I MEAN...darn." -Nate. Mwahahaha.
- (loudly) "AHH--oops. Sh*t." (quietly) "Sh*tsh*tsh*tsh*t..." -Almost everyone after/while jumping into the lake.
- Orangutan hang, one cheek sneak, etc. -Nate. No comment.
