May 25 - Set out for Colorado and Rocky Mountain Mennonite Camp (RMMC). Drove from Harrisonburg, VA to Hopedale, IL and slept at my deary's house.
May 26 - Drove from Hopedale, IL to Hesston, KS and slept in an old professor's basement, visited some friends.
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| Drinking coffee and listening to Anabaptist History on a pit stop of this day. |
May 28 - Met a couple co-workers and re-acquainted myself with others and the camp and started Wilderness First Aid training (busy with this, forgot a video).
May 29 - Started Wilderness First-Aid training.
May 30 - Finished Wilderness First-Aid training, did some planning for orientation week.
May 31 - Started rock climbing & repelling certification training.
June 1 - Finished rock climbing & repelling certification and did a couple projects around camp.
June 2 - The rest of the staff arrived and we started orientation (video is at a campfire going through Mennonite Confession of Faith).
June 3 - Staff hike to Solution Pools to begin our acclimation to the altitude, along with some orientation at the top.
June 4 - Did the challenge course with the staff to get familiar with it and more comfortable with other staff members.
June 5 - Staff hike to Old Baldy to finish some acclimation to altitude and more orientation at the top.
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| Regal S. M. surveying his kingdom. |
June 7 - Free day on Friday, five of us hiked to Eyebrow, across Sheep's Ridge above treeline, to Sentinel then back to camp. First big hike of the summer. We played nice frisbee up at 13,000 feet.
June 8 - Last free day before campers, staff outing to Woodland Park to play some ultimate frisbee.
June 9 - First day of Campers! Senior High week.
June 10 - Senior High hike to Sun Rock.
June 11 - Mountain biking (and almost dying) with Senior High.
June 12 - Senior High hike to Old Baldy.
June 13 - "Tournament Day." Supervision and music and planning. Good stuff.
June 14 - Senior High all-day hike to Pinnacle.
June 15 - Few hours off between camps leaves enough time for a solo round of disc golf.
June 16 - Planning and late nights in the office with A. N...
June 17 - 8th & 9th grade hike to Pig Rock. Go Red Wings.
June 18 - Deer at camp, I like wildlife. :)
June 19 - 8th & 9th grade hike to Old Baldy.
June 20 - Mountain Mayhem and old man scary masks...
June 21 - 8th & 9th grade all-day hike to Horsethief Falls.
June 22 - Story time with B. G. Learning about German Anabaptists. Day out to Colorado Springs to staff member's home.
June 23 - Super Moon! And last time my camera ever turned on... Also, 6th & 7th grade campers arrived.
June 24 - Planning and babies. Yay!
June 25 - Camera was broken and no chance to whip out the phone without repercussion, played Mountain Mayhem this day.
June 26 - Repelling with 6th & 7th graders.
June 27 -More broken camera, but we played Animal Survival this day, I think...
June 28 - 6th & 7th grade all-day hike to Pinnacle.
June 29 - Relaxing and reading letters on Monkey Rock before big adventures.
June 30 - I flew to Phoenix for Mennonite Convention where I was able to help lead worship for the Junior High Youth.
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| Preppin' for the week |
July 2 - Took Junior Youth on a scavenger hunt through Phoenix, in 113 degree weather. Dang, dat is hott.
July 3 - Got to join the Senior High youth convention for a time of worship in the morning. Big room, lots of people.
July 4 - Visited the science center in Phoenix and got to celebrate Independence Day with Will Smith. Actually, we celebrated by exploding watermelons with liquid nitrogen and something else.
July 5 - Last day of convention, we played four-square a lot.
July 6 - Before my flight left I got to go to L. R.'s grandparents and swim in their pool. That is a very nice thing when it is over 110 degrees...
July 7 - I got to go on a solitude hike my first morning back to camp because the rest of the staff was on staff retreat. It was a glorious time to be alone and with God. Unfortunately, this evening was the evening that I blew a head-gasket in my car.
July 8 - A group from Texas was at the camp and we played Capture the Flag against them in Elk Meadows, stinking awesome.
July 9 - When you aren't in charge of campers or planning you get time to relax, watch people practice fly-fishing technique, and play guitar. It is a good thing.
July 10 - Hiked Democrat, Cameron, Lincoln, and part of Bross this day with four other guys. My first 14er's besides Pike's Peak and it was glorious. Hung out with some mountain goats at the Lincoln summit while storms gathered around us. A thrilling time.
July 12 - Playing Settler's of Catan with homies after a nice day of work.
July 13 - I forgot to take a video this day, I think I did maintenance and worked on shingling the roof of a cabin.
July 14 - Setting up for some repelling for the Texas group. Did that three days in a row.
July 15 - Went to Crystola, CO for some burgers at the bar there. Sang I'm a Believer on the way there really loudly.
July 16 - Forgot video again... I think I did more shingling this day.
July 17 - Dug holes for a fence, they don't call it the Rocky Mountains for nothing. Later on in this day we had the annual Meat Fest where I had the privilege to indulge in Bison, Antelope, and Beef. Indulge is making light of it. I am certain I ate more than my body weight. After the meal we did sawing competitions of logs and log-throwing competitions and then had ice cream. Directly after ice cream (about 10-o-clock), 3 other guys and I hiked to Pinnacle in our boxers to spend the night.
July 18 - We got the privilege of watching the sunrise from the top of Pinnacle this day. Something everybody should be required to do in their lifetime, it is a glorious thing. A few of us then hiked over some ridges to Eyebrow and did some free-solo climbing along the way. I almost died this day. It was stinking sweet.
July 19 - 3rd grade camp started this day for the weekend. I got to do some things in the way of planning some worship things, including reading stories about Wemmik's from Max Lucado.
July 20 - Read the stories in the midst of a big thunderstorm and hail storm. We then made s'mores and had to wait for suburbans to come up and pick us up to stay out of the storm. Kids are awesome in thunderstorms, by the way.
July 21 - Grade 3 ended this day, brother flew in from Philadelphia and father from Michigan. I showed them camp and we went on a short hike to Solution Pools. It was a glorious time.
July 22 - Took father and brother on a hike to Pinnacle. Another glorious day. Got the news that my car was finally done, so we went and picked it up from the shop on this day. It was an incredible blessing to have family out at camp. They flew out at 3am the next day.
July 23 - Led a hike for Family Camp to Solution Pools. It was a lot of fun with the wide range of ages, from grandparents to 3rd graders.
July 24 - Day off so I went for a run. It is hard to record a video while running. Nor does it make a good video. Oh well.
July 25 - Was supposed to lead an all-day hike to Prehistoric Valley, which I had never been to, for Family Camp. Found Prehistoric Valley very easily, but only one family came along. It was a glorious time, God did good on this day.
July 26 - I got up at 4am this day to drive close to Salida, CO to pick up the wilderness campers and drop them off for whitewater rafting. We also went for pizza and it was delicious. This video is from driving Skyline Drive in Cañon City, CO, something everybody who enjoys driving and glorious views should be required to do in their life. Also ended up getting lost in a gravel pit mine in the mountains due to faulty directions, almost ran over two families of wild turkey's, and almost ran into a big herd of bighorn sheep in the most excellent Bighorn Gorge on the Arkansas River, another drive that should be required.
July 27 - We repelled down freaking Baldy this day, 350 ft. A most gloriously excellent time.
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| The view from the top of Baldy. You can see the ropes a bit to the right. |
July 29 - I left for home. Was planning on leaving at 4am but the car wouldn't start due to bad glow plugs. Got the car started and headed out around 9am and drove to Illinois with A. M., then spent the night back in Hopedale, IL since it was a little bit too late to keep driving to Little Eden in Onekema, MI.
July 30 - This day I drove from Hopedale, IL, to Little Eden and got in my first wakeboard run of the year. Little Eden is a most excellent spot for my family to vacation, because I love water.
July 31 - It was a little too choppy/I was too sore/it was too cold to do much on the water except kayak this day, so I did so with brother and sister-in-law. A good time, to be sure.
August 1 - Another glorious day on the boat, some wakeboarding and watching brother shred the slalom skis. More relaxing and reading on shore was to be had, for sure. And eating, we ate about 1,000 lbs of food this week.
August 2 - Went golfing in the morning with brother and cousins. A good time, and the one time I golf in a year.
August 3 - Ran a 5k this morning and got first in my age division for my first time. I also achieved my time goal for the first time during a race. Then we drove home and that is the end of this video.
All in stinking all, this summer was amazingly incredibly gloriously excellent. Adjectives cannot describe the way I feel about RMMC and the people that I got to work with out there. Adjectives can also not describe the way that God created that part of the world. I don't know how it was done, and frankly I don't care because I know that God made it and that is enough for me to fear and adore. God showed up in many different ways; through the devotion others had to the kids, through me learning what delegation of responsibilities is, to learning to trust others, to kids blowing me out of the water with their attitudes and minds, to families fighting back tears to thank me for the amazing day, to the stupid times I shared with so many stupid people (when I say stupid people, I say it completely out of love of course. Maybe I should say stupidly amazing people. Or maybe just people that I can be stupid with. Whatever, they really aren't stupid, we just did stupid things and I loved it). This summer made me emotional to leave a place for the first time in my life. It was the first time I actually wanted to/felt comfortable giving everybody hugs and saying goodbye to them. I don't tend to get very attached to things, and I love change, and maybe it is a sign of me growing up and becoming older, but it was a beautiful thing. I thank God so much for allowing me to be there, and for giving me the connections that I made, and the relationships made. And I thank everyone who prayed for me and for the camp in general, because we couldn't have done it without you.
So that's what I got and stuff. I had something else that I could have said, but I forget, so it must not have been important.
Here is a happy dog.
