Introducing Nathan, Camper Extraordinaire

We picked up Nathan yesterday morning. Here are some of his thoughts on his Camp Caleb experience.

It was the most fun I have ever had in my life. It was like White Sulphur Springs, but better. We did a lot more stuff. Erich and Zach were the counselors for the boys. There were 2 girl couselors too, Anna and someone else. I liked them all. I didn't want to leave.

Monday: Every morning, we stayed in our beds and read our Bibles. Then after breakfast we had a little play that 2 leaders did about some spiritual thing. We went to the picnic pond, and we fished and then canoed and kayaked. Then we went to the playground, and then back to the cabins for "toes-up" time. This is like rest time, when we listened to "Adventures in Odyssey". We also listened to that before we went to sleep at nighttime. After "toes-up" time, we went to the big hill by the horse pasture, and we went down a huge big water slide. They put a big strip of plastic down, with a baby pool at the bottom of it. I slid down so fast that I slid way out of the pool and got burn marks on my tummy. It was fun! Then we went back and ate dinner. After dinner we had "walk and talk", where we walk somehwere and talk about a Bible story with our counselor. Then we would come back and have a campfire, where the leaders would ask a question about the story we talked about in "walk and talk" or maybe about the skit we had in the morning. This night, after I went to bed, I started not feeling good. I threw up in the port-a-potty. Then I felt better. My couselor, Erich, helped me.

Tuesday: We did the "Mohawk Walk". This is a course of logs and wires that we had to cross without falling off. It was very hard, but half of us made it, including me. We had to work together, and one staff person helped us. After that, we did the rock climbing wall. After "toes-up" time, we went to Promise Pond for a swim. After dinner, we did our "walk and talk", and after that was done, we did a treasure hunt. We got our first clue, which said, "An old man with a giant bear once told me that he promised you that if you got wet, you would find treasure." We went to Promise Pond, and we found our next clue. It said, "The same old man with a giant bear grows corn, and he said that you would find a paper bag in the cornfield next to Camp Caleb Kingdom." So we went there and found a WalMart bag with the next clue. It said, "An Indian shot the old man with the bear. He invites you to his tee-pee." So we went to the tee-pee behind the pavilion in Camp Caleb Kingdom, and there were rocks in it. We found the next clue under a rock. The clue said, "The Indian sends you off with best wishes. He asks you to find his brother's walk, a place of ropes and wires and walls. There you will quench your thirst." So we went to the Mohawk Walk, and first we had popsicles, but then we found the next clue. This one was spelled backwards. It told us to go to the rock climbing wall. There we heard the voice of one of the "gofers" (a staff person who wasn't with us all the time). He told us to look for the blue boulder, where the next clue was. We had to climb up to get it. The clue said, "Go to the place where you fished, there is a playground, and you canoed." So we went to the other pond. (But before we did htis one of the campers had to go back to the cabin because he was having a bad attitude and not obeying. He missed out on the rest of it.) There we found our cooks, dressed up as aliens! They used their senses to find the "X" (since they were the ones that buried it!), and we dug up the treasure box. It was a green plastic tub, and it had dessert in it! It was a big flat pan cookie, covered with chocolate sprinkled with coconut. Then they put M&Ms, chocolate chips, golbs of peanut butter, and peanuts on top. We also had fruit punch and grape juice. It was really good!

Wednesday: We called this "quad day", because we did 4 things. The first thing was crafts. I painted a small treasure chest and burnt designs on it. Then we went horseback riding. I liked my horse, except when he galloped away and gave me a big scratch on my side when he ran right through the pine tree! After horseback riding, we had "toes-up" time, and then we did archery and riflery. I got to shoot a rifle 4 times and reload it 3 times. I hit the target once! We had to be really careful and follow all the rules.

Thursday: We did stuff by the "Mohawk Walk", like a "Tarzan Swing". We had to swing from one platform to another platform, and the leaders couldn't help us. Everyone was able to do it, even the 2 people who got blindfolded because they fell off the platform before they even could swing (not me though!). Before we started, the rope was up really high, so we had to throw our shoes at it to try to get it down. This knocked it down, but then it was hanging between the 2 platforms, so we took off our shirts and made a rope of them to hit the big rope over to us. Next we had to get to 3 different platforms, from one middle-sized platform, to a really small one, to a bigger one, using 2 boards that we had to put between the platforms. No one made it the whole way without losing the boards because the boards kept falling when we tried to put them down. The girls did a lot better than us. They all made it to the middle platform. After that, we did a teeter-totter thing, where we had to get it totally balanced, and then we all had to get off without it touching the ground. We did it after a lot of tries and some clues from our leaders! Then we had a picnic lunch with all the people at WSS this week at the pond. After "toes-up" time, we packed up our stuff and put our backpacks and suitcases into a truck. Then we hiked with our sleeping bag to Camp Caleb Kingdom, where we slept in the pavilion. There was a rainstorm that night, but we just got a little bit wet. It was mulchy ground with rocks in it, though, so it wasn't very comfortable. Before we went to bed, we looked for crawfish in this little stream that runs through. We found maybe 16 of them, and then we roasted them. We didn't eat them though! This was one of the funnest things we did! The girls didn't do it though.

Friday: When we woke up, we had pop-tarts for breakfast. Then we had a hay ride to the to of the zip-line. They harnessed us in, and we all did the zipline once. I didn't let go, but it was scary, and I might have let go if I wasn't harnessed in! It was so much fun, though. Then Mom came and got me. I was the last person to be picked up.