Tuesday, June 21, 2011

I’m writing to you today from my perch near the tree tops overlooking moose lake while the loons call in the background (and I do mean loons, not a reference to Crew 1106). Yesterday began not very bright but certainly early as the second day of summer vacation found 12 of the young men at the church at 5:30ish. Pres. Linton shared with us some rules, we prayed, and then we headed into cars. Pres. Linton took the 3 teachers (Jer, Reuben, and Grover) with him as they were going to swing down into NY to do a drive by of the Statue of Libery, the Temple, and Time Square among others. Since that was reportedly about a 20 minute detour, the rest of the group decided to bypass it. In my van I had Josh, Jacob, Jared, and Matt. Josh played DJ for the first while and that kept the ipods and ear buds away, but did not appear to reduce the texting… Wayne drove the other van which had Alex, Reid, Tate, Nick, and Austin.

As with most lengthy drives, there was snacking, napping, texting, joking, and singing – but no showtunes. Well, actually, does that love song from Tangled when the lanterns go up and down count as a show tune? If it does than scratch that prior comment (for the record, it was found on Jared’s Ipod and played upon Josh’s insistence). Wayne was driving a borrowed van (Thank you Fords!) and they decided they wanted to watch a movie. After pushing all the buttons they could find they pulled out the manuals (last resort for any male...) when Alex decided that it was not yet time to read. He texted Tim asking "how do I get the DVD to work?" The response - "Pull into a dealership and have them repair it." Alas, we just didn't quite have time for that...

As we were getting ready to go, Wayne commented that he was ready to go since he had input the address into his GPS…I had a flash back to a time when I had been told by the same Mr. Janzen that he had a new GPS and that he had an amazing new route that would take off tons of time from the trip – and we ended up on a dirt path scaling mountain terrain through someone’s back yard (sorry for knocking down your clean laundry)…but did make it to camp…. Back to our current trip, as we were approaching what my GPS said was time to switch off and avoid NY, Wayne’s GPS lead us to…wait for it….NY. It was a different route than the one Bro. Linton took, but we were still in the city. Turns out that Brother Linton was ahead of us by about 20 minutes when all was said and done… The ride was otherwise uneventful. We stopped in a city about 30 minutes out and picked up pizza (little Caesar’s – questionable quality but affordable quantity) and soda for tonight (and salad – in case you wondered, no one under 40 had any). After about 12 hours on the road, we finally got to dirt roads and after a fairly 4x4 trip down the “drive” we saw the place. Gorgeous. “Cabin” nicely landscaped with a lake in the back. Rustic and with the dead stuffed carcasses of at least 5 different species of former wildlife accenting the rooms and with skins of other deceased animals hung artistically as wall coverings throughout as well. Pizza was snarfed, John Evans (who flew to Boston and drove by himself in a convertible to the cabin (– do I come across as somewhat jealous? Well, that would be accurate) beat me in pool on the table down stairs, and we enjoyed the cool temperatures. The young men played musical beds as they attempted to determine where to set up shop. I think the oldest boys ended up in a loft and the younger ones got the big room with the tv and wood stove. We headed to Wal-Mart to fill the fridge and pantry and managed to come in under budget. Now the question is will we come in under fed or over purchased.

Once the sun went down we looked at the amazing bowl of stars, numerous “star gazing aps” were downloaded in an attempt for us to figure out what the heck we were looking for with only limited success. Let’s just say that if we were ancient mariners we clearly would not have arrived wherever we were hoping to get, unless by sheer luck or divine intervention. Plan for tomorrow is to start at 8:00am with scripture study. It is nearly midnight but since they all slept at least for a while today, maybe they will make it. Thankful this evening for all the prayers offered for our safe journey today.