Girls Camp

I got to attend girls camp this year. Since our ward had scheduled the Webelo's overnighter on Friday night, and girls camp didn't end until Sat., I had to come home early, so Matt could take Dillon. We left early on Wednesday morning, with several cars full of girls. The camp was about 4+ hours away, at a ranch of our girls camp director's grandparents. We stopped before getting to the ranch for lunch, and divided into groups to do various service projects.
The project our group did, was to help an elderly, widowed lady with her yard. She has a HUGE amount of land, which her son used to help her maintain. He broke his neck last year, and passed away. She did not want to let us help at first, but then warmed up to the idea, after a while. We hoed her huge garden, and also vacuumed and dusted her house. She told me in tears that she had been praying for the strength to do all she needed to do today, when we showed up. She said nobody has ever helped her like that before. I think all of the girls in our group loved helping her, and were so sweet to her. They even loved that her name is Madonna. :)

I have had a sore throat since Sunday, so I was thinking that it was just a cold. Unfortunately, I started getting achy and a fever- and realized it was most likely strep. The next day we had an all day hike planned. I woke up very dizzy, but still determined to go on this hike. We had a 2 hour drive ahead of us, and 26 miles on the most dusty, bumpy, pot holed road I've ever been on. One of the cars had a flat tire, and car sick girls, which made for an interesting start. We finally made it to the hiking spot.
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It starts out on top of a huge mountain, which you have to descend to get to the slot canyons we were going to hike. In order to get down, you have to traverse back and forth on narrow, steep narrow rocks to get to the bottom. After that, you hike through red sand, for quite some time, before reaching the canyons. The entire time I was worried, and wondering if Morgan's newly operated on legs, were going to be able to do this hike. We had been told this hike wasn't a big deal, and it wasn't too long, and we could hike one canyon- and decide not to do the other, if we didn't want to. Unfortunately, none of that was entirely true. It was long, difficult, and if you did the first slot canyon, you either had to go back the same way you had come, or hike over 1/2 mile in the sand to the next canyon, go through that, to get out. The first was really cool looking, but not so easy to do. There were huge boulders, and holes to climb up/down/ and through. I didn't take pictures, but got a couple of these from the internet. Once at the top, there is one tree, which all of the girls and leaders tried to sit under, to eat lunch, before the next hike. (Did I mention at the top it was 107 degrees?) We had not been adequately prepared with water, and having a fever and dizziness before we left, at this point I really started feeling it. After our rest, we left for the second hike, through the sand. We got to the second canyon called "spooky". It is named that for a reason. Holy cow! If you have claustrophobia, this is not the hike for you. The walls of the canyon are hard to describe. They are so close together, it is frightening. You have to drop down several feet in order to even get into the canyon, then the walls are so close together, that most of the time, you had to carry your backpack, in order to get through. Morgan was ahead of me at one point, and she says, "I don't think my head will even fit through here."
So I got a little panicked, and decided to crawl through that one, because the thought of my head getting stuck was too much. I was completely out of water by now, and not even sweating, although the temperature was over 100 degrees. I was so dizzy and seeing spots so it was hard to walk. We made it through all of the twists and turns, of the close walls, and came out into the open, hot and sandy valley. We walked for probably 3/4 a mile before we came to the big mountain that we have to climb up. I was not doing well at all by now, having had only 1 bottle of water in over 5 hours, with a fever, in the heat. I would walk a few steps, and literally could not see where I was walking, because of the spots in my eyes. Morgan was so sweet, she was encouraging me, and staying by my side, instead of going with her friends. She would say, lets just stop and rest right here, for a minute- you can get up when you're ready. I thought she was the one going to have the hard time, and yet, here she was being "the mom" to me. Two of the Priesthood leaders stayed with us, and decided to give me a blessing. It was so embarrassing, and humbling and incredibly sweet. I don't know how I could have made it up that mountain without it. It was still so difficult to even see, that I at one point, on the steep rocks, I had to hold onto the shoulder of someone, and just trust that they could get me through it. Finally we got to the top, and were ready to leave. Again, we had to travel down the 26 mile bumpy dirt road, and the car I was in got a flat- again. (Different car this time.) It took over an hour to change it, and the car fell off the jack at one point. The van that Morgan was in came up behind us, after we stopped, and literally swerved within inches of hitting our car. She slammed on her brakes and got out. The leader said she had fallen asleep, and woke at the last minute- when she saw our car on the side of the road. She said she falls asleep all the time, while driving. That would have been nice to know, before she had a van full of kids with her. (Needless to say, one of the other leaders took over the driving on the way back.) We made it back to camp eventually though. That night we had probably 10 girls sick from heat stroke/dehydration. It was not the best night. Although this hike was physical, what did everyone in was the heat/lack of water. I sure wish we had known, and been more prepared for this. I feel like we all probably learned a lot, and we pushed ourselves beyond what we normally would have. However- while this is good, it makes me sick to think that something more serious could have happened. I am so grateful for the Priesthood, and for my sweet daughter. I know I needed both on that hike. The 'fun' day of camp was suppossed to be on Friday, and Saturday- when I was gone. I will have to get the scoop from Morgan, when she gets back. I hope it was much less eventful than the days when I was there! :)