The Crunch is Where It's At

Lakeside
Originally uploaded by link5001.

Destination: Middle of Nowhere

This weekend was the weekend of CCF's (Campus Christian Fellowship) annual fall retreat. Luckily for me, I got my money in right on time and was able to go. Now, I'll be honest. As with all campy trips, I wasn't quite feeling up to it when I was getting ready to go. I had just finished a stressful test study/taking period. I have 2 big test things coming up this week, a lot of little side project garbage I keep putting off (like getting those stickers to the anniversary winners...sorry!) and so when the time actually came to pack up to go I definitely had on my Whiny McWhinerson shoes. I was, to put it more concisely, poop tired and shortsighted.
Friday I threw all my stuff in a big bag (or almost all as you'll see later) and headed to Cape Fear Christian Church where Joe and the whole "gang" was waiting in the token big hoopty church van. After tossing in my deluxe travel luggage (a laundry bag) and The Dino Pillow I had but to hop in the navigator's seat and enjoy the glorious 4 hour trip to Park Springs Christian Center.
The travel was brisk as Joe took great pleasure in exploiting the Dodge Van's engine. The conversation kept me distracted from the endless miles of road. Before I knew it I was in the middle of nowhere staring at goats on a road that went to the camp's muti-purpose room. The sun had set so there wasn't much to see but the slight gleam of light on water in the distance. The first nights service went well and was probably my favorite service of the weekend, but the other three were good too as they revolved around the theme of preparedness for evangelism.
Ok, so then I went to the cabin which I consider a magic cabin because it is basically a plywood box that blocks out all light. You could be in there at high noon and wake up and think it was 3 AM. Without an alarm you'd sleep all day, no problem. After stacking the two pee pee protected foam mattresses on my plywood bed, I was able to get some shuteye, and wake up the next morning surprisingly refreshed.
What an awesome surprise awaited me in the morning! A beautiful little camp with a high hiking trail over a nifty lake. I always love having quiet times in nature and that morning was very cool because of that. Then tragedy struck as the first in a line of "oops I forgot..." moments started to occur. Frist I realized I forgot shower shoes. Some people have no problem walking around on whatever. Call me a sissy girly boy but I feel all dirty walking barefoot in a public shower, but you know I got over it. Then I realized I forgot some bath supplies. Nothing too important, the main this was some shampoo, which someone graciously lent me. The third and biggest idiot mistake I realized, much later than realizing the others, was that I hadn't brought my towely. Now, I know at such a place someone, SOMEONE would have been kind enough to lend me an extra towel, or maybe give me some nice expensive brand paper towels, but I, at this point, was so exasperated with my own forgetfulness, that I decided to punish myself by not seeking a towel at all. After all, what if I'm in the jungle sometime and don't have a towel? I'll need to know how to take a shower then right? So what replacement did my brilliant mind come up with?

A pair or shorts.

The rest of the weekend went swell. God was defiantly in that place (and every place) and I got to know the kind folks in CCF much better. The music was quite sa-weet (nice job Glen and gang) and Kit made some interesting points in his speeches. I even was surprised to meet fellow Caswell '05 staffer, Courtnay Nixon down there. Everyone was, as all CCFers have been to me so far, very nice
...at least until a game of carpet ball breaks out, then there can be some bitter rivalry (I'll soon claim my rightful championship title back!!!) In fact, the only bad thing going out of it was a sore shoulder on my carpet balling arm due to my mad skillful technique. Though I was slow to jump on the bandwagon mentally, I'm now so VERY happy that I had the good experience with those folks that I did. So the moral of the story is always keep a good attitude...
...even when drying off with scratchy shorts.

So uh....what happens when your cassette adaptor runs out of tape?