Youth Camp 2014

This past week I went to camp with my church youth group to Lake Junaluska, North Carolina and had a blast! Here is an outline of what happened:

DAY ONE: Monday, July 21, 2014.

­­­­Today was a traveling day, we spent 6 hours traveling and stopped at a mall in Knoxville to eat lunch. Once we arrived we moved our stuff into our rooms. We had two people to a room this year, yay! Then my friend Yashira and I helped the youth band get everything set up for the service that night. The service was good, we have an awesome youth band that my boyfriend plays the drums in so I really enjoyed hearing them play J. After service we just chilled and hung out until 10:30 when it was time to go to our rooms to sleep. No sleeping happened in my room though, Yashira (my roommate and friend on this trip) stayed up chatting until nearly 2 in the morning!

DAY TWO: Tuesday, July 22, 2014.

Waking up today was TERRIBLE, we had to be up a 6:30 and ugh, it was so hard to wake up. We were definitely regretting staying up so late! We ate breakfast at 7:30 and the dining hall reminded me of my school food so I didn’t enjoy it that much. The schedule for today was a train ride through the Smoky Mountains. This train ride was a replacement for a failed theme park visit (the theme park ended up being closed during the week we were in NC). It turned out to be more fun than I expected it to be though! The Smokies are gorgeous. The train ride was four and a half hours and we got to walk around the train and to the dining car where we found a banjo player and square danced on the train! I didn’t think I would ever square dance on a train haha. After we got back to the station we did some shopping at the gift shop, where I got my brother some dino-poop (it is some smelly poop colored play-doh with bones in it :P) and my parents some sweet potato butter which is delicious!

When we got back to the hotel, we went swimming and the water was super cold but it was still fun and then we ate dinner. After dinner we had service, again with the awesome band and a funny speaker Dave Edwards. Again, like yesterday, we just hung out and chilled after the service; except this time we had karaoke. I’m not a karaoke fan, but it was funny to watch everyone else do it. We didn’t stay up so late this time cause we were exhausted. Before sleeping, Yashira and I read for a little while; I’m currently reading Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson, look for a review when I am done!

DAY THREE: Wednesday, July 23, 2014.

Today was a pretty busy day, we went to a high ropes course and white water rafting. Both were really fun. We went to the place we took a layover at during the train ride. I had a blast at the high ropes course, we had to zip-line to get to the 3^rd level and it was pretty scary being so high up even though we were harnessed and connected to a cable; but once you got used to being up high it was totally awesome! After doing the whole course a few times, we ate lunch then went rafting. I’ve gone rafting a few times in my life so I sort of knew what to expect. If you have not been rafting before, I highly recommend it. But make sure to go on a good tour, this one was one of the worst in my opinion. The rapids weren’t that good and the water was FREEZING, like between 44 and 50 degrees fareinheit. It felt like ice water. On the second “swimming” spot, all the boys in my raft decided that they were going to push the girls in the water and it was like the worse shock to my body. It was so cold! But nonetheless, it was still a fun rafting trip. After that we did normal nightly activities like worship and hanging out and singing karaoke.

 DAY FOUR: Thursday, July 24, 2014.

This was one of my favorite days, I love zip-lining (again if you haven’t done this, definitely do it!). At first we thought we wouldn’t be able to go because it was raining and I was upset because I was really exciting about going. After finding out that we may not be able to go, I went back and slept until about 10:40 AM, when someone knocked on my door and told me that we could go! I was so happy. Once we got there, Mark, Yashira and I were put in the second zip-lining group, so before going zip-lining we ate pulled pork sandwiches at the place. Normally I don’t really like pulled pork, but these were surprisingly good. After eating we were able to go and get harnessed up and taught how to zip-line and how to stop ourselves and stay safe. We got these little gloves that we were and that allowed us to be our own brakes and it was so fun! We zip-lined a total of 6 lines with one be a quarter mile across the pigeon river. Best zip-lining experience yet, I wish we could have done more lines though.

After getting back Mark, his brother and I went canoeing and that did not go well, we suck at canoeing haha. But after we just did the normal stuff. However, this time my friends and I did karaoke. Mark and his friend Miles did a rap song and then Yashira and I did “A Thousand Miles” It was okay haha.

DAY FIVE: Friday, July 25, 2014.

Today was a traveling day, we came back from camp :( sad day. Camp felt way too short, I wish we had more days. Today is also Mark’s Birthday J, we celebrated with cake yesterday since travelled back home today. After taking a group picture, we left and rode a bus for another 4 and a half hours. We stopped to eat on the way back but other than that today was uneventful.

These are pictures of the band, Mark is the drummer, Noah is the Guitar player and lead singer and Jessie is the piano player and singer (not pictured: Abby, our bass player).

There is my recap of what happened during camp last week. I had a blast and am kind of sad to be back already, I honestly miss it and wish camp was like two or three weeks long. I can’t wait for next year!

Thank you for reading!

Kylie