Hi, All!
I am here today to tell you about our recent Destination Imagination field trip! It's an adventure-so hold onto your seats!! :D
We hopped into the car and enjoyed a peaceful ride on the way there, with me reading some books. We passed Newfound Lake and shivered just thinking about hopping in the lake.
"That would be REALLY cold!!" Leo mused.
"Yes, I just wish that swimming wasn't over completely for the summer," Stella declared.
"There's always more swimming next year. Remember the last time we went to the lake?" Mater asked.
"I could never forget!" Stella said.
The last time we went to the lake was after Hurricane Irene came with her whipping winds and stormy gusts. The beach was TOTALLY covered with water! All the way up to the rocks was completely flooded! It was certainly an adventure! But I am getting off the topic of THIS adventure...
We came to Camp Berea and, opening our car doors, popped the little kids into strollers and walked down a path.
"Hey! Where is everybody?" Rus asked.
"I don't know, Rus," Mater answered.
"Hey! I think I see them!" Leo said. We hurried in that direction.
We looked everywhere for our team but couldn't find them!
"I'm going to ask in the office," Mater declared.
The walk wasn't too bad; we were still on time, but the minutes seemed to fly past. The sun moved in between clouds, and the multicolored leaves rustled in the trees. The lake spread out before us, beautiful, but with splashing waters and freezing cold waves.
Mater asked the people at the desk. They told us which direction our group went in, but they had no idea where they really were.
We stood on the steps, with our thinking caps on, the wind nipping at our faces.
"Should Stella and I go looking for them?" Leo questioned.
"It's worth a try; just don't go too far." Mater warned.
Leo and I ran off again in the direction we thought they went in. We ran and ran! It was a beautiful run though. The wind blew in our faces; the sun came in little patches through the fluffy white clouds with the beauty around us. We passed another large group of children running around with happy shouts. We ran past them. Sucking in deep breaths, we stopped.
"I think we should turn back," Stella said.
"I guess you're right," Leo sighed. We turned back and jog-walked to the steps. Mater greeted us, but we were disappointed. But it was hard to be too unhappy on this beautiful day. Still, the beautiful surroundings weren't bringing us any closer to finding our team. Mater went inside to see if they had Mrs. L's number.
Filia sat in her stroller. Rus and Tert sat on the steps on either side of her. Leo and I leaned against the post. After a moment, Leo's face brightened. He had spotted a member of our team! He popped his head in the office, and Mater eagerly gave us permission to go over. Again Leo and I ran over. J smiled and waved. He and his mom knew where we were supposed to be.
Once again merry, we walked over to Mater and the little ones, and they joined our small group.
"Yes, they are at the gym!" Mrs. N. said. We got to the gym. There were several doors. We tried the side door.
"Nope," J said. We hurried to the next one.
"Nothing," Leo said.
The next one didn't heed to our pulling either.
"They're in there." We heard them in there. Resigning ourselves to wait, we stood outside one of the doors. In a moment it clicked open. The team walked out.
"There you guys are! We were wondering where you were!" H said.
"No! We were wondering where YOU were!" Stella laughed.
"Anyway, we're together as a group now!" A said.
We walked over to the start of our Ropes Course.
Ben, our Ropes leader, introduced himself. We all said our names and our favorite Disney movie, and then we waved goodbye to Mom, who was taking the little kids back to the gym. We walked down the path. The dirt path had leaves on it which crunched as we walked. Looking around and up at the tall trees, breathing in the fresh crisp wind, and enjoying one another's company on this beautiful day, we slowly made our way to our destination. We stopped at a log, which was held up a little ways from the ground, suspended by a thick chain. We all stepped on in no particular order. Ben then told us our challenge:
"This is your challenge: We are flying a little contraption here. The only way we can land is by ordering ourselves from shortest," pointing to the left, "to tallest," pointing to the right.
We all looked to the tallest. Our eyes widened and his did too. He was at the very end of the side where the shortest was to go! We had to order ourselves in order from shortest on the left to tallest on the right without stepping off the log.
"But wait! There's more!" Ben said. "There are some birds of prey around here and if you make too much noise you might rouse them and that wouldn't be pretty. So, only one of you can talk. Looking at me, he made me leader.
"You may talk, and only you! The rest of you have to make signs!" We all got ready. After falling off a couple of times and getting up to try again, we finally figured out that the best way to get in the place we wanted to be was by crouching. We also found that if the taller and the shorter people had to switch places, instead of the shorter person going over the taller person, the taller person went over the shortest. We finally, (amid much confusion) made it in order! It went really well. It was interesting; sometimes when we are all able to talk (all seven of us), it is harder to really listen to each other and fix a problem. When we all weren't able to talk, we didn't talk over each other or anything, and the signs worked well. We all mused over this as we walked down the path to our next challenge. This time we stopped in front of a rather large board, probably about five feet across and maybe six feet or so long. It was like a huge teeter-totter, with a log in the middle making it fly back and forth at the slightest touch. This time Leo was leader (but we all could talk), and we had to all get on that board, in the middle of it, one at a time and balance it out. When someone got on it, they had to have the board completely balanced before the next person (whom Leo picked) got on.
Ben said that this time we were on a whale watching tour and we had to get (as I wrote above) on the gangplank (the middle of the 'boat' or rather board.) We all got ourselves ready for the challenge. We also couldn't move unless Leo told us to or we would have to get off and wait until Leo had us go back on again-which was rather hard. One of our team members had to get off THREE times because he moved when Leo hadn't told him to! We all laughed hard. J grinned in spite of himself. Leo directed everyone on there, so that we were in about this order on the board:
A N J
H E Me
Leo
It worked well and we all got off one at a time at Ben's cautioning.
"I don't want anyone getting off on one side and catapulting the person on the other side!"
We all laughed and got off in a single file line one at a time in the middle.
"We have time for one more challenge!" Ben led us over to our next challenge.
We arrived at a thick tree. It went way up and seemed to touch the sky. We looked up and then down again to our next piece of equipment. There were two chains linked into the tree about a foot away from each other and a couple inches off the ground. There were two thick, VERY wobbly wires. They were spaced about six inches away from each other at the beginning and then the wires got farther and farther apart from each other and formed a V. Our next challenge was this:
We had to pick partners, (Me-A, Leo-N, E-J, *H-Me, *uneven amount of kids.) Then after we were with our partners, we had to get up on the wire, each of us on one wire and put our hands on each other's shoulders. We went as far as we could, leaning on each other for support on the VERY wobbly wire. We then grasped hands and went as far as possible, two team members behind each of the two people on the wire, and Ben in the middle with another team member. Making our wobbling way along the wire we went as far as we could, and then we stepped down if we couldn't go any farther, so not as to fall on our faces! A and I made it the farthest, and Leo made it second farthest.
We all were sad to see our fun day end. We walked back to the gym on the way, taking a team picture, and talking about our challenges. We then played some carpet ball with the rest of the group. When we left, walking and crunching our way along the dirt parking lot, we declared the trip-a field trip to remember, and one we hoped to do again soon!
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