First of my adventures over the last weeks has been our YCL High Adventure campout for the 16-18 year old girls at church! Since I am the Stake Young Women's camp director, we thought it'd be good for the girls to have a 'high adventure' like the boy scouts do. So, with the help of some of the best women, the leaders took the girls down to Shades State Park in central Indiana to go on our High Adventure campout!
19 young women, 6 leaders, 1 priesthood protector! Good morning!
6:00 am came quickly that beautiful friday morning, and we were off! First stop... the Canoes! There had been so much rain in the past month that the river was very high, and very dirty and faster than normal. (See pictures of my Anniversary trip to see the difference - same river!) So, we took the girls on a 15 mile canoe trip! We packed lunches with us, and paddled our way down the river - after a short lesson on how to steer! With 13 canoes out on the river, we got spread apart, and some girls and leaders capsised, some got spiders on them, some had to empty out the water, some just got out and walked a bit, some got hurt with scratches, bumps and bruises. But all in all, it was a fantastic time, and we were all watched over and protected!
The forcast for that day worried me, since we'd be on the river for about 5 hours, the thunderstorms that were coming had me worried. Fortunatley, we had sunny skies until about 1 mile to the end of our journey! Then it HIT! The sky got dark, we could hear the thunder, the winds picked up and all of the sudden, that last 4 canoes were in the middle of this thunderstorm on the river! We paddled our hearts out to reach the end, where we knew the rest of the group was waiting for us. Then, there was lightning! The 4 young women ahead of us got pulled off the river by some tubers and other canoers bringing people into the woods so they wouldn't get hit by lightning! Luckily, we saw them and pulled off as well. Once the lightning stopped, we got back in our canoes and took off toward the finish! Everyone was relieved that we were ok, since they were done canoeing by the time we got caught in the storm. (long story - keys were lost in river, and AAA was being called) But we did it! And it was SO fun! Even in the rain!
