We have recently been given a piano-I know, huh? Who just gives away a piano. Well we were lucky enough to know someone that didn't have room for it and now I have no excuse not to learn how. My first lesson book-Piano for Dummies.
Our Summer
Well, we survived. Our car, however, did not. But I’ll get to that later. What a summer-We are exhausted. They never could work out an assistant cook-so that became me. Doug was my boss and he totally let it go to his head-just kidding. We were busy though. We cooked, on average, for 300 hungry teenage boys who more often than not could eat seconds and thirds. We worked at least 12 hour days. No joke- the dishwasher ran almost 8000 times (it had an odometer) by the time we left and that’s not including when the dishes were washed by hand because of a power outage-which happened a few times. We had a kitchen staff of 5 boys to start with, which three quit because it was too hard, one got home sick and went home, and they hired two more boys who lasted a day before they quit. The scout troops were a great help and would come in after meals. We had one working oven-a convection oven at least, but still. Our kids, for the most part, were uninjured-which was a miracle especially as the shooting range was behind us and the pool was not too far (with a gate that could easily be climbed under). They were eaten alive by these horrible little bugs called No see’ums. Imagine a mosquito bite given by a bug about the size of a dot who also laid eggs into your skin so that the next day you would be covered in horrible itchy blisters. I am not a fan on those guys. They loved Ariah-poor baby. We had all kinds of critters in our apartment-especially if we left the door open. We had mice and a bat (and its baby) as our official house pets.
Anyway-We did have a great time. When we did get some free time we would do different camp activities. The swimming pool was perfect. It came from a natural hot spring so the temp was great. On Saturdays it would get refilled so the kids could play as it got deeper. We had staff parties at night which were pretty fun until you had to get out and then be freezing. Some other activities were the camp fires and skits, Cobbler cook off, Root Beer chug, staff hunt (hide and seek in the woods), the Yettie (Bigfoot) hike. We would have a movie night on Saturday and set up the projector and everyone would bring blankets and pillows to the dining hall and we would have popcorn and various treats. We were able to make it to the Lake at the camp and go out on a canoe. The Saturday after our birthdays we went to the Resort at Redfish Lake were played on the beach there and went on a tour of the Lake. We also visited Lake Stanley. Pretty much the whole area is incredibly beautiful. We would go to church in Stanley (about ½ hour from where we were) where there was a branch. Stanley only has about a hundred people who stick around for the winter-it really is cold.
Anyway-about the car. I left a day early from camp around 9ish at night. And I was totally watching out for deer, but all of a sudden one jumped out in front of me and pretty much demolished the whole passenger side of the car. 
I tried to drive it back to Redfish as the next actual town was sixty miles away. I got about a mile away from the Resorts turn off and the car died-lights, gages, everything. The kids and I slept in the car (Doug was still at the camp for two more days-theres no phone service in most of this area-it’s kinda hit and miss) and it got cold. During the night it was about twenty degrees. We were okay-we had all of our stuff from the summer, including blankets, packed in the car. Problem was that it was pretty packed, not very comfortable. But the next morning our friends that manage the resort were able to give us a ride home and the car was brought later. We couldn’t have it pulled as it would have had to go over Galena Summit-elevation about 7,000 feet and it would have been pretty rough through all the twists and turns and ups and downs of the mountains. I told Doug we could have stayed home and not had to work so hard this summer because pretty much all the money we made is going to the Van to get fixed and if we hadn’t gone up there it wouldn’t have needed to be fixed-so we pretty much broke even. We did have a lot of great experiences and met lots of great people though so it wasn’t a total loss. What a summer! Thanks to anyone who actually read through this-it got really long. I am so excited to be able to be back and get back in touch with everyone.
I tried to drive it back to Redfish as the next actual town was sixty miles away. I got about a mile away from the Resorts turn off and the car died-lights, gages, everything. The kids and I slept in the car (Doug was still at the camp for two more days-theres no phone service in most of this area-it’s kinda hit and miss) and it got cold. During the night it was about twenty degrees. We were okay-we had all of our stuff from the summer, including blankets, packed in the car. Problem was that it was pretty packed, not very comfortable. But the next morning our friends that manage the resort were able to give us a ride home and the car was brought later. We couldn’t have it pulled as it would have had to go over Galena Summit-elevation about 7,000 feet and it would have been pretty rough through all the twists and turns and ups and downs of the mountains. I told Doug we could have stayed home and not had to work so hard this summer because pretty much all the money we made is going to the Van to get fixed and if we hadn’t gone up there it wouldn’t have needed to be fixed-so we pretty much broke even. We did have a lot of great experiences and met lots of great people though so it wasn’t a total loss. What a summer! Thanks to anyone who actually read through this-it got really long. I am so excited to be able to be back and get back in touch with everyone.
2 comments:
Cool!
Joscelyn how is everything going for you? Are you making any trips this way anytime soon? I always look forward to reading your blog. How is Kaylee doing in school these days, and what are you all up to?
Erika
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