Memorial Day Weekend
Sorry I haven’t updated in a while, guys. But today you’re getting three in a row! Isn’t that special! So, yeah. For our first act, I present the Tale of Memorial Day Weekend ’07!
On Friday, May 25th, I came home from school and, instead of loafing around like I usually do, packed for two days of outdoor family fun. Then, once everyone else had done the same, we loaded up the car and left … for the AMC near the Natick Mall to see Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World’s End. This was to avoid the long-weekend traffic that we would have encountered had we left at six.
And it worked, too. The movie ended just after nine, and we arrived at our hotel before midnight.
The next day, Saturday, we left the hotel around nine and got to Adventure Bound White-Water Rafting Co. just in time for lunch. While we munched on cold-cut sandwiches and trail mix, forms were filled out and Dave the Guide was met. Then when we’d moved all the luggage from car to tent, ‘twas off to the woods for the ropes courses!
Climbing up to a platform 40 feet off the ground may be fun, but jumping off of it is not. I don’t care if the rope is of woven spider webs, or if the clasps on the harness are of galvanized titanium, I don’t care if the tree the rope is attached to is a 400 year old sequoia, I don’t care if that’s my own true love as the belayer - jumping off something that high is not something I can do without a second thought!
Swinging on a rope, though, was fun. As was the team obstacle course. And after dinner, we got to roast marshmallows and go on the indoor climbing wall and swim in the pool and hang in the hot tub! That night in the tent was frikkin’ FREEZING, though.
Breakfast was served at six on Sunday morning. Then at seven-thirty, everyone going rafting (mi familia y yo, a Girl Scout troop, and a Boy Scout troop) was given a black, horrible, awful, smelly, confining, too-hot, sticky, too-small Wetsuit of Ultimate Discomfort - some of the younger Girl Scouts were actually crying about it - a yellow helmet, a yellow paddle, and a yellow lifejacket. Then the Boy Scouts headed over to Dead River on a minibus, and we and the Extremely High-Pitched Girl Scouts were off on another bus to the Kennebec.
The Kennebec River is nice. The rapids are fairly tame, the banks are pretty to look at, it was a nice day, and our guide was very good at his job. There was even a place where Okaa-san, Pidge, Gracious, and Attitude got out and drifted through the rapids! Later on, after the lunch stop, we took out the inflatable mini-kayaks and paddled about in front of the raft. All in all, ‘twas a good first rafting trip.
We got back to camp and I shucked that damn wetsuit as fast as humanly possible. Then it was the hot tub until dinner, a nice shower after that, then we all got t-shirts from the gift shop and we were on our way home.
Memorial Day itself wasn’t all that exciting. I was woken up by the parade, which I followed through to the end. They were giving out free food afterwards, but I was feeling … odd (is the room supposed to tilt like that? no? huh.) … and didn’t eat much. Vud’s family was nice enough to give me a ride home, and I spent the rest of the day avoiding my - albeit negligible - homework.
On Friday, May 25th, I came home from school and, instead of loafing around like I usually do, packed for two days of outdoor family fun. Then, once everyone else had done the same, we loaded up the car and left … for the AMC near the Natick Mall to see Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World’s End. This was to avoid the long-weekend traffic that we would have encountered had we left at six.
And it worked, too. The movie ended just after nine, and we arrived at our hotel before midnight.
The next day, Saturday, we left the hotel around nine and got to Adventure Bound White-Water Rafting Co. just in time for lunch. While we munched on cold-cut sandwiches and trail mix, forms were filled out and Dave the Guide was met. Then when we’d moved all the luggage from car to tent, ‘twas off to the woods for the ropes courses!
Climbing up to a platform 40 feet off the ground may be fun, but jumping off of it is not. I don’t care if the rope is of woven spider webs, or if the clasps on the harness are of galvanized titanium, I don’t care if the tree the rope is attached to is a 400 year old sequoia, I don’t care if that’s my own true love as the belayer - jumping off something that high is not something I can do without a second thought!
Swinging on a rope, though, was fun. As was the team obstacle course. And after dinner, we got to roast marshmallows and go on the indoor climbing wall and swim in the pool and hang in the hot tub! That night in the tent was frikkin’ FREEZING, though.
Breakfast was served at six on Sunday morning. Then at seven-thirty, everyone going rafting (mi familia y yo, a Girl Scout troop, and a Boy Scout troop) was given a black, horrible, awful, smelly, confining, too-hot, sticky, too-small Wetsuit of Ultimate Discomfort - some of the younger Girl Scouts were actually crying about it - a yellow helmet, a yellow paddle, and a yellow lifejacket. Then the Boy Scouts headed over to Dead River on a minibus, and we and the Extremely High-Pitched Girl Scouts were off on another bus to the Kennebec.
The Kennebec River is nice. The rapids are fairly tame, the banks are pretty to look at, it was a nice day, and our guide was very good at his job. There was even a place where Okaa-san, Pidge, Gracious, and Attitude got out and drifted through the rapids! Later on, after the lunch stop, we took out the inflatable mini-kayaks and paddled about in front of the raft. All in all, ‘twas a good first rafting trip.
We got back to camp and I shucked that damn wetsuit as fast as humanly possible. Then it was the hot tub until dinner, a nice shower after that, then we all got t-shirts from the gift shop and we were on our way home.
Memorial Day itself wasn’t all that exciting. I was woken up by the parade, which I followed through to the end. They were giving out free food afterwards, but I was feeling … odd (is the room supposed to tilt like that? no? huh.) … and didn’t eat much. Vud’s family was nice enough to give me a ride home, and I spent the rest of the day avoiding my - albeit negligible - homework.