June 20th. part 2-The Ending to a Memorable Day.

After our lovely hike to the cross we decided as a group to go back to the YWAM camp at the bottom of the mountain and pick up our backpacks and go hike some more! great idea, right? totally. We actually had a destination planned for this hike, our goal; the natural hot springs-I had never even heard of a hot spring before....I was thinking "um...spring is usually hot in Georgia, and its June guys..." Needless to say I was a little behind everyone else. I went along regardless of my lack of knowledge of the event, I mean hey, It was an opportunity to hike with my pack that I love so dearly. I was ecstatic, the forest was beautiful and the weather was perfect!

 

I wish I could live in this valley, the picture doesn't do it justice. We quietly hiked through this valley not wanting to upset anything or disturb the peaceful feeling that it contained.

Up the mountain to the hot springs we headed, dodging toads in the trail and high stepping over fallen trees we made it!...and it smelled terrible. yup, all that way and the entire place smelled like rotten eggs, but it looked so neat.

The water was so hot it was boiling and steaming, and here's the kicker, we brought along a dozen eggs to hard boil. It was so much fun trying to figure out how to get it in and out successfully. I figured it out pretty quickly, not to brag or anything. 

He was a bit confused as to why I wrapped him in a bandanna
 and plopped him into boiling sulfur water.

Boy, after 15 minutes under he came out perfect! though...I'm not sure if it was worth burning off my finger hairs. Too late now. 

June 20th part 1

June 20.

We took our first hikes today as a group. It was a milestone in this adventure. We all took our packs, half packed, and loaded them into Clifford the big red van, and headed out to the YWAM camp up in the mountains. we drove 45 minutes upward and arrived an hour or so before lunch, so to waste some time we thought "hey, lets go back out into the windy, cold mountain air and climb the steepest mountain I've ever seen, that sounds like fun!" so off we went. We came across a steep ditch with a small creek flowing down it. Conveniently there was a fallen tree that we could use to cross over it, it was slippery from the rainfall the night before, but with my super ninja skills I concord it without a fall.

 Of course I wasn't nervous at all, unlike Hamster, he wouldn't even peak out of my pocket.

We went through a lot of elevation change in a short period of time. We climbed for about 30 minuted and then it turned more into boldering on top of a mountain. I did not feel safe at all, I was so high up and the only thing keeping me from falling down this steep, rocky, slippery slope was whatever grip my hands had on the ground around me. After scrambling and crawling up over the rocks I made it to the cross! 

The Cross on top of the mountain was my goal. 

It really was a symbolic afternoon, as Christians we try and go to the cross daily, but it usually takes us climbing and scrambling up our mountains we build ourselves, all of our sin piled up separating us from God. We have to use Christs strength to make it to the top of these kinds of mountains. 

We made it to the cross as a team. 

It was a beautiful view! From the top you can see all of the dead trees surrounding the camp buildings from a wildfire that cut through this forest 7 years ago, but right in the center of the forest the fire jumped right over the top of the campus, as if God put his hand there to protect the land for YWAM.

I guess all the bumping around in my pocket made Hamster sleepy, he was kinda tired when we got to the top. 

To be continued. 

Hamsters Amazing Cascade Adventures.

June 18th.

To get familiar with the town of Cascade the Staff put  together a scavenger hunt. We were put in three groups of two and dropped off at different locations throughout the town, we were given a page long list of places to visit, pictures to take and people to complement. starting at 9:30 my partner and I were dropped off at the gas station at the edge of town.

we did the challenge there (locate the Jones soda in the store) and then decided to head out to the lake. I wasn't aware when we started that it was a 20 minute hike uphill the whole way. So that was fun. At the lake the challenge was to take a picture of our feet in the water. I sat down on the loading dock and began to untie my converse when I heard a person shouting at me, "You'll get your feet wet if you do that!" I looked up and after my eyes adjusted to the glare of the water I saw a old man sitting in a fishing boat across from me on the other loading dock, he and his wife were staring at the two of us in confusion so I shouted back "That's the whole idea." and with that they both shook their heads and continued on with their business.

looking back now we did look rather silly.

 The old man turned out to be correct, I did indeed have wet feet by the end, It was a good addition to the days experience. 

While we were at the lake we had one other memory to make, we had to take a picture wearing life jackets, and when it comes to me, life jacket pictures are never a serious matter, as you can see.

I was an explorer, I'm not sure what Eric is doing though.


After we terrorized the Lake dwellers a bit, Eric and I headed out to Cascade dam to meet one of the staff members (we were promised a snack there) I left my shoes off so my feet could dry from their dip earlier. It was a half mile walk to the dam from the lake, and then back of course. I felt so much like a true woodsy, hippie, backpacking guru person walking that far without shoes-seeing as I rarely even walk inside my house without shoes when I'm in Georgia, I guess I'm already becoming a knew creation through Christ Jesus.
Some things never change though. I threw my shoes back on and we headed back into town. We had to discover how many different flavors of ice cream the Cascade Store has. 11 was the diagnosis,  I checked that mission off of our list and went to exit the building when Hamster convinced me to buy him an ice cream cone, he is a little fellow so he couldn't finish the whole thing-and I wasn't going to be wasteful and throw it away. It was scrumptious, Huckleberry flavored with chunks of blueberries. yummy.

Hamster's eyes are bigger then his stomach, in more than one way.

After ice cream we stopped at several other shops and met people. We only had 6 more tasks to complete when we stopped for lunch at 1:00pm. Turns out we left the hardest things for last, which was a bummer because we both were so full and warm and sleepy, but we still had 2 miles to walk before we were done at 4:00pm. Now there is no doubt in my mind that Jesus loves me because the only fast food restaurant in Cascade is Subway! huzzah! it's less then  mile from my base. That's where we all met up for lunch and let me tell you, Hamster was super excited, he could barely decide on what to get!

He takes lunch very seriously.

The buffalo  chicken sub was too spicy for him so I had to eat it. The rest of the afternoon he was pretty tired and was content on riding in my backpack.

After lunch we had a couple more hours before our deadline, so we set off to find the largest tree in Cascade-it was kind of hard to locate with so many trees around town. I just wanted to find a big stack of cut firewood and say that WAS it. That would have saved us so much time. Eventually we came across it in some guys back yard! we asked him about it and he told us that it was one of the three largest trees in Idaho. Hearing that I figured I should get my picture taken with it, just to make me feel more like a tourist. 

There she is! she's a bit larger in person.....it loses some of the majesty in the picture. 

After a long walk and a slight sun burn, we mostly completed our list and headed back to our leaders house for a nice competitive game of Balderdash. 

A Day I Won't Forget.

June 15 was a long day. It started out a little rough, I stayed up the whole night, my check in bag was too large, things were piling up. We finally got all my luggage into my Dads truck and that's when I started my last goodbyes. My mom had woken up to see me off as well as Jonathan. We did a group hug thing and individual hugs. There was a strange feel to my house as I looked around it, knowing that I wouldn't see any of it for a long time it all seemed to grow more meaningful the closer I stepped to the door.

It didn't take long to check my bag in and get myself orientated, Dad and Janna walked with me to the beginning of security and that's where we had our last goodbyes, I took my bags and went through the security process smoothly, right before I went through the metal detector I wanted to catch my last glimpse of them, and sure enough there they were, I waived goodbye and they waived back, and then disappeared behind a crowd of people trying to get through. As soon as I was reassembled from security I found my way down to the trains and hoped on one, I think I have seen one too many movies with trains getting into accidents because I was waiting for a window to break and people get sucked out or to have something fall and crush an entire car, any, I was paranoid for about 10 minutes while on the way to my gate. It was a longer walk then I had anticipated and I passes all of the restaurants on my way there so when I got to gate 24 and saw that I still had an hour until boarding I figured I would go and hunt for something for breakfast. I have a travel ritual that I go to Martins and order a steak biscuit before all of my flights from home but it wasn't open when we stopped that morning so I had to substitute it for  a plain bagel with cream cheese and  a Naked Mango smoothie, it was delicious and filling but not a steak biscuit. On the flight I sat next to a 60 something year old grandma who was extremely nervous and had never flown before, so I took it upon myself to point out to her all the cloud formations and shadows on the ground, did I mention she was scared of heights? I didn't make her flight any less stressful, but I was quite amused.

at my seat, pretending to be nervous  so the person sitting next to me would feel better about them self.

As soon as I heard the announcement the we had entered Phoenix I felt so free, all my traveling nervous vanished with the view of the city , I wasn't homesick any longer, I felt strong and independent, for the first time since I applied for this school I felt fully prepared to have an adventure. It was exhilarating. 

The captain informed us of the weather in the city "Alrighty folks, in the city of Phoenix this afternoon it's a nice and cool 90 degrees ferenheight." he also mentioned the time (which had changed back an hour) and I freaked because I had to board my next plane in 15 minutes and I had no idea where I was going. The very first lesson I've learned on this trip is how to be an aggressive traveler. I made it in time to board with my class even after I made a quick detour to buy a water bottle, it's incredible how dehydrated you can get whilest being thousands of feet in the air moving at super fast speeds. Great fun.

Moving from one plane right onto the next, I located my seat to Boise, plopped down next to the window (my wonderful father got me two window seats, which made me incredibly happy.) I stuffed my giant blue backpack under the seat in front of me, unwrapped a Lemon Luna bar and devoured it. 

I waited and waited but no one ever sat next to me, I didn't want to get too excited but when we started to taxi onto the ramp I had to have a dance party in my seat from excitement, after my victory dance I settled in to relax. 

My cute traveling buddies with my juice

I ordered a Cran Apple juice for old times sake, I missed my older sister Jess while I drank it. Thinking of our trip to the Bahamas last year.

We had been in the air only 10 minutes when there was an announcement that we were now flying over the Grand Canyon! I did not have that on my radar and flipped out a little inside. It was of course, beautiful, but there was a lot of cloud cover over it so I didn't get the full experience-I'll just have to go back and see it for real. I've put that on my adventure list. 

I settled in for the 1 1/2 hour flight, took a few pictures (that are shown above) sang a few songs (only one aloud-the kid behind me sang along and for a second there I thought everyone might join in and we could break out into a fully choreographed dance number in the air.....but I guess that usually doesn't happen.) 

Saying Goodbye Isn't Hard.....

Today has been a rollercoaster of emotion. I'm having a very difficult time accepting that I am actually leaving tomorrow morning.....I had so many ideas on what to  write about, my last post before I leave. Now all I can think is "what the heck am I doing?!" I'm not feeling very profound or detailed, just scrambled and....terrified mostly.
My Dad is taking me to the airport tomorrow morning, my flight should leave at 8:00 am, if everything goes according to plan I should land in Phoenix, Arizona by 11:00, have a short lay over, then pull out all off my keen street knowledge and cleverness to find my new plane boarding place (I'm pretty sure that's the official name.) Hopefully after boarding the correct plane, passing through a few time zones and being thoroughly confused  to what the actual time is I shall land in Boise, Idaho at what I believe,(if my calculations are correct) will be 12:00 pm (2:00 pm in Georgia) and that will  be the easy part. ^_^
My brother Jonathan is also leaving for YWAM this month, June 27. His base is in Honolulu. I won't see him for 9 months after tonight so he suggested that we hang out all night, and I very readily agreed to the idea, being under the realistic assumption  that "all night" meant something like, "until I get sleepy at midnight".
.....oh silly me. It was 11:30 pm tonight, I had recently just got home from being out with friends and was going to get all of my luggage fully pact and together, Money in order and then double check everything.....he flung open my door and leaned on the frame, a Kroger bag full of Kick Start Orange Citrus Mountain Dews and a head full of plans for the next 5 hours, let me just say that we did not have the same plans in mind. I stuck to my schedule though, I was firm.....and that's only one of the reasons I am now finishing off my first can of Dew and trying to manipulate the ever changing real estate of a 4 person game of Monopoly.......I will probably regret this....aahh it'll be fine.
For all of my true friends out there, you can send me all kinds of edible things and letters  to this address.

Jennifer Reece (Summer BDTS 2013)
c/o YWAM Idaho
PO Box 70
Cascade, ID 83611

I can think of almost nothing more exciting then getting mail my first week away-and even after that, and of course I will return the gesture ( unless it's cookies, in that case I will eat those in there entirety)

So like I said, saying goodbye isn't hard.....it's the leaving that is.