Hands on training, finally!

After a 2 day camping excursion to the YMCA Warner Tully camp I have finally made it back to campus.  It felt good to finally get outdoors and not sit in a classroom all day. Day 1 we hit up 4 stations, Trail blazing, painting, power tools, and roofing.  It was hottttt, hit 100 with a heat index of 115, couple kids couldn't take it and had to head to the infirmary.  The day started with our van pulling away from campus at 6:30 and heading to the YMCA bright and early.. upon arrival we unloaded and reached the trail clearing station around 9am.  Trail blazing was very strenuous and we exerted the most energy and sweat clearing trails and chopping down tree's.  My tool of choice was an axe with a picket type thing on the back.  I got to chop down about 2 trees with it and it was by far the most badass tool out there.  After filling up on water over and over we headed to power tools next where we instructed the basics on how most the of power tools we would be using.  Cain (a fellow river 7 teamate) and I ended up doing some demolition work (awesome) and put up a roof foundation in the blazing heat.  After we completed this and had lunch the next station was roofing, and was it hot as the dickens on top of that roof.  We worked in teams of 2 up there because the heat was so bad and rotated taking breaks in the shade.  Finally after 2 hours of this we moved onto our last station of the day... painting! Now as an experienced painter (Working at Damon's Painting Co for 2 years) I had to bite my tongue at a lot of the instructions and just proceed to do whatever I was told. Needless to say there was no scraping, sanding, or priming, but just painting, and sloppy painting at that! I decided to head up on the ladder and brush out the trim with a dark grey paint for the majority of the time following the three "P's" I learned at Damon's Painting! Professional, Personable, and Precision! Painting was enjoyable although we did have to wear huge coveralls to protect our uniforms from getting paint on them which meant we were burning alive in those things! Fortunately it started raining (not so good for the painting) and we had to stop.  Eventually it started to thunder and downpour and we called it a day and head in for dinner where we were fed minuscule portions of pasta for dinner with salad.  Due to our ridiculously small food budget (4.50 a day per person) we usually have to eat pretty unhealthy which irritates me but I try to make the best of it (thank god eggs are so cheap). By the time dinner was done most of us were exhausted from the long day and just wanted to sleep, we had a mini camp fire going for a little and some of us played cards in the cafeteria before I headed to the tent around 10ish for some sleep.  Now this was my first camping experience and fortunately I had Cain who is a camping master to help me setup the tent and learn the ways of the wild.  He probably found it pretty humorous when I arrived back at the tent and pulled out my laptop and signed in disgust at the lack of phone reception and no 3g internet available.  Now being completely bored I attempted to sleep which was not east at all. The heat was ridiculous and even with sleeping in only boxers and on top of my sleeping bag I found myself sticking to it and decided to just sleep on the tent floor instead.  Around 4am I awoke because it was a little frigid for my likings (Did not see that one coming in MS) and from around then until 6am I was waking up constantly...  Finally around 7 we ate breakfast (ghetto brand honey nut cheerios) and started day #2.  Now this was a lot more fun than the prior as our only stations left were low ropes, high ropes, and low ropes again. Mainly team building exercises which were interesting and cool since we were able to stay in the shade.  Low ropes exercises required strategy and teamwork to succeed (Teamwork makes the dream work!). However the most fun I had was on the high ropes!  I never zip-lined on trees before and I finally had the opportunity to do so which was amazing.  I actually went through the course 3 times I had so much fun and conquered the rock wall as well. My first zipline was amazing, I decided to do a faith fall which is when you stand with your back to the ground from the tree and put your arms out and just fall so you plummet to the ground upside down and backwards. Without a doubt one of the most fun experiences I've had (hence the reason why I did it twice again). The rest of the day we had to cleanup our campsite and pack up the tents, and finally around 4 we headed back to campus which felt amazing to sleep in a bed again.