12 Days Of Summer Camp

Day 9

After only about two hours sleep, I awoke once again and had the usual breakfast. It was so close to the end of the twelve days I could taste home.

Today’s activity was going to be orienteering, and I was shit scared. Nether is just a bunch of trees, bush, hills and mud. Everything looks exactly the same so I didn’t know if I was going to see my chocolate ever again. My heart was pumping out of my chest, but I had a plan on how to not only arrive back to my tent safely, but to finish first.

Before the instructor started to talk, I purposely and intelligently sat next to the smartest people in class. They would know how to read a map better than I did so I sat next to them and acted charmingly.

The instructed then asked us to get into groups and I guess everyone had the same idea as me because I turned around and they were all in groups. Great. You know how when you’re asked to get into groups and because there is an odd number, there’s always going to be at least someone without a group? Yeah, that was me.

I was then put in the group with the least amount of people, and as soon as I got there they all claimed they didn’t know how to read a map so there I was, doing what I was trying to avoid the whole time. They basically shoved the map in my face and told me to do all the work for them.

I looked at the map and pointed everyone in the direction I thought the first clue would be. My group members behind me were basically doing their nails and gossiping so I just went where I thought the right direction would be. There were no trails or tracks to walk on, so I was basically flying blind. I didn’t know if this was the right direction or not so I just hoped and prayed for the best.

I started to dodge trees and swerve around branches until we all fell down this slippery slope, and then I started to look around. When I did, I noticed that slippery slope we went down, lead us to one of the biggest ditches I had ever seen in my life, but, I could see a way out. Then the hysterics started.

“Oh my gosh, where are we! I’m so scared, I can’t see anyone”

“Please tell me you know how to get out of here!”

To tell you the truth, I really couldn’t care less. These guys were the ones who shoved the map and the whole workload on me so I decided to have a little fun.

“Gee guys, I don’t really know where we are, I think we’ll just have to stay until someone walks past so we can call out to them”

I sat on the ground and listened to them complain and wine.

“I’m so scared right now, what if we never get found?”

At about this time I decided to take a nap since were up till 4 hiking up hills. I put my hands behind my head and leaned against the wall of the ditch. About 5 minutes into my nap I head someone calling me.

“Um paperbackwriter13, it’s been like an hour” (Ten minutes) “And I can’t see the camp sight anywhere” (Maybe if you had stopped complaining for five seconds you would be able to turn yourself around and see the tents right above you)

At this point I started to feel really bad and was about to lead everyone to safety, until this happened.

“You know, it’s all paperbackwriter13’s fault, she lead us down this ditch and now we can’t find a way out!”

At this point, I didn’t know whether to be mad or happy, after all, now I had a reason not to tell them the way out for a little longer.

“Nope, sorry guys, we’re just going to have to wait”

I then dozed off to sleep against the side of the ditch once again.

I woke up about 10 minutes later to see the rest of my group had fallen asleep as well. It was actually pretty hilarious, these girls who wouldn’t leave the bathroom because they were too scared they would break their nails had fallen asleep with mud all over them. I quietly got out of the ditch, may or may not have snapped a picture (who knows, I may have needed this in the future), and woke everyone up and got them out of the ditch. No one was looking for us because we were only down there for about fifteen minutes. The orienteering activity was supposed to go for an hour, so in a way, I guess I did finish first because there was no way I was going back out there.

Actually, that was one of the best days I’d had at Nether, but happiness doesn’t last long at this place. We all went to sleep in our tents and it started to get really windy. Dust was getting into my eyes, you couldn’t walk outside for longer than five seconds unless you wanted to get blown away. I tried to fall asleep and I almost did, until the whole tent fell on top of me and my friends.

Just frekin’ great.

The whole tent almost blew away but we caught it just in time. We all grabbed one corner and sat on them so we would still have a tent when the wind was over. Not surprisingly, the wind never passed over and we ended up sitting on the corners of the tent all night.

Hope you enjoyed the ninth chapter! Don’t forget to comment about some of your bad camping experiences.