An annual 5 day overnight field trip was coming called 'Adventures Door.' It was a trip that the whole grade would take, up to Lake George, New York, where we explored nature and lived an "unplugged" life. I knew this was going to be fun although my sister who had already went on the trip warned me that it was a hippy commune, and every counselor there was most likely on some sort of drug. To answer that, yes, it was a hippy commune. Although now that I had mostly explained the trip, I would like to start from the beginning.
In order to make it to New York by lunch time, we had to be on the busses and ready by 6:00 am. Since I was the second one to board the bus, Alice saved me a seat next to her, and two seats for Rosie, and Lennon in the front of us. We anxiously waited, and finally the bus left. It was very dark outside and only twenty five minutes later the excitement left and pure boredom took its place. Luckily, kids were allowed to bring in PG rated movies to watch on the way there, but the first movie was a terrible action movie that was not at all amusing, so Alice and I thought it would be better to just make up lame puns for the title. After four hours of hang man, doodling, and awful movies, we finally arrived.
Pulling into the long rocky path, all the kids stared outside there windows to find a gorgeous lake and beautiful mountains layered in the background. When we finally reached the end we saw at least fifteen smiling counselors. Let me just first say, that these counselors were far from the typical being we were used to. By far the most exotic creatures we have seen. A young girl with red hair put up into a messy bun with a bandanna around her head was the closest to normal, and the farthest was an older man, probably In his fifties with long grey curly hair, huge sweat rings under his arm pits, and a six inch knife in his belt loop.
After a long demonstration from an enthusiastic staff member, we got off the bus and collected our luggage. We were all quite enlivined to go into our dorms and unpack, because this environment was new to us, and marking our territory was just what we needed. Although they had other plans of gathering us in a large circle on the lawn, and playing a version of rockpaper scissors, where you act like a dinosaur. Once again, a VERY different environment then we were used too.
Now that this was over we went back to our dorms and found our roomies. Now, given I was with Lennon, Rosie, and Alice. Accept, when the rooms were being organized, an outside friend of our's by the name of Beth, did not have a roomate and was put into ours. Beth, was a very positive, old souled girl, and we were all used to her because Alice was actually quite fond of this young woman, and invited her to many parties.
I've just realized that this chapter is somewhat organized, but mostly messy, so I'm sorry but you're just going to have to make due. So, now that the explanation of Beth is done, I would like to explain the "hotels" we got to stay in. Most boys were placed in an utterly repulsive establishment that they called Spangler. Everyone knew before they were to come how gross it was due to the eigth graders opinions, although the teachers still tried to convince them that it was what you would call a more rugged cabin. Boys in spangler all shared one community bathroom and shower, and there was one lounge area with a TV that didn't work. Fellows rooming there often tried to use the TV as a comeback to the more lucky boys that would make fun of them for their rooming situation. As I have just explained, yes there were more lucky boys that were on half of the second floor of the inn, and the remainder were on the third floor of the inn. Although it was mostly made up of girls. That's exactly where we stayed.
I was actually quite pleased with the inn, we were on the first floor, and of course it wasn't a fancy hotel and what you would typically call "clean" but it was suiting and a lot better than I assumed it was going to be. The only complaint that I would really have is, that since most of the girls there were only rooming with one, or two girls, are situation was unuasual, and every time someone walked by and noticed how large our room was, they would call all of their friends over and say something like "COME HERE GUYS LOOK HOW BIG THEIR ROOM IS!" Not even kidding, this did not stop, and wasn't just something that the kids did at the beginning of the trip. One of the coolest features about the whole thing was the independance of it all. It honestly felt like you were living in college dorms. (just sort of a side fact.)
