Friday, August 1

Rustic-ing It

Man, am I in for an adventure today and Saturday. Ryan and I are chaperones on a youth group canoe trip for our church. I'll tell you more about the trip later on in this post. First, the context of Alicia going on a canoe trip.

You may or may not know that I really want to learn more about outdoor excursions such as extended hiking, camping, and so on. I love the mountains. My one-time experience of camping so far? Let me see if I can find a picture for you.

Ah. Yes. Here we go.

So you can imagine my excitement to jump into a "broader" "experience" of a two-day canoe trip with no bathrooms, no showers, 18 teenagers and sleeping in a tent (not all 18 together, mind you) on a campsite that you'd only know is a campsite because someone made a fire pit in the past. It really is exciting, no sarcasm there. I used a precious half day of vacation time and worked through lunch the rest of the week since it's all I have left after what I've scheduled the rest of the year. Friday is the first of the 5 busiest days of the month too. I really wanted to go on the trip. My boss will be there too!! Hahaha! He goes to our church and is bringing two of his kiddos along. I think it will be a good break for both of us from the potent corporate-ness of our jobs.

I can't wait. The weather is supposed to be gorgeous up near Parker, PA on the Allegheny River, and I think it'll be a great time. I'm helping with the food, and I had a planning meeting the other night with two experiences ladies, one of which offered to do all the shopping for us. Melissa and I will take it from there for the trip and order the youth around to be our kitchen slaves. I'm going to learn a lot and have a great time, and we've been praying for safety on the river and while camping. We were kindly encouraged to string up all food at night at least 30ft from the campsite. We have bears 'round these parts. We'll have the vans with our all stuff parked "near" the campsite ahead of time before putting in, and loop back around to the starting point to start canoing. Did I say near? I meant to a MILE away from the "campsite". Yup. That's our only optoin, so we have a hike there and back to bring equipment and food to the campsite once we put out of the river Friday evening. I believe the total distance we're canoing is 30 miles or so.

I keep using quotes on "campsite" because, well, it's not a typical campsite with a parking lot and hot showers. We'll dig a hole for the bathroom, put a tarp up around it as a luxury feature, and go through a bottle of hand sanitizer. We'll heat water to wash dishes and ourselves and clean dirty icky filthy teenager feet.

Oh, on another topic, guess who is making the amay-hay-zing Quinoa dish again sometime soon? Ding Ding ding! I am!! We're getting 12 ears of corn from the farm this week so there ya have it. Speaking of Quinoa, I was flattered to have wonderful comment from the Whole Grains Council on my initial quinoa post. Has anyone tried it yet???? Was anyone's interest in quinoa piqued as a result of my post? Please tell me so. Some of you are "lousy" at leaving comments (and some are awesome...thank you!!) Just sayin'.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like a interesting trip. Hope you have a nice and safe time. Glad I here in the comfort of my home and have a modern bathroom near by.
Mom

Anonymous said...

Hope your camping trip was fun! I went on a camping adventure with my kids last weekend too. My friend Kristen and I took ourselves, 5 kids and and a dog and hiked 2 miles into the woods with all our equipment to a beautiful spot on Sandy Creek. Let's just say it took over an hour to hike in there. But, it was super satisfying to make our own fire, weather a huge thunder storm (we actually had to move the tents and sleeping children at 2am), and make it back out the next day all intact. Hope your trip went well too - look forward to reading about it.

-erin w.

Alicia said...

Wow, Erin, that is adventurous with kids! I bet it was a blast for them. Were they trying to lead the way? :)

I guess we were up near you, in Parker. Where we put in upstream wasn't too far from Oil City, I think.

Anonymous said...

They initially tried to lead the way - that didn't last long!

Yeah, Parker is close by. It would have been fun to run into you up this way!