Hmm, so y'wanna know about my vacation to camp feral, eh?

One word: Fantabulomous.

Getting there was an adventure on its own, as I was the navigator, for the driver, Solei, who being from Minnesota (or is it Michigan?) was no more sure of the route than I was. We made a decent trip of it.... although we were irritated when we realised we COULD have taken the 407 rather than the 400, and shaved a whack of time off our trip. Also, we ended up traveling the same stretch of highway 11 four times in a row because we missed the exit to highway 60. That had nothing to do with being distracted by a gaggle of like 30 bikers with Minnesota licence plates.... the exit wasn't clearly labeled. *looks around shiftily*

Finally, we get to the gravel road that leads to the camp. Solei decided to take the road (with a speed limit of 40) at about, oh.... 100 KPH. I might add that this road happened to be a curvy road.... no more than like 100 meters in a straight line. And we're kicking up a cloud of dust about 10 feet into the air. Not only that, but to further add to my grey hair, Solei missed the turn to our camp (there's Arowhon Pines, and Camp Arowhon) and decided that the best way to turn around would be to 180 the car at full speed. To his credit, we got there in one piece, and didn't happen to hit anything larger than fender-foliage.

So anyways, we get to the camp, it's just starting to drizzle, and supper was nearly over. Soon after we finish eating, they hand out cabin assignments, and I realise I'm in a cabin with 5 guys who I've ever met. I did however, first go to the wrong cabin. Then after a minute the penny dropped.... "Hang on.... I've met you before, and when they were calling out names, I remember not knowing anyone...." (Cabin called Beech..... cabin called Birch. Anyone could make that mistake, right....? *tumbleweed*) They also divided us into clans (fire, earth, water, wind.... I was in water) and told us that any activities we participated in earned points for our clan (which were in turn not really worth anything, just intended to get us more active)

Next morning, I start up by leaping head-first into the lake, which was amazingly warm. It was at least 20 C in there. After breakfast, I headed to a seminar on techniques for sewing ears. No offense to the instructor, but it was a waste of time and money for me. The seminar was great, but it was more aimed at beginners. I've been sewing since I was 6, and I had also already made a set of ears beforehand. (Well, now I have two. But in any case....)

In the afternoon, four of us made a run out to the nearest town to pick up things that people had forgotten or didnt count on needing (Bobs needed a tensor bandage for his ankle, I needed a bedsheet, which I was under the impression was provided, and solei and his mate discoordinated... neither of them brought pillows. I think Kensuke was just bored.) I also bought two more pairs of shorts while we were there, and thank god I did. I needed them before the trip was done. Oh, and a throw blanket with a picture of a wolf in the moonlight.

Anyways, when we got back, I went swimming again, then five of us went out kayaking. Lucky me, I got a kayak with a bent rudder, so I kept pulling to the right. I'd never kayaked before, so I didnt realise this at first. However, on the way back, we decided to really open up and get some speed happening, and as soon as we started doing that, I went all wonky and then face-firsted into the water. I surfaced just fine... my glasses didnt, though. Some nearsighted fish caught a break. And swimming halfway across a lake while dragging a swamped kayak is exhausting. Dont let anyone tell you otherwise. But it's my own damn fault, I could've let someone take my kayak. *shrugs* Pride. Foolish pride, perhaps. But still.

All in all, not a bad trip for five folks, three of whom had never kayaked, and the other two had only gone once and thrice. (I found out later that the same day, but at a different time, the exact same thing happened to another guy at camp. So he and I kept walking around squinting at everything for the rest of the week.) We were late getting back to supper, (the guy who had gone three times before stayed with me) but only enough to let the swarm of people thin out, so it wasn't that big a deal. Afterwards, I went back to my cabin to relax a bit, then I went out to the last little bit of the trading post. All I bought was a T-shirt with =^_^= on it. But see, that rocks (-:þ

Monday was my "cram everything possible into today" day. Shame I woke up late (-:þ I started up with rock climbing (well, wall climbing. It was one of those things with the pegs mounted on the side of a wooden tower) and tried the two easier walls (only one person tried the hardest wall, and he didnt even make it a third of the way up.) I went up the medium difficulty wall first and did pretty well until the flat underhang section where you had to go over a 270 degree turn on hands alone. Didn't finish that one, but I went up the easy wall at a pretty quick pace.

Archery was interesting. I tried both left handed and right handed bows.... about equal with both, and I did get a few lucky shots (one was even a bulls-eye, at 30 feet, and dont forget I had no glasses!)

In the afternoon, I went out kayaking again (If you fall off your horse, er, kayak, then get right back on again, right?) and this time I was the experienced one.... not exactly reassuring, eh? In any case, I insisted we stick close to shore, and keep it fairly slow, and both me and DanSkunk made it back without so much as a drop of water on either of us. Including getting in and out at a dock, not a beach.... but halfway along, we passed a volleyball game in-progress and my complete coincidence, as I was hidden from the players, someone mis-volleyed and bounced the ball precicely across the centerline of my kayak. That was pretty damn funny, actually.

In any case, when we got back on land about 10 minutes later, I went and joined the aforementioned volleyball game and we proceeded to kick major butt. People left gradually, and we finally got down to three on three... and me and my two teammates proceeded to kick the crap out of the opposing team. All six players were evenly divided; as a matter of fact, me and one of my teammates were fairly weak players, but we gelled perfectly as a team, and proceeded to win four games in a row (10-1, 10-0, 10-4, and I forget the fourth game)

After volleyball, we played capture the flag with LARP rules. (If you're unfamiliar with LARP, think huge-scale dungeons and dragons with human players and foam swords.) Unfortunately, we only had a field that was maybe 40 feet by 80 feet, and we had about 80 people crammed in there so it was a lot of pointless running back and forth. Four sets of games, and only once did the flag get captured.

However, after capture the flag was a swordfight challenge (-:þ Again, foam swords.... but this was basically fencing. I, of course, being the katana-wielding ninja maniac that I am, was more or less first in line to take part in that. There was about 35 people who took part in that, and what we did was basically a war of attrition amongst our clans first to determine a clan champion, then went against each other for final points. Only six of the competitors were from the water clan, so I only ended up doing two fights with clan members.

The first one was probably pretty funny to watch, because it was me and Fuzzy, the other guy who lost his glasses. And we were evenly matched at first, too. I beat him three hits to zero, though. Next up, I went against a far tougher challenge.... Damaron, my warrior brother, I call him now.... he owns his own LARP gear, and I think he said he's trained with various swords before.

But so have I (-:þ

So it was one heck of a fight, though it would have been boring for observers. Tap swords, then stare each other in the eyes for thirty seconds while circling each other slowly, then both try something simeltaneously and miss each other. I think we took like ten minutes fighting. But we were both smiling at each other over our swords. I beat him in the end, three points to one. But, damn..... if it hadn't been an attrition sort of thing, I honestly believe he and I would have swept the field clean. Oh well.... cant complain too much, I suppose.

So now, I'm the champion for the water clan. My first fight was against a guy who was agressive as all hell, but didn't have technique so much as a constant flurry of attacks. I did a lot of backpedaling, and then lunged at just the right times. I beat him three to zero, and I think he ended up coming in third.

My last fight was against my other "warrior brother", Brother Wolf, (-:þ and I give him full credit, he trounced me fully. I only scored one point on him, with my left hand, in the third round. He was completely unprepared for a left-handed opponent; but even if I had done my entire fight against him left-handed, it would have been to close to bet on, he was that good.

At this point, we were very late for supper, but thankfully we got there before they packed everything away for the night. The three of us did have to beg for more juice from the kitchen though. (the other two champions ditched after their fight to determine third and fourth place, but Damaron stayed to cheer me on.)

Soon as we finished, Damaron had to go to the sponsor's supper, but Brother Wolf and me went for a quick swim to chill out, and then afterwards, I got chatting with another friend, and then he proceeded to give me a back massage. (Back massages are my one weakness. Once there, you're halfway towards owning my soul.) Afterwards, we headed out on the night hike.

That was a complete disappointment. It would have been better if they had just put out the lantern after we got out of the rocky bit near the camp itself. There were certainly enough stars. It also would have been better if it wasnt for the three dipwads who kept talking and laughing so loudly they were scaring away whatever wildlife might have been anywhere nearby.

Last day I slept in til almost 11 as I was exhausted from Monday. And I almost couldn't get out of bed at all. EVERYTHING was sore. But I'm pigheaded. I still pushed myself to go windsurfing. I actually did decently, all things considered. If you take into account the fact that they gave me a board that was way too small for my weight. (They didn't tell me this til after I went swimming about 10 times.) Basically, every time I started taking the sail out of the water, the combined center of gravity got too high and I fell over. The girl apologised and said "I hope I haven't put you off windsurfing". If anything, she's made me more determined to try it again and master it (-:þ Yay for pigheadedness!

After that, I went and joined the already in-progress dodge ball game, and proceeded to suck for lack of running ability. (Usually I'm a heck of a sprinter. I have about 10 witnesses that I caught up to two furs with a 50 foot head start over the space of about 30 MORE feet.) I may not have actually hit anyone, but I at least caught a lot of people out. We still lost, though... but eh, s'all good. After dodge ball, I tried tennis for the first time. I think I did fairly well.... and I am most definitely left-handed when it comes to tennis. Even though my serves are higher than I'd want, at least all my left-handed shots went more or less where I wanted them to.

Next up was the tribal challenge.... they give you clues, you have to figure out A: where the challenge is, and B: beat the challenge. Our clan did pretty well.... we got the face-painting, cannonball challenge, three-legged race, su doku, mastermind, untying the frozen sock, 10 questions in 30 seconds, and we started on the popcorn challenge and the trivia challenge. Unfrtunately, we didnt get as long as we were supposed to, the challenge started about half an hour late and they had to wrap up for supper.

After supper was "cabin skits".... think a five-minute slapstick/drama routine. Our cabin did a desecration of "The raven" about a guy searching the net for furry porn til 4am. (For the record, I had nothing to do with this. I was merely an actor.)

Then I made my first visit to the infamous "Cabin 21". Cabin 21 was also known simply as "the booze cabin." On the second night, they took one of the camp beds, threw the matress aside and put bottle after bottle of hard liquor on the support board underneath. They proceeded to get everyone who cared to come as trashed as they wanted to be, and still had alcohol left over at the end of camp.

One day, I will actually succeed at getting drunk. It will take amazing amounts of alcohol, though. I say that because I proceeded to have 15 shots over the course of half an hour. Oh, and for the record, overproof rum is 63% alcohol by volume and feels like it strips the lining from your throat (and possibly does.) And sourpuss with grenadine tastes like over-sugared kool-aid. Sober witnesses say that I was only slightly drunk from all that, which is about how I felt too.

Then I went to the mp3 dance. (Think rave.) For the first hour or so I stood back and watched, as I'd never really danced before. Cept for DDR, which is hardly the same thing. Then once I'd watched some techniques, I got bolder.... and proceeded to dance straight through until the end of the dance at about 3:30. (roughly 4 hours.... although I did take a few five-minute breaks here and there)

I must say I really felt like a porn star towards the end.... because we were in a provincial park, we had to keep the windows closed for noise reasons. So it got really damn hot in there, and everyone took their shirts off (cept for the one girl there) so it was me and a couple other guys, shirtless, waving around glowsticks as the fog machine and the laser show backlit us.... I really felt like a stripper. Gradually people drifted off or sat down exhausted... except for me and one other guy that stayed on there the whole way through (for the last two hours, both he and I only left for thirty seconds at a time to grab a chug of water) and DAMN it was fun. However, not only did I wear a hole in my sock, I wore TWO holes in EACH sock.

He was a lot more precice and fluid, I was kinda high energy and enthusiasm, even though I dont think I was as technically skilled. My months of playing DDR have given me remarkable levels of endurance, though!! (-:þ However, at the end of it, just about everyone that was still there came up to me and told me I was hard-core, even the DJ, so I cant have done that badly (-:þ

And then there was today. I had the damndest time getting out of bed after being sore all day, then pushing myself to dance for like 4 hours, then getting only about 4 hours sleep. But I succeded, and then packed, and after a far shorter drive (thanks to knowing where we were going, back home and I've been catching up on stuff ever since. And now I'm done!! Yayz!