Road Trips

My VIP setup in the Backseat

This post marks my first official blogging experience in the state of Michigan. I arrived here on Saturday after a cross country driving adventure with both my parents in a pick-up truck. Luckily, we were blessed to at least have an extended cab so we weren't riding three deep the whole 27 hours. As you can imagine that sort of time in a car with two other people can be quite the experience and with my family you are basically guaranteed several laughs. One of these such laugh-inducing situations occurred after I took over driving about 10:30PM on Thursday night. My dad had been driving up to this point and so he decided to climb into the backseat to try and get some sleep. As you can tell from the picture to the right there wasn't a whole lot of room to work with. First, he spent a few minutes trying to rearrange bags and blankets to get comfortable all the while grumbling about the lack of space, while my mom and I teased him about his picky-ness. Not more than one minute after he finally got comfortable, he had the unfortunate experience of getting a cramp in his leg and was yelling and making all sorts of odd noises in the back seat trying to stretch it out which as you can imagine is quite impossible. My mother and I were none too supportive and could only manage to laugh through this entire experience. It may not seem funny to you reading this post, but let me tell you after 9 hours in a car and still 10 to go just about anything seems hilarious.

Auntie Connie & Us

My parents decided that since we were heading out to the Midwest that they might as well extend our trip out to Wisconsin to visit some family. So for the first leg of our trip we drove straight through the night from our house to Madison, WI. While in Wisconsin we were able to visit with my Dad's cousin, Ralph, and his family and to go and visit my elderly great aunt who recently moved out there where she could be better cared for. It was wonderful being able to see all of them and visit for even a short time. And from what I understand the mere 7 hours separating Michigan from Wisconsin basically makes us neighbors in the Midwest so I'm sure there will be many more visits to come. 


After spending Friday in Wisconsin, we got up Saturday morning and began our drive to Okemos, MI - my new home. We unfortunately ran into some terrible traffic so the drive took a little longer than anticipated, but we arrived at the house after about an 8 hour drive. We spent the weekend together, doing a little sight-seeing, a good deal of visiting, and lots of relaxing. My parents headed back to Rhode Island early Tuesday morning and from what I hear that was a whole other adventure, involving accidentally ending up in Canada, but you'll have to talk to one of them about that.

So this is the beginning of my new adventure - my move to the Midwest and the beginning (hopefully soon) of my nursing career. It may not be as exciting or ridiculous as my life in Kentucky was, but I hope to continue updating all of you on my life via this blog. Who knows maybe Charlie the Mountain Man has a twin in Michigan? 

All I Ever Do Is Say Goodbye

It seems that all I have done in the past few months is say goodbye to people. Just about the time I'm beginning to recover from one separation, another one is at my doorstep.

I think it started when I moved to camp and began the separation away from Housing which was an ending and hence a goodbye of sorts. Then at camp, counselors leave at various times so there was numerous weekends marked by some one's departure. This fact doesn't make the final goodbye at the end of the summer any easier, as not only was I saying goodbye to people, but also a place that has meant so much to me and holds so many wonderful memories. I left camp on a Saturday afternoon only to wake up Sunday morning and say farewell to Eastern Kentucky completely after a year of living and serving in those beautiful mountains. Needless to say, it was a draining few days for me.

My Lovely Family at the Party

Now this week marks the beginning of goodbyes to my family and friends. We had a going away party on Sunday and I had to say goodbye to most of my extended family and one of my dearest friends from college. This week has been punctuated with various goodbyes, including some of the more difficult ones to older relatives who I don't know if I'll see again. There was one today that hit a little harder than I anticipated. I went to go see my Great Aunt Kay who is in a nursing home to say both a hello and a goodbye. I explained to her that I was moving to Michigan which she couldn't believe - 'Its so far away!', she told me. (To you non New-England people, Michigan to any true Rhode Islander might as well be located on the other side of the world for how far away it is.) I told her that I had met someone and that is where he lived and so I was moving to be closer to him. She smiled and laughed and with a few other comments seemed to be more accepting of my decision. We talked for a few minutes and then as I was getting ready to leave, she grabbed my hand and her eyes teared up as she whispered that when I come back to visit I have to make sure that I see her and that she loves me so much. She held on so tight for a few minutes as I, with tears welling up in my eyes, barely managed to get out the words to say that I would come back and that I loved her too.

I still have many goodbyes to go and I know that no matter where I go in life the goodbyes will go on. As difficult as they are, I don't think I would want to do away with them. They remind me how much I appreciate someone and make me value the time I do have with those people. I only wish that they would get easier with time.

Five to Ten Years

One thing I was able to accomplish a good portion of this summer was knocking some more items off the 101 List. One that I was particularly excited about was #21 - make a time capsule.

I've always wanted to do this, but never got around to it or really set aside the time to put one together. I figured that now would be as good as time as any to finally make my own time capsule, if not better as I am in such a place of transition and change. I started working on it several months ago when I lived at the Floyd House. I found an old metal John Deere popcorn tin in the truck bay at the the office and began to think about what I wanted to put inside and where I could possibly bury it. It took me until the last day of camp, but on July 30th I finally managed to finish, seal, and bury the time capsule.



Digging the Hole



Its contents include:

• Letters from various of my fellow CAP-tives to themselves
• A Harry Potter movie ticket
• A 2011 Camp Shawnee T-Shirt
• A picture of the 2011 Camp Shawnee counselors
• And a few other random assorted things

I sealed all of the contents as best as I could - in multiple layers of Ziplock bags and Tupperware containers and then caulked the seams of the can. I along with some of the last counselors left on the mountain then took it to its resting place and buried it where it shall stay for the next five to ten years. Yes, that's right - five to ten years. I could not decide if I wanted to go for the full ten or succumb to the American part of me that demands instant gratification would be able to make it to five so I've left it open for me to decide at a later point.

The Time Capsule Crew

Camp reunion in 2016 or 2021 anyone?

I've Got to Be Going Now

(Side note: to really complete the experience of reading this blog I suggest listening to David Lamotte's Song for You; I apologize in advance if this causes you to tear up, because it gets me everytime)

I realize it has been far too long since I've updated my blog and I cannot possibly hope to cover all that has transpired in the last month and a half in one post. How could I even start to describe my summer at camp, my last few months in Kentucky, and my on-going transition to life outside of the mountains?

Summer, as always, flew by. Although this year I felt like it was moving faster than normal, as I always had in the back of my mind that this would be my last full summer up at Camp Shawnee with the small children and all the other amazing, crazy camp counselors. I couldn't have asked for a better summer to end my counselor career on however. The group of counselors on the mountain this summer were an absolute joy to be around and work with, and they all helped me grow in some way. Another one of the beautiful things about this summer is the fact that I got to see campers that I've known for years come back to camp and see how they've grown and matured. A lot of times when our kids leave us at the end of summer, they are going back to places that aren't the most stable or the most loving and sometimes honestly downright terrible. It makes it really hard to watch them drive away on the bus knowing that they're leaving a safe haven and wondering whats waiting for them on the other side. But as a returning counselor, its so wonderful to see a familiar face come back summer after summer and talk to them and hear how they're doing and know that they are okay.



My rescuers



There are so many crazy stories that I could share about my summer, but I feel that there is one I have to share or you all would miss out on one of my crazier Kentucky adventures. During the last two weeks of camp this summer, I served as the camp nurse instead of a counselor. As part of my role as the nurse, I gave out medications to the campers, with the bulk of them requiring morning and night doses. (To help you understand the rest of this story, please keep in mind that the door of my office opens to the left with the door handle on the right.) The third night of Teen Girl week I was in the middle of night meds and was alone in my office when I heard a voice outside say "Oh my goodness, there's a snake!" Naturally, I immediately walked over to the door and opened it to see what was going on. When I opened the door, I was greeted by a 2 - 3 ft copperhead snake slithering its way from the right towards my open door. Of course, I was shocked and had no idea what to do, except I knew there were campers on the other side of the door and I did NOT want the snake going anywhere near them. My immediate reaction was to shut my door which just got the snake trapped in the door jam. So now I not only had a copperhead half in my office to deal with, it was a ticked off, slightly squished copperhead. For reasons I still do not understand, I re-opened the door and the snake was now trapped between my open door and the entrance to my office. If you remember the way the door opens, you may be able to imagine that the snake's first instinct would be to follow the angle of the door right into my office. I quickly shut the door to prevent it from getting back out to where the campers were and then grabbed my walkie to call for help. It went something like this: "Aghhhh....nurse's station....copperhead...aghh!!" "Um, what did you just say?" "I'm trapped inside the nurse's station with a copperhead!" It was at this point that every male counselor, save one, came running full speed to my office to save me. By this point, the copperhead had coiled itself up and its head was raised and it looked like it could strike at any moment. Luckily, the boys were able to crush its head with a rake and then eventually decapitate it and dispose of its remains. It was at this point after a quick clean-up of the snake's blood on my floor, I was able to resume giving out medication.

Just another night at Camp Shawnee.

Although camp was absolutely wonderful and I wouldn't trade it for anything, it was very different in that this year I now had connections in Kentucky outside of camp. Camp is such an all-consuming experience, it takes over every part of your life and all of your time. It was hard trying to balance that and still maintain the relationships I had formed outside of camp. One of the closest friendships I formed during my year with CAP was with my crew member Kate from Housing and it was really difficult not seeing her for weeks at a time, especially after seeing her all day, every day for ten months straight practically. Luckily, I was able to see her and my crew leader Tony before I left several times and she'll be in the New England area at the same time as me so we will get to have a reunion shortly.

Now for the final part of this post, the transition to life outside of the mountains. I left Kentucky on Sunday morning and drove to Michigan with Kevin. From there, I caught a plane to Rhode Island on Tuesday and now I am sitting in my kitchen at home typing up this novel of a post. Its all still slowly sinking in; living in Kentucky takes over your life so completely, sometimes its hard to remember I had a life before. Change is never easy, especially for me, and I get completely overwhelmed when I think of all the new things that I am going to have to adjust to here in the real world. But I read a quote the other day that I've decided to take on as my own as I face a whole new set of adventures.

For a long time it seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life. This perspective has helped me see there is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way. So treasure every moment you have and remember that time waits for no one.

Happiness is a journey, not a destination.

- Souza

And so I'm facing this next phase of life with the utmost confidence that it will be wonderful, no matter what happens.

Here's to the adventures to come.