Alaska, July 2009 cont.

One of these days, I'll catch up on this blog.

In the meantime, trekking back to Delta Junction...




During a break one day at camp I got use of a car and a few minutes to just go out and drive...by myself. I loved it. There's a buffalo farm just up the road and I wanted to swing by and see them. I've seen buffalo before, my dad's boss used to farm them, my sister was chased by one, and we've actually got some hybrids just down the road from where I live, but still. They were just out there, being...buffalo, and that was pretty cool.


I love the fact that there is this much land and nothing in it.


Of course, there are mountains...everywhere you look, it seems you'll find one range or another.

I know it's Alaska, but for some reason this picture looks very "Swiss Alps" to me. I think it's because of that small building, which in my mind, is a dairy farm.


Yeah...I could deal looking at that every day.

I really enjoyed the solitude of those moments. I rolled down the windows and just allowed my head to clear. It's been nearly a year since that drive, but I still recall it fairly sharply. That land has great attitude.

Back at camp, it's campfire time. Now, campfire time is a great little thing. Mark usually brings a message full of insight and wisdom and it makes you think 'stop knowing me so well!' We also sing, dance, act retarded, burn stuff, and generally have a great time in Christian love and fellowship.


Here's some of that singing I was talking about earlier. Boardwalk and Lena were the music leaders during the week, switching out guitar and 'hold the poster' duty. If you look closely, you can see that we were bringing it old school with the classic musical number 'Pharaoh, Pharaoh."



Did you know that the simple addition of cut up pieces of garden hose will turn your fire an array of beautiful colors? Well, it will, and now you know. (I'm not sure of the toxicity, but well, we all die eventually.)


We usually burn a couple of cardboard cores the last night of camp. The winds were really,really high that night though, so we couldn't double stack them this year. I mean, we're all up for a healthy amount of carnage, but not the kind that requires life flight and alerting the burn unit.


I. Love. Fire.


All the girls of Cabin Three, Camp Baldwin, Delta Junction, AK, July 2009. I love them all. It was a great group, fantastically ridiculous, and ridiculously fantastic.

Eeeeeeeexactly.

Next time, some post camp activities: Fires, Fat Mud, Wolves under glass, and all the salmon you can eat!

Procrastination and Time in Alaska...

A little corner of Heaven at the end of the Alaskan Highway.

I've got headache tonight. So far, this year, nearly everyday I've had one. I hate it. It's my eyes; I know it. I need stronger contacts and it makes me feel about a hundred years old, though I'm only rounding on 29...good lands, TWENTY NINE! I know, 'that's not old!' but thus far, it's the oldest I've ever been and it feels like a hammer is bearing down on the last nail in the coffin of my youth. But I digress, as maudlin really isn't my style.

I haven't blogged since, Christmas Eve...really? Oh well, life. A lot of good things have happened since...and some things not so good...again, life. It seems to happen all the time doesn't it? I'm going to say I'm going to try to catch up a bit, post more, continue to use this little spot of cyberspace as my personally impersonal diary, one I don't mind sharing, and I hope I do...but who knows. At least tonight, I'm posting something.

I suppose I'll put up a bit more about Alaska, being as I never finished that whole episode...and it was an episode, as it always is! I miss it. I miss everyone up there. I doubt I'll be making my way up there this year thanks to the workaholic society that is America. 2 weeks out of 52 to ourselves? Really, that's just perverse. (That is a post unto its own though.)I have other spots I need to fill in on my map and well, tempus fugit. However, I had the pleasure of talking with my friends from the north, Nick and 'Dude-A-Cris,' yes 'Dude-A-Cris,' (though I just call him Dave-O) the other night and perhaps it inspired me to post a bit.

So, here's a bit...

Camp Baldwin, Delta Junction, Alaska. July 2009.

The familiar road to camp...

I drew those signs in '08 and it was a great thrill to see them painted and posted in '09. Vanessa did a smashing job with them. In that weird existential way, it feels like a little piece of me gets to stay there. (When did I start waxing poetic so much? Sheesh...I sound like such a pretentious crapweasel.)

Camp always provides a vast array of activities...of which I usually participate as it offers me a wonderful opportunity to punish my youthful advers...I mean, teach the children some valuable life skill.

Though it looks as if I'm pummeling Lena, she came back with a furious set of jabs. My unsure footing and high center of gravity led to her victory. I chose this shot because it looks like I'm winning. I'm petty, deal with it.

Trash Can...epic times. This game always draws blood and I'm sure a number of shoulders/knees/ankles have been separated from their subsequent joints...I won the first round and only bled a little!



"The Fortress of Doom!" We built this in the woods one day for paintball...it was magically awesome. It's just a system of plywood rooms/metal sheeting/refuse, but it makes for a sniper setup...even better when you set up a huge ladder so you can watch the action overhead if you're not in the round!

Hooray for paintball! No so hooray for getting shot in the hand 3 times...3 times!!!

In Alaska, there is a sore lack of water slides...especially in swamps in the middle of nowhere...so what's a camp director to do? Why build one of course! This is the Mark special. Plywood, a pit, a hose, a couple of giant spools and a lot of blue tarp and you've got yourself a right fine water slide. Now, it may be July, but it wasn't exactly warm in D.J...and well, the water wasn't exactly what I would term "fit for human life," but after a while, you know, after your blood congealed, it wasn't too bad. I picked up a shirt in Sitka at the surf shop that states "Euphoria is the first stage of hypothermia," truth.

It was good times all around.

In addition to the water slide, there was the water fight...and well, these Alaskan jer...er, delightful teens made fun of me mercilessly for the fact that I found the water so cold. (This was pre-water slide actually, so a bucketful to the face was you know...incredibly jarring. It was awesome fun though.)

After all the water shenanigans, we needed something to warm us up a bit...and a fire was just the thing. Also, we found out that direct heat should never be used with Jiffy Pop...if that direct heat is you know...fire.

There was a lot of other stuff, skits, games, crafts, tons of activities...and I'd love to launch into a litany of how awesome they were, but well, read my post from the previous year. This headache's getting pretty horrid and I don't much feel like writing anymore. Camp was and is and I assume always will be much more than the sum of its parts. It's games and fun and a time to let loose, but it's a lot more than that...and I'll save it for another post.

Epic Alaska, Part 3

Outside of Delta

Camp Baldwin, Delta Junction, AK

Mark asked if I'd ride down to Delta to with him since we really hadn't talked and he was taking it on David's good recommendation that I wasn't just some random serial killer coming up North for grins and giggles. I'd been told the ride would be nothing short of a tear of inducing interrogation, and that Mark would really put the questions to me. Seems as if I'd been led into the lion's den. However, I found Mark to be as gentle as they come...questioning, yes, but in a good way. He's the type that makes you examine yourself, your motives, your reasons...and really, everyone needs that from time to time. The ride was pleasant and it was good getting to know each other. I was also constantly staring out the window and ooooing and aaaaahing at all the beautiful scenery on the drive. Once we made it to Delta, I was rather surprised that it was larger than Salcha...which isn't saying much.

There were gas stations, a hardware store, a family restaurant and the promise of a tractor pull AND lumberjack contest come Sunday! If there's anything I love, it's tractor pulling and lumberjackery...but alas, I'd be gone by then. (I'm 100% serious about loving to see that.)

Me at the gates to Camp.

The luxurious "Mark's Palace" where Mark, (the awesome Mark) the camp leader stays.

My bunk at camp. Throw a sleeping bag on top and you stayed warm and comfortable.

Part of the rec house and the field of play at camp. It was rainy a fair bit..as you can see from the puddles.

Anyway, we head down the road to the camp and entered through the Jurassic Park style main gates...and there she was, Camp Baldwin. Now, Camp Baldwin consisted of 4 small cabins out back, "Mark's Palace”-a somewhat dilapidated trailer, a rec shed, chow hall/bathhouse, and chapel. Of course there were also the outdoor areas, an archery range, the swamp-which transforms itself into one heckuva paintball field, a Frisbee golf course through the woods, and a large open field where many epic games of ultimate Frisbee, trashcan, and dodge ball would take place.

Enter the campers...

Councilors and camper sit around the benches at "snack shop" and chat...

Everyone loved snack shop...because that's what it was, soda and candy and chips.

This would be the smallest group the camp hosted for the year...which could have gone either way, good or bad. Fortunately, it was good, very good.
The kids started showing up and it was obvious that this was going to be an interesting group. I'd actually met one of the girls, Laura, the night before
when Risk attempted to destroy her place of employment...long story, blockbuster, falling movies, multiple incidents...good times! Anyway,
they all arrived and the fun began. I’ll spare the moment by moment details and get to the nitty gritty of all the shenanigans.

Game time…
What greater moments are there at camp than the various games we kids play? It’s a time for bonding, for teamwork, for new friendships, and for grand and multiple injuries.

Pain in a box!

Prepping the swamp for play.

Enter paintball…imagine, if you will, your field of play…there’s a chill in the air, the clouds are low, dark, and heavy, set before you is a swamp, littered with deep, hidden holes filled with freezing, stagnating water, scrubby evergreens, shrubs, and quickly constructed battlements rising haphazardly here and there. In the distance, you hear the sound of bombs exploding on the testing range at nearby fort Greely; massive C-17s are flying touch and goes directly overhead at an extremely low altitude. You feel the wind pick up as you depress the safety on your gun...you hear the rustling of feet moving around you when suddenly a shot rings out from behind and nails you in the back of the head from point blank range! You’re in considerable pain and absolute disbelief considering the game hasn’t started yet…and then you hear...”hey, did I just like shoot you in the back of the head?” Now, it’s not often I feel genuine rage rise in my heart, but my friends, I did…and let me tell you, it was Jesus that kept my trigger finger straight and rigid because the sincere desire of my heart was to open fire directly into this dear child’s face. (If you’re reading this, you know who you are and all is good, this is simply for the dramatic retelling of the story…although yeah, in that moment I did kind of want to shoot you…a lot.) So instead of getting myself evicted from camp for paint related atrocities against a child; I did a little good natured yelling and walked away for a moment to…”think.”

Lena post "kill" (She is not the point blank sniper I spoke of earlier!)

Other than that, the paintball game(s) were fine, excellent adventures had by all. I discovered I'm really not that bad a shot...however, some of these kids were certified shooting champs, capital marksmen, dead aims to be sure and we all have the bruises to prove it. It was like watching a small, well- trained militia getting ready for the take over. Still, I didn’t take the injury trophy that day…Alex, you know exactly what I’m talking about, bless your heart…and other…areas.

Other games of epicness included:

Councilors in a cage...basically, the councilors were put in a mesh cage and the campers threw water balloons at them. Normally, no big deal for July...but this year was Alaska's "year without a summer" and that water was well water...deep Alaskan, COLD well water.

Frisbee Golf in the woods which displayed Dave-O’s uncanny ability to hit every player with a single sling of the disk.

Ultimate Frisbee a game everyone decided it should become a full contact sport…and so it did.

Dodge Ball standard game, standard play, fun for anyone who doesn’t need to call a lawyer when they get a booboo.

Trash Can an interesting little game where if you touch the trash can, you are out. Everyone gathers in a ring and you push and pull…sometimes as a team, sometimes as a free for all to smash someone into the trashcan…the game often ends in blood and bruises…general camp fun.

Carpet Ball is an offbeat interpretation of billiards…you have a long canal covered in some horrific oriental rug remnants, two sets of pool balls and a well at each end to catch them. The players stand opposite each other and launch the cue ball at the opponent’s set up. This game is all about accuracy and force…and taunting…half the fun is demoralizing your enem…er opponent!

Honey if You Love Me Will You Please, Please Smile and Four on a Couch are both indoor games…Luke will be the all time champion of Honey (in which you must make your opponent smile and laugh) with his introduction of “This may be stalkerish of me but…” Four on the couch, (a complete mind game involving gender, seating arrangements, and anger management) on the other hand has the possibility of leading to an out and out riot…and yes Lena, I did see you go all grape nuts crazy on that chair out in the field after we lost that round.

Capture the Flag
This game ended up forging a friendship that I'm pretty sure will last the rest of my life. C.T.F takes place in the woods and due to our unusual lack of flags, it became "capture the rubber chicken"due to our even more unusual abundance of those. Our teams were split up and we all went to hiding the chickens, setting up guard stations, and deploying "runners."

Same here "gurk" same here.

Through the course of the game, one camper in particular, Lena, seemed to have it out for me...yet, whenever she was around me, she had the often hilarious habit of tripping and falling down. During one game in which the competition had become quite heated, she began to taunt me..."you...ah...you gonna try to catch me 'Mousetrap'?" she said to me with a rye smile. "You really think you can catch me?" she quipped again. I just looked at her and said "Oh...I'm not worried about catching you" and with that she took off...and promptly tripped over a large root in her path. As she crumpled to the ground in a mix of incredulity and pain, I reached down to see if she was alright, but not before grabbing the tag off her belt to show she'd been caught. At this, she balked, one, because she couldn't believe I'd taken her tag and then asked if she was OK, two because she simply couldn't accept that she'd fallen...again (and after such boasting!) and three, because it's exactly what she would have done. Since that day, Lena and I have been fast friends separated by thousands of miles, but as close as home.

The amazing tower bonfire

Lena and I heading to the swamp at dawn to watch the sunrise.

One of my most treasured memories.

Camp also consisted of food, skits, worship time, and bonfires. We ate, we laughed, we sang, we prayed and praised, we burned gigantic bonfires and stayed up late talking, goofing off, and sharing burdens. Camp was more than a group of strangers getting together in the middle of a swampy ground, it was a group of people that impacted each other's lives. When the week was over, it didn't seem fair. It didn't seem possible to have to leave when we'd really just gotten started. Most of these kids lived within a reasonable distance from each other, some even went to school together, but some came from as far out as Kotzebue. They all came from different walks of life, each had a different outlook on life, a different joy, a different burden, yet none were outcasts. It was as it should be...at least for a short while. There will always be a very special place in my heart for that small camp in the middle of the vast Alaskan landscape.