COE Camping Trip!

This last weekend the College of Education LLC went out into the wilderness for some extraordinary bonding time. It was a little unorganized at the beginning but we got it all figured out along the way and still had a great time. The Outdoor Program designed our trip special just for our community. We put in the request for canoes and BIG trees which lead us to the Ponderosa State Park in Mcall Idaho.

To get there we loaded up into two vans with not a seat open and headed off on our three hour car ride. We all had to meet in the lobby at 7:30am on Saturday morning so we had a tired crew.

Once we arrived we ate lunch prepared by the OP. It was one of many delicious meals that they prepared for us through out our trip. After lunch we did a icebreaker to get to know our trip leaders and to let them get to know us. We all stood in a circle holding hands while passing around a rope tied at both ends. You had to talk about yourself the whole time the rope was around your body. I wish we could have gotten a picture of this because it brought some great laughs!

Next we head to the lake to paddle around in the canoes and a kayak that Stan brought along. It was a first for many of us. One group even got stuck in the middle of the lake because the were having trouble navigating their canoe. The OP team had to help them return back to shore. It was a chilly day for some people so only a few ended up swimming. We spent most of the afternoon in the water.

Afterwards we split the group up and half went on a nature hike while the other half went back to camp to just relax. The group at camp enjoyed some hacky sack and Frisbee. We finished off the night with another wonderful meal by OP and s'mores by the camp fire.
 
 We sang songs and stories as we enjoyed the s'mores. It was a first for a lot of members in our community and we loved sharing the experience. Different members were teaching the fellow members the secretes to the best s'more! I personally don't need the secrete. Just melt a marshmallow and give me some graham cracker and chocolate and I am good to go!

The next morning we filled up on breakfast and packed up camp before heading towards home, but that was not all we had in store for this trip! We stopped at the Gultch Fork Hot Springs where we all enjoyed a nice refreshing plunge in the water. Some wonderful community conversations were shared in the hot springs talking about different cultures and such. The conversations were so good that one resident even posted a video on our Facebook page right when we got back to explain some things he was talking about.

The trip was a success! Everyone enjoyed their time and was able to expand the small groups we had already formed into a larger group where everyone was able to learn new things about each other. I am so happy that we were able to get almost everyone out there and excited about just being together. We missed the few members that were not able to attend and hope that we can do another activity that is just as fun and can have them along in the future.