I had a great time at High Adventure this last week. We were near Mammoth Caves in Kentucky, and we stayed at Yogi Bear's Jellystone Park camp. The car ride was about 4~ hours long, and we watched The Avengers and Muppets Most Wanted (a truly excellent movie). When we got to our campsite, we had some trouble backing in the trailer, so our campsite neighbor (who happened to be a truck driver) offered to help us, and we were finally able to get our tents out and set up. We took forever setting up our tent, though, about 25-35 minutes. We then had a devotional, made s'mores, and went to bed. The next morning, Lily and I woke up thinking it was 7 o'clock (we didn't have our watches) and headed down to the bathroom and then got dressed and walked around our campsite, not questioning the fact that no one else was awake. When Sis. LaLanne came out of her tent, we asked her what time it was. It was 6 AM, and we had been awake since 5. We then went to the Hidden River Cave and went repelling. I went third, and was one of the slowest people to go. For everyone to go, it took about 3 hours. As one the first people to go, that was not very fun. When we started on our way to the cave, we put on headlamps and hardhats. The cave is significantly cooler than the outside air, and a river cut through it that we had to wade through, about knee high (for me). There was a few parts we had to climb or crouch, but that was because we took the off-trail tour, which is much more difficult. Our guide was very nice, and he seemed to really enjoy our group and all the questions we would ask him. Our guide, Lily, Anisa, and I were in the front group the whole time (but not me, apparently, if you ask Lily 🙄). The tour took about 3 hours, and because there was only one entrance, we had to loop back around. At one point along the tour, we stopped and everyone turned off their lamps. In the almost complete darkness, our eyes were drawn immediately to any light. Sis. LaLanne had her watch on, and the glow was incredibly bright compared to the darkness around us. We couldn't even see our hands in front of our faces. The light when we exited the cave was almost blinding compared to the dim light of our headlamps. We ordered pizza for dinner because we got back so late, and everyone was exhausted. The next day, we were supposed to go on a hike to a waterfall, but the leaders decided that we had hiked enough, so we had free time to go swimming. At the pool, we played a lot of chicken, me being the reigning champion with Paige and Lily on my team. There was a frog stuck in the pool, so we got him out carefully, though he was very stubborn and sat still while we poked him repeatedly. We had rented out a water obstacle course-thing for an hour on the lake and had a great time. When our time was up, we went over to the free half of the lake and spent a good half-hour trying to stack a four person chicken. We finally were able to do it, but only long enough to take a few photos. Every night, we had a challenge with 3 groups. The first night was a shelter-building (we lost), the second was fire building (we won, but only because of Anisa), and the last night was a dessert making challenge with Bishop as judge. (A close second, we only lost because our mystery ingredient was cotton candy and we had caramel, apples, and cookie dough). We went to Cracker Barrel for breakfast and were supposed to go on an alpine slide, but it rained. It was overall a very fun and spiritual experience, and I had a FANTASTIC time.
This post was written by Josie, about Josie
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