It was a merry band of 11 that boarded a 13-passenger van headed for King's Canyon on Friday noon. The goal? To build a sense of community and belonging among the young adult group at Alhambra SDA Church. In short, for us to bond as a group.
And bond we did! We were not even past Six Flags when we realized that the air conditioner on the van was broken. We called the rental company about it, stopped at a garage, and decided that we would rather press on than leave it be. This had the potential to be a really nasty situation, but everyone was so positive despite the horrendous heat that it just gave us one more thing to laugh about together.
Thanks to the delays, we set up camp in King's Canyon in the dark. This, too, was an unexpectedly good team-building activity. We talked into the night, then rose early in the morning.
After chatting around the camp fire, we all made beautiful sandwiches and then set out on a hike to a waterfall. It affectionately reminded me of some of the hikes I'd been on with my aunt and uncle in Yosemite. There were lush forests, stark granite, and creeks to traverse. It felt so good just to be walking in the open air again. When we arrived at the waterfall, we ate our sandwiches and refilled our bottles with fresh water from the river.
On our way back, I enjoyed talking with one girl who, like me, enjoys stopping every now and then to take in the scenery. There was some wonderful scenery to take in. After the hike, some of us went back to the river where we submerged ourselves in its freezing depths. Even though there was a good rock to jump off of and I enjoy cliff diving, I'm glad I didn't. Just getting into the water the normal way, I thought I'd forgotten how to swim, it was so incredibly cold. My new friend, though, wholeheartedly dove off the rock twice without showing the slightest sign of being bothered by the cold. We all admired this before we took a group picture and got out of the water. Sometimes, the body gets used to cold water; this cold water stayed cold no matter how long I was in there, though the sting in my joints wore off after a while.
Back at camp, we all dried off in the sun and closed the Sabbath with haystacks for dinner and a very loose-form worship by yours truly. Then, we made smores. For the first time, one of the people along actually inspired me to try to cook the marshmallow for real instead of just torching it. This was. . . oddly rewarding. I'd never tasted such a good smore before. But I still like charred marshmallow, if only for all the Pleasant Hill Pathfinder memories.
Fully satisfied, we settled in to playing games around the fire. We played a good round of zip-bong, a word game, and several rounds of Psychology. Just as we had called back the "psychologist" for the fifth or sixth round, suddenly an uproar came from a neighboring camp.
"BEAR IN THE CAMP!!! THERE'S A BEAR!"
Suddenly, the mood around the fire shifted. In a matter of minutes, toiletries were shut away in the bear box. The dying embers of the campfire were being revived. Then, all of us crowded into the van, some of us more tense than others. In the darkness, we waited. Some of the girls panicked. Some of the guys joked about how there was no bear. Inside my head, I was thinking, "Couldn't my outdoors-y relatives and friends have mentioned just once what to do if you meet a bear at night?" What I actually said was, "Why don't we pray about this?"
So we prayed for the bear (because, after all, they get shot if they get too close to the camps too many times) and we prayed for the general level of panic to go down. Eventually, it did. We left the van, tended the fire, and actually went to bed. We never found out if the bear was real.
The trip back out of there was fortunately not quite so thrilling--just gorgeous vistas of the canyon on our way out. We stopped for lunch in the town of Kingsburg, where my new friend and I discovered THE BEST small-town ice cream place (no offense, Big Dipper). It's called Jeb's Swedish Creamery, and it is in a different league from almost anything I've ever tasted. If you ever visit the small town of Kingsburg, GO THERE. It's AMAZING. Someone needs to tell the Food Network they exist; they deserve the recognition.
We made it back to the church all in one piece without leaving anyone melted in the van or eaten by a bear or drowned in a river. I was quite happy about all of that. Furthermore, the group really did grow closer from the experience. It seems like everyone made at least one new friend (including myself), so I consider that a successful trip. It was good to get back out into the wild and clear my thoughts, too; I would have gladly stayed longer, even if I was exhausted afterwards as it was. I promised you all a sunnier letter this time, and I'm so glad I could deliver on that. I hope that you find sunny things to think about, too.
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