Mud Galore
June 26, 2018 by Dan Noland
Today began rather normally, with scrambled eggs, buttermilk biscuits, grits and gravy, sausage, cereals and an enormous bowl of blackberries and blueberries for breakfast. What a feast! The dining hall was full of tie-dyed tee shirts, since this is Tie-Dye Tuesday; however, it was not as loud as normal, because two groups of hikers, one of canoers and another of climbers were still out on their overnight trips. They were soon joined by mountain bikers headed for the Lake Imaging trails in DuPont.
Then the morning activities began. Since tomorrow is our last full day of activities, everybody was working even harder than usual trying to complete crafts projects, get to the next proficiency level in archery and riflery, perfecting their latest canoe stroke and the like. To add to the excitement, The Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute sent two of their staff with an amazing inflatable planetarium to show everyone here our night skies, complete with stars, planets, galaxies, comets, and even a shooting star or two, just for the fun of it. They hope to come back next year to help us celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing! How many of you remember it?
In addition to tie-dyes, Tuesday means tacos for lunch. The best measure of how much the guys like the meal is the enthusiastic mess left behind, today highlighted by a storm that announced itself thunderously during the meal, quickly cooling the day off, but it waited politely for us to get to our cabins before it cut loose. What a great way to spend rest hour!
The storm was also timely for a new choice period activity—the mud pit! As you can see from the pictures, there was no shortage of the gloppy stuff, and, after all the slipping and sliding, the lake awaited to clean all the crevices and crannies. Speaking of bodies of water, our last chill night group went out to Sliding Rock tonight. In addition to the sliding and ice cream, they get the rare treat of skipping showers, since the Davidson River is so clean and swift that they won’t really need one (Though those who want one certainly may).
I know that you are getting excited about seeing your son Friday, but we are having a great time with them still. Thank you for sharing them with us. As the moon keeps waxing and the fireflies keep flashing,
Good Night.
Dan