The First Day

"We broke down!" somebody yelled and soon that became the general consensus. None of the adults bothered to correct us until later when we found out that we had actually been lost briefly because Mr. Woolner had not compensated for the slower moving bus. Soon we continued on our way and we eventually pulled into the lodge's parking lot. Fern (a leader) came on board and gave us brief, preliminary instructions and then we all tumbled off the bus.

After several attempts, the leaders got us into a haphazard circle and taught us to play a game. We played enthusiastically (the game involved throwing a ball at our classmates) for a while and then were brought back into a clump to be told who our group leader was. My leader was Fern and she took us into the field to play a game before lunch. Emma, Natalie, Emily, Aiden, Brendan, Andrew, Riley, and Owen were in my group.

After the game we ate lunch and then headed out on a scavenger hunt as a group. We read the instructions on the first card: Go to campsite two along the Manning Trail, shortly after the trailhead. We set off. At the first campsite we came to we stopped, expecting to see campsites one and two. Instead they were campsites seven and eight. Nonplussed we forged on, expecting to see five and six next. Nine and ten were next instead. The campsites continued, the numbers growing instead of shrinking. Finally we decided to give up on the scavenger hunt and go on a nature hike instead. Soon we stopped to play 'Hug a Tree'. My tree was named Ronalda the Rotting Tree and Emily's (my partner) Ronald the Rotting Tree. We made a waypoint and as I was carrying a GPS, I read out the coordinates.

We continued on, sometimes stopping to play a game (Steal the Bacon, etc.), sketch, and take a waypoint. Along the trail we also found things to do: the yellow birch toothbrush, wood sorrel, and cucumber roots were all favorites, mainly because we could put them in our mouths or eat them. I liked them all, and even found one giant cucumber root (which I ate of course!). The yellow birch tasted like mint, the wood sorrel tasted like lemon, and the cucumber root tasted like cucumber.

At one waypoint we stopped at a bridge. We scrambled over rocks and went under the bridge, the low water allowing such activities. Emma and I went upstream to sketch a tiny waterfall while others scattered elsewhere to sketch. Everybody flocked back when Fern called out that she had found a salamander so that we could take turns holding it. It was cold and a bit slimy. Right as we were packing up to keep hiking I dropped my notebook into the stream. Luckily it landed so that only the edges and the back of it got wet.

Another waypoint of interest was the campsite with the logs crossing the almost dried-up stream. We crossed the logs again and again; jostling each other, forcing each other to go back the way that they had come, and even jumping off them onto the worn pebbles below. Fern called us back to where we had left our bags and handed out paint sample cards with the instructions to sketch something of that color. Mine was gray so I sketched the Island Grey knob on one of the logs crossing the stream. We quickly made our way back to the lodge and moved into our rooms. Then we had free time until dinner. I played spit (a card game) and then soccer while I waited. For dinner we had breadsticks, salad, spaghetti and meatballs, brownies, and ice cream. While we waited for dessert Emma and I had competitions about who could hang their spoon from their chin for the longest. I won most of the times. We learned about ORT (our remaining tidbits) and had half of a pound at the end. My group cleaned up from dinner and then joined everybody else getting on warm clothes for our night hike. It had been cool all day and the temperature had been steadily dropping, so everybody wanted everything that they had worn, some more!

After about five minutes of pointlessly milling around on the porch, the leaders came out and gathered us into our groups to go on our night hike. The groups scattered to do different things. The first thing that we did on our night hike was play another game, in the field where we had played our first game. Then we went on a blindfolded night walk the purpose of which was to adjust our eyes to the dark and allow us to have as much night vision as we could. Then we listened to a story, which told us how easily everybody's night vision could be ruined by one light. Fern taught us owl calls and we all called for them, though none came. The stars were brilliant; they were so bright and there were so many. We all stargazed and found our own constellations, then tried to point them out to each other. On the way back to the lodge we did another blindfolded night walk because we had enjoyed the first one so much. When we arrived back at the lodge, the thermometer said that it was thirty-five degrees Fahrenheit.

When we got back inside, shivering and fingers numb, most people went up stairs, some sprinting to the showers, others strolling back to their rooms. Very few people showered but everybody got into pajamas and went back downstairs for story time. At first I perched on the windowsill, the couch and chairs being taken. One of my friends who wanted to sit where my feet were lifted them up and ended up pulling me off the windowsill, scraping my back. I scrambled back up and moved my feet so that she could sit there until somebody told us not to sit on the windowsill because the window had previously shattered. We all moved to the floor with our backs to the couch. Mr. Woolner read us the story of how Blackbeard died that night. I was getting increasingly tired and was glad when we went up to bed. Mrs. Roberts and Mrs. Allen (two of our chaperones) came around with candy and then we went to bed. I was tired and wanted to go to sleep right away but my roommates wanted to talk. Finally they became quiet and went to sleep.

Day one is an example of movement in many ways. First of all, a busload of seventh graders moved from Hopkinton to Cardigan. All of our bags moved along that route as well. Second, all of my group's backpacks (and everything in our backpacks) moved from the AMC lodge, around the Nature Trail, and back to the lodge. The idea of using a yellow birch twig as a toothbrush traveled to Fern, with Fern around the Nature Trail, and from Fern to us. Eventually it came back to Hopkinton as well. This is what we did on our first day at Cardigan Lodge and some examples of the first of the five themes of geography that happened throughout it.