The First Day of Cardigan

What Happened On Day 1

I woke up early on a Sunday morning in September- much earlier than anyone should on the weekend. However, there was a reason for my alien behavior of not sleeping in until eight (or, on some days, nine). It was because I was going on a trip to Cardigan with half of my grade, and I had to be there by no later than the time I would usually be waking up. I said a quick goodbye to my dad and siblings before my mom rushed me out the door, and we juggled all of my stuff out the door and into the car. This proved to be a difficult task, because we had to avoid stepping on my puppy, who was weaving in and out from beside, in front of, and behind us, suddenly interested in all that was going on. Finally, though, we managed to get in the car and hit the road. We sped through town, afraid of being late and missing the bus (my parents weren't all too keen to spend the day driving me up to Cardigan). We arrived at the school with plenty of time to spare. I loaded all of my stuff into the trailer/wagon attached to the back of Mr. Woolner's (my geography teacher) truck. However, soon afterwards, I realized that I had left my sneakers at home. My dad had to come to the rescue and bring them to me at the last minute. He made it in time.

Finally, we made it onto the bus, and I sat next to one of my friends. We soon began to get bored, so I suggested we play catch. She asked "what with?", and I suggested that we use our water bottles. However, neither of us would volunteer ours, most likely out of fear that when it was in the other person's hands, it would come back to ours looking nothing remotely like a water bottle. We both had good reason to worry. My friend once again asked what we should use to play catch, and I sarcastically said, "What do you want to use, my shoes?." Although she knew I was joking, she decided to take my comment seriously anyways, and I spent the first couple minutes of the bus ride without a shoe on one foot.

After a long bus ride, we had finally traveled all the way from Hopkinton, New Hampshire to Alexandria, New Hampshire, where the Cardigan AMC Lodge was located. I could see some previous guests getting into their cars, and leaving Alexandria and going to some other place in the world. These are both examples of movement. We gathered around in the green space beside the lodge and were immediately introduced two of the AMC leaders. We then did some activities, and played a game of predator and prey. I was one of the last prey alive, though that's not really saying much, considering all I had to do was run. After the games, we broke up into our hiking groups. My hiking instructor was named Josh. A few of my friends were in my hiking group, so I was happy about that. We then got the chance to take our luggage and get "moved into" our rooms. I took a top bunk. After this, we all went back downstairs and met with our hiking group. My hiking group set some goals, and then ate lunch. I was asked if I needed a lunch, because my dad called saying I might not have one. I was sort of confused, because I had a perfectly good lunch with me, but all was right in the end. (It turned out there was a mix up) After lunch, we played a game, which, surprisingly, I made it down to the final two in. We ended the game with an intense head-to-head vegetable charade battle (even though I'm pretty sure the "vegetable"chosen was actually a fruit). I lost the battle, and my hiking group earned it's name- The Moldy Starfish. (Long story)

Right after this, we went to fill up our water bottles, and started along the trail to Welton Falls, a beautiful waterfall in the area. We stopped to sketch and talk about many different types of plants and fungi, including wood sorrel, (which one girl in my group was obsessed with finding), witches hair, bearded tooth, christmas fern, and many more types of vegetation. I had a moleskine notebook, which was designed in Italy, and made in China. It was then sold to a Staples in New Hampshire, where I bought it, and brought it along to Cardigan. At the end of the trip, it would come back to Hopkinton with me. This is another example of movement. Finally, we arrived at Welton Falls. It was a beautiful waterfall that spilled from a high point, and also had another little cascade which came from many little pools to the side of the gorge-like pit that all the water flowed to. Although there were guard rails, a couple of them had fallen down. These rails were probably brought into the Cardigan area from someplace else, in order to prevent people from falling down and into the water. After we looked at the waterfall, we hiked up just a little ways to a large rock that jutted out just into the "gorge." If you rounded the corner of the rock, you would find that it was fairly hollowed out, and that part of it made a little cave that you could walk into, and look straight out onto Wellton Falls from. It was beautiful.

The rock was covered with trees, pine needles, and dirt, and we stopped there to take a snack break, and to do some activities. Afterwards, we headed back to the lodge. Once we returned, our group stuck together for a couple of minutes before break, during which I beat some of my friends at card games, and ran around in the field. Afterwards, it would soon be time for dinner. I, for some reason went down to dinner barefoot, but nobody noticed so I guess it was okay. For the meal, we had spaghetti and meatballs with salad and breadsticks. It was delicious! For dessert, we had brownies and ice cream. (Also delicious)

We then retired to our rooms for a little bit, before heading to right outside the lodge, where we would meet with our hiking groups for a night activity. Now, I heard that some groups were blindfolded and brought into the woods, though our group did something much more different, and, I believe, more fun. We first used our senses to detect different elements of our surroundings. Then, using these senses, we played a game called bat and fly, where there was one person with a blindfold, and one without. The person with the blindfold was the bat, and they had to try to tag the fly. Whenever the bat said "bat!" the fly would have to say "fly!" The rest of us were "trees," and we formed a circle that the bat and fly could not go out of. After this game, we lay down, and watched the stars for a while. We saw a couple of shooting stars, and I came up with a constellation that a like to call, "The Bee." I tried to point it out to people, but nobody could see it. We were also told a story which was said with a flashlight on. (There were no flashlights allowed on for any other part of the night) We were told to keep a hand over one eye during the story. After the story was told, the flashlight was turned off, and everything was pitch black. But, when you switched your hand to the other eye, everything was light again. This was because of how your different eyes adjusted to light and dark.

After the nighttime activities, we had a little while to stay in our rooms before coming down the lounge area to listen to a story. I went to the lounge area right away, because if I didn't, I would probably have to sit on the floor. (All of the good seats were usually taken right away) During this time, I accidentally pulled a friend off a window sill. She was fine. Soon, the story was told. It was about Blackbeard the pirate. Mr. Woolner had brought the concept of the story which he told to the staff a Cardigan. So, he had brought an idea from Hopkinton New Hampshire to the Cardigan AMC Lodge. (I'm pretty sure that it was a fairly true story) This is yet another example of movement . I was extremely tired by that point, during which the story ended, and we all headed back up to our rooms. We all got ready for bed, and then it was lights out. We still talked for a little while anyways, but soon enough, everyone was so tired that we all just fell asleep.

Christmas Fern by Juliet C is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Partrage Berry by Juliet C is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.