The Great Outdoors...

So I'm finally getting around to posting about the Palisades trip I took with my friends. I know, I know, but it took me forever to finally get around to post the pictures. Because hey, this is going to be a long post and pictures will be needed. Two weeks ago, some friends and I took a trip to Palisades Reservoir in order to have one last trip before summer ends and college begins. I was so glad to have this chance to go hang out with some of my closest friends before we all go our separate ways. One group went up earlier while some of us came up later. I drove up and my car was a party. Case in point: Chels had made some cookie bars that we were eating on the way up. She decided that I should drive with both hands on the wheel so she would need to feed me my cookie bar. Let's just say that Bee had to grab the wheel once because I was blinded and had my mouth stuffed really full. We got to the campsite (safely) and situated ourselves. We hung around, ate dinner, and just talked. Chels and I decided to go back to our tent a little earlier than everyone else and Josh came in and talked to us. We were having a good conversation when all the sudden Chels yelled, "SPIDER! Josh! Get the bugs NOW!" I never knew that Chels didn't like spiders. Josh was a good guy and killed our spiders for us and we talked until we decided to go to bed. The next morning we got ready quickly so we could go get a floating dock on the lake. We went and got a dock and then some people started out tubing and wake boarding. My friend Trevor was a beast on the tube. Almost nothing could get that kid off and if I had ridden with him (I have a slight fear of tubing) I would have been off in ten seconds. Chels was brave enough to ride with him and let me just say, that girl is tough. Way more tough than I am. We hung around on the dock, swam and then we went and played mud football on the muddy shore. The funny thing about the mud on shore is that if you get down near the mud in the water there are big holes that'll suck you in to about your thigh. So there's nothing more funny than running along and just dropping into the mud. Really, its hilarious. Even though it rained a few times throughout the day (we prayed for good weather) the little storms we had were nothing compared to the storm we encountered on our way back to camp. Big time wind. We got out of the water just in time but some boats required our manly friend's assistance. I can't believe how crazy the weather changed! One second, it was hot and sunny, and the next it looked like this! After we got back to camp it rained. And rained. And eventually we all piled into the trailer to stay warm and dry. We sat and talked and laughed some more and eventually, a bunch of us ended up in a pile on the floor, all laying on each other. I lifted my head a little bit and saw Trista laying on my stomach, Chloe on my legs, I had my feet underneath Josh's legs, and my head was right next to Bee's. Do you ever have those moments where you think to yourself, "I'm so happy right now"? That was one of those moments where everything falls into place, you're warm and safe, and just plain happy.
The next morning was gorgeous and even though a lot of us were sunburned, we went out onto the lake again. We didn't get a floating dock but we did find an old wooden washed up dock on shore that we used as base camp for the day. We swam around some more, boated, ate lots of food, ran and went sink hole jumping, and just had a good time. Eventually another storm came up, and we went and hid underneath our dock which worked out perfect.

We sat and made sandwiches and ate a lot of junk food. A lot. We sang to our playlist for the weekend and just waited for the storm to pass. Sadly, I had to leave a little earlier than everyone else so when the rained cleared enough, me and Chels and Bee left. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, I felt sad to be leaving. Our song for the weekend was playing and everyone was waving goodbye to us and I knew that soon enough, everything was going to be changing and that this was one of the last times that we would all be together for a while. I closed my eyes and took a mental snapshot and then drove home with all that warm fuzziness in my heart.


It was a good weekend.