Friends and Fungi

By Si Frey

I am driving in the car with my friend Miles who I go to camp with every year, as we pull up on the road, the camp driveway is on. We see a very long line. We are waiting for it for about 45 mins to an hour. As we are waiting, we got out of the car and saw some friendly faces from last year and my nervousness eased. But then again, I knew that I would have to say goodbye to my mom eventually. 

Finally, once we pull into the camp driveway, we go down to the food court while we're waiting in line and I see a friend from last year we dap each other up. Then I get back in line. 

Ok, so I know what you're thinking here. This is just going to be some boring story about camp and how it turned out. But I’m here to tell you it’s not that, later on in the story you’ll see how I have to go through a lot of things that are scary. Or not scary but that's a story for another time now back to the story. 

I was waiting in line and I saw someone who looked familiar. But I can’t just place it and I thought, “Wait, is that who I think it is.?” It's Howie. I say, “Hey Howie, how’ve you been?”

“Good,” he said.

Ok, I was next in line, and the person at the signup table says, “My friend,” and I go up with our parents and learned about our cabins, cabin mates, counselors, and our socio. Then they do our lice check and a few minutes later, I heard that I was good.

“Thanks!” I say. I get up from the chair and walked with Miles to the cabin while he had all his stuff on his bunk or under it already. I only had a bag with me, so I claimed my bunk and then went back down to the main area of the camp. 

As that ends, my mom says, ”Ok Si, I'm finished with meds, and now we can go up to your cabin.”

“Ok,” I say, and then we went up to the cabin and we walked back. 

She said, “I’ll miss you Si.” We gave each other a big hug, and I watched her car go away. 

I felt sad but said, “You can do this Si,” in my head.

After that, I put my stuff under the bunk and got everything set up. My counselors said welcome and we all settled in a few hours later. I then had dinner and were sitting outside in the food court. The next day was our first full day of camp. Miles and I had lots of fun.

The next day, we went on our first trip which was a canoe trip. I canoed down a river and then up the Potomac River. I also went down the Potomac River and then through two rapids. When I was going through the first rapid It was very rocky and lots of people got stuck. The water was cold and I made it through. The rapids were tier three which is pretty cool, and we had lots of time to chill and play on a waterfall. Later, the bus arrived, and we went back to the camp. I felt happy I finished the first trip with only 3 more hiking trips to do. 

The next trip was a hiking trip, and I went hiking on the AT, which stands for the Appalachian Trail. This trip was very hard. There was a lot of ups and downs. As well as lots of rocks in the way. They were also slippery. There were a lot of uphills and downhills in the end, I did it. I was walking through Harpers Ferry I saw the younger group that was going to come with us on the same bus that I had gone on earlier. We met up with them and played frisbee moss battles with them. 

Then, I sat with a friend we talked about when we were going back to camp. On the 2nd trip, I felt homesick and missed my family. I knew I could count on my grandparents to send me a letter every day, and I’d get one from them every day. I enjoy getting letters from my family because it cheers me up and helps me get prepared for the next trip or other hard things.

The 3rd trip was the hardest one, but it was fun. We started at a historic memorial battleground site and went on the AT from there. We had lots of fun playing this game called boo-yeah, where every person has a target and you’ve got to get someone to say a certain word. If you do, then you say “Boo-yeah” out loud and then you walk away from everyone else then you  ask them who their person is as well as  what the word is. On the last day, we wre hiking down a steep hill. At one point we stopped at a spot for luch. Then went to see the view. We had a great view from about 1,250 feet in the air, we looked and could see the beautiful Potomac. As well as  the railroads. I knew I was almost on the final trip. One more trip and I would see my family. But the whole reason I could do this is because I’m usually scared and these trips helped me learn that even if I feel like I can’t do it I know I can push through it. do. If I had not gone, I would have regretted notGoing. But I hope that in the future when I’m scared, I can think back to this moment and remember that I can do anything I set my mind to. I also am a very nervous kid because I have ADHD, so it was hard for me to stay on task.  I knew I couldn’t stay on one task for a long time because I wanted to move on to something else. Sleepaway camps are important to my identity because it helps me mature more by being away from my family.