Quest (Part II of II)

That night was the best sleep I have had in an age.  I awoke to the sound of the wind rustling the leaves.  The trees were silhouetted with a golden hue that radiated all the more brightly as the trees swayed, revealing a glowing blue sky behind.  Just down the way I caught sight of a woodpecker going to town on a maple.  It turned out to be the party barge’s alarm clock.  We gathered in a circle, did some exercises, and then got right down to business.

We checked on Gary and Titanium, both of whom were fine, then we began to assess where we were.  That’s when we noticed that we had camped just uphill of a stream.  Not only that, there appeared to be a very old logger road going down to it.  The road was nearly invisible, but as Andy cleverly pointed out there were no large trees growing on what could be a road.  What’s more, I had an epiphany.  Thanks to my endless hours of watching the discovery channel at an earlier age, I knew that loggers used to use rivers and streams to make the transportation of their fallen trees a bit easier.  Confident in my deduction, I shared my findings with the group and set a bearing to the elusive Maple Grove.

Now we wouldn't be the party barge if we didn't get lost a time or two while having a good time.  We got turned around at least three times trying to follow the remnants of the trail.  But!  With a little tomfoolery and some encouragement from our leaders we finally found it!  One of the other teams welcomed us to the forest clearing and we exchanged a series of high fives before we broke into our packs.  In our haste to find the campsite we forgot to eat and we were STARVING.  I had an improvised fajita consisting of cheese, some “log o’ beef,” salsa, green peppers, and a dash of hummus.  It was delicious.

By the time we had finished with brunch the other team had packed up and left.  Not wanting to cut our victory short, we lingered and talked about our experiences with Quest thus far.  We all agreed that our greatest strength was our attitude.  We would later discover that we were up until 5:00 am the night before and even when we were drop-dead tired we were still in good spirits.  Our team also recognized that the fatigue we felt was most likely the experience Bruce was talking about.  This year will not be easy.  We may (will) work extended hours under duress, but it is important that we keep the faith and at least put on a strong face since people will be looking up to us.  It is equally as important that we understand that we were asked to join the Emergency Response TEAM.  Only by supporting one another did we make it to Maple Grove and this teamwork would continue to get us out of the binds that will inevitably appear as the year progresses.

At peace and inspired, the party barge set our focus on our next task: finding the area’s cemetery.  We trail-blazed like it was nobody’s business.  We climbed over a number of hills, ducked under what looked like a terrifyingly large black widow spider and her web, and plowed through brush so thick it seemed that we were exploring uncharted territory.  Once we hit the river we knew that we were on the right track.  As luck would have it, the lower water levels that hindered us the night before meant a nearly dry riverbed.  All we had to do was walk across a natural bridge of smaller stones and climb a little incline to make it to the forest clearing.

This open plain was deceptively calm.  The tall grasses reminded me of that scene in Jurassic Park 2 where the raptors obliterated most of the survivors.  While there weren't any raptors, Chelsea Evans discovered there was something just as foul lurking in the tall plains.  She drew attention to her pants that were as dirty as one would expect from hours of bushwhacking.  Upon closer inspection, however, we noticed that the dirt was moving.  Chelsea was covered in sea ticks.  The party barge put the partying on hold for a moment as we all quickly tucked in what articles of clothing we could and then booked it across the grassland to Antiock cemetery.

The hallowed grounds were well preserved for being so small and out in the middle of nowhere.  The grass was recently mowed and the marble tombstones reflected our images as we passed.  Their inscriptions dated all the way back to the early 1800’s and most told of sad fates; the most tragic of which was a little boy that was born on Christmas and died six years later on that same day.  Another marble monument was the resting place of a husband who had passed in the early 1900’s.  His wife’s name was also carved into the stone, but while her birth was listed as 1844 there was no death date.  I’m glad we reached this location at mid-day because I couldn't help but feel like the place was haunted.

Team yellow didn't stay long.  We checked on Titanium and Gary (who I passed on to Dalton at Maple Grove) and huddled as we were given our final destination.  It was the Little Grassy Methodist Church Camp.  Kind of.  We had a pick up point just about as far west as our maps would take us.  Pumped that our mission was nearing completion we gathered our gear and, for once, followed a well-traveled road.

We took this break from the vegetation’s constant barrage to work on our skit.  We needed to find a way to portray our journey to the other teams once we were reunited at the base camp.  Brad and Andy spearheaded our project by developing a tune and most of the lyrics to a rap about our adventure.  We all tossed in our two cents, but their beat boxing expertise really brought the song to life.

The rest of the day went relatively smoothly.  Bunch of bushwhacking and searching for an older road that would take us home after the paved one veered the wrong direction.  Our only blunder was that we decided to follow a paved road labeled “exit” at the very end which took us to a highway.  We knew where we were.  The detour would have meant another 40 minutes of hiking to reach the camp in the dark, but Bruce magically appeared out of nowhere and picked us up.  The party barge was thrilled to have made it and ecstatic to learn that food was waiting for us at Little Grassy.  That night we dined on turkey, mashed potatoes, and gravy.

Over the next two days the whole Emergency Response Team stayed together.  We shared our skits, did a lot of team building activities (learned a new game called “bird on a perch”), and delved deeper into the mechanics of the program.  The rest of our time there is a blur of awesomeness.  There was some Ultimate Frisbee, a bonfire, and gorgeous views.  I saw my first humming bird in the wild on my way to our closing ceremony by the lake and made the exciting realization that this was but the first of many amazing finds to come.  Although this was the end of this adventure our real journey had just begun.  The thought made me smile.

P.S.  Gary and Titanium live.