The singing session before worship was a bit more subdued than normal to help us prepare ourselves for worship.
We made it back home on Saturday evening about 9:15. Coming into Tampa we saw quite a storm brewing ahead of us and we drove through some of it in Tampa. We arrived to a dry LCC and had a closing circle and quickly unloaded the vans and trailer as the storm approached. As soon as the last camper drove away, the skies opened up and it poured at LCC. What timing! Anyway, thanks for the prayers this week. Our campers had a great time even though some were a bit homesick at times. Even they made it with everyone having a great time at the closing Celebration.
Photos are all up on the EventPixels site at:
http://www.eventpixels.com/Lutherock/2011
These are the full resolution photos so they will come out looking great when you order them online. (The watermark does not print on the ordered photos). If you have any special requests to have any photo edited in a special way, please let me know.
I am now starting to edit on the tons of video I took at camp and will have some posted soon so keep checking here for updates!
Erik
Our final day at camp was quite jam packed! I spent the afternoon at the Challenge Tower with the Senior High Youth from the Whitewater Week program. They had three days of wonderful rafting fun on rivers in West Virginia. Many of the youth climbed the tower which provides many challenging ways to go up it. Mark, Bambi and myself had time to also make the climb. After that, the youth did the swing. This is a cable connected at the 60 foot level and you are strapped into your harness and pulled up 50 feet off the ground. When you release the rope, you fall and swing. It’s quite exciting or frightening depending on your point of view. Dinner was mexican night followed by singing of the top 7 songs from the week voted on by the youth. Then off to campfire for crazy skits. The night is capped off with the Celebration dance and closing circle. The campers are now back in the tents and packing for an early departure tomorrow. Photos from today can be viewed here. We are still looking at an arrival time of about 10 pm Saturday.
Thanks for following along our journey to Camp Lutherock!
Today I joined the High School Sampler group as the climbed up Cross Rock. The rock wall is about a 40 foot climb followed by repelling. Photos from this event are here. Afterwards, we got a treat and were able to take a trail out to Lutherock before heading back down to the camp.
We will be joining all the OAP groups that are in camp for cookout night in a little bit.
Today was a big day for many of the youth as they went rafting on the Nolichucky River. Because of the way the schedules worked out, one group went yesterday, two groups today and then one group will go tomorrow. Today was one of the middle school groups and the high school sampler group. Last night there was a rain upstream from the river so the difference from yesterday’s run today’s was like night and day. Yesterday the river was at 700 CFS (cubic feet per second) and today it was between 2500 and 3000 CFS. I think this was the fastest I have seen this section of the river run and it was fantastic!!! Because of the high levels, we all had to be in rafts (no ducky’s this year). That also meant that I didn’t have many stops with great photo opportunities. But I did still get quite a few. Unfortunately not so many through some of the best sections. Anyway, today’s photos can be viewed here. Several of the youth had the opportunity to swim in the river after being, as they say, “violently ejected” from the raft. None of the youth were injured and they all has a great time. Yesterday’s group couldn’t stop talking about the great time they had “surfing” on the Twin Eddies rapids. The river was running way too fast for us to surf there today — but we did try. Look forward to hearing lots of great stories about rafting!
Tuesday has turned out to be an amazing day. A bit tiring for most of us, but amazing. Most of the adults took the day off to do the loop hike as their own group. I was with a couple of the middle school adventure groups also doing the loop hike. The adults went up to Cross Rock first, then over to the Pinnacle and down. The adventure groups did it the other way so we crossed paths near the pinnacle. It was an exhausting hike for most everyone. But well worth it as the views at both Pinnacle and Cross Rock are amazing. You can check out the photo gallery here.
After all the adults were done with the loop hike, we headed to Blowing Rock for our customary night out. We had a very nice meal and celebrated both Kelly’s and my birthdays.
Tomorrow morning we head out early for the white water rafting trip with the third middle school group as well as the high school sampler group.
The adventure groups are out doing several activities. One of the groups is on the GIC (Group Interaction Course), another is rock climbing at Cross Rock, and the Senior Sampler is out on the big Challenge Tower.
Kelly and I went out with one of the groups to the cave. It was an amazing morning going thru crawl spaces, slipping on rocks, and just having an amazing time seeing nature down underground. I am uploading photos from this event now and you can see them here. Because of the internet connection here, I won’t have photos on my regular site until after we get back so ordering photos online should wait until I have the high resolutions photos uploaded. These galleries have the photos reduced in size so I can get them uploaded in a reasonable time frame.
Uploading photos is going slow as the connection is very marginal at camp. I might go in town later to try a connection there. In the mean time, here is a link to view Sunday’s photos. There will be about 150 once all of them upload.
Kelly and I are off to caving with a couple of groups this morning. More on that later.
Erik
We made it to Lutherock with no glitches this year so we would have arrived an hour before they want anyone to arrive. So we used that time to stop by Linville Falls. This is a beautiful park not far from camp. We hiked the half mile down to see the falls, hang out and take some photos. I will try to get some photos posted in a bit. We arrived at camp around 3:30 and checked the youth into their respective programs. They met their councilors and others in their adventure groups. I presume that the got their luggage into the platform tents they will be staying in. I haven’t heard that any of our groups got cabins. This is typical for OAP (Outdoor Adventure Program) especially on weeks where there is elementary youth camps happening.
Our four youth that flew up arrived during dinner. It took them a little longer than expected as there was some mixup in directions and the driver was lost. I’m guessing it was his first time with this shuttle run. I’m still waiting to here more details.
The youth are singing and the adults are just finishing up with dishes. I heard that we will be enjoying ice cream at campfire tonight. That’s something new.
Well it’s about time for the adult meeting.
More later.
We are off to a good start for our annual trek to Camp Lutherock. Only one of the students showed up at 10 am rather than the 10 pm sendoff. Sorry for the mixup, Anthony!
We just made our first rest stop in north Florida where 301 meets interstate 10. We are ahead of schedule leaving us plenty of time for rest breaks. We will probably take a long one at breakfast time. It was a quiet ride up to now. The kids stocked up on sugar at this stop and they are now awake and punchy. Here’s to hoping they will settle back down soon.
More later. I need a nap.
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And now for some fun, check out the following link:
