To read part eleven of day three, click here.

I clutched at my ears. Rebecca had been standing right next to me, and she had hurt my ears really badly when she screamed. I almost fell against the platform and managed to catch myself before I got hurt. I wondered what was wrong with Rebecca, and ran to catch up to her. I did not know what had happened, but I wanted to make sure she was ok.

Rebecca had stopped before the trail leading to the kitchen, and was sitting on a rock. I don’t know if she was crying – I don’t think she was, but it was hard to tell in the dark, and I did not want to shine my light in her face. Bobby was squatting down next to her asking her what was wrong.

She started stuttering, her breath coming so fast she could barely get the words out.

“I st-st-stepped on a s-s-snake!”

I instinctively looked at the ground around where we were standing. No snakes! Bobby was trying to calm Rebecca down, but I don’t think he was succeeding very well. I realized that if Bobby could not cheer her up, I could not. Bobby was one of the best at cheering people up. 🙂 So I headed on up to the kitchen, so I could tell everyone what had happened and warn the other girls.

When I told everyone that Becca had stepped on a snake, most of the other girls went back by the platforms to talk to her. I stayed in the kitchen and “offered moral support” to the people who were cleaning.

After a little bit the girls and Bobby came back up the trail. They all sat down and we commenced Twilight Meeting.

First Katie told us a story. She had asked me earlier if it would be ok for her to tell this story. Because this was not a normal bedtime story. This was the type of story that we called “war stories”. Basically, stories of things that were really uncomfortable for me – drinking, smoking, partying, etc.

So she told her story. And I think it made the rest of the crew feel uncomfortable.  Then she asked the crew a couple of questions, and asked if they had any questions. Someone asked if that was a true story, and she told them that it was not.

I think they felt betrayed. They felt that she had been lying, and they felt that she was trying to manipulate them. I know, because they were talking about it in the tarp later.

Once they were done asking questions, she said that she had told them that story for a reason. She asked if any of them had liked hearing that story. When everyone said no, she nodded her head thoughtfully. Then she said “Lets try to keep the rest of the war stories to a minimum, ok? Because they are not fun to hear, and I would rather not hear them.” (It was something like that – I don’t remember exactly what it was.)

We sat in silence for a few minutes before Jen spoke up. She said she had a go around question, a question that we all took turns answering until everyone had answered.

“What are your trigger words? And I don’t mean words that get you all excited, and stuff like that, I mean words that upset you. Words that make you mad. Anyone can start the circle, and you can pass it to the left or right.”

We all waited as everyone thought over theirs. It did not take me long to think of mine – curse words, and using the name of the Lord in vain. Just as I was about to start talking, Bruce spoke up.

I don’t remember what he said. I remember a few of the trigger words:

Retard/ed
Stupid
Weird
I can’t
Any cursing
And there were a couple of really weird strange ones that I can’t remember.

Once everyone had said their trigger words Jen asked us to make an effort not to say everyone’s words. We covered a few more things before heading back to the platforms. I don’t remember if we actually had one of the guys check our platform for snakes… I know I thought about it!

There was a lot of looking around before you did anything, making sure the ground was clear of any wriggling things. There were a bunch of girls who got on the platform and did not get off again. I know that when I was trying to get something out of my backpack I did NOT put my feet on the ground.

I warned whoever was sleeping next to me about my claustrophobic panic attacks (if I get stuck in the blankets, or in this case a sleeping bag, I freak out) and rolled over and shut my eyes. The girls were all talking about what Katie had said.

It was really funny, listening to the conversation. Every three or four words, you would hear “Sorry, ____” because they had said someones trigger word.  We did hear “Sorry, Brett” more then we heard anything else. 😀

I finally gave up trying to sleep and rolled back over so I would be facing the girls. We kept talking, just random stuff. We could hear the guys talking all the way across the entire campsite. It was the farthest we had been apart, and they were louder than they had been any other night. Rebecca decided that it was time for them to be quiet.

“Bobby!”
“What do you want, Becky…”
“We want y’all to hush! We’re trying to sleep here!”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes, really!”

Then Jen cut in.

“People might be trying to sleep, so can we keep it down?”

I tried to hold it in, I swear. But I could not help myself and soon half of us were cracking up. We could still hear the guys, and by this point I am sure they could hear us too. Oh well.

We were able to stop giggling for a bit, and then the talking and the “Sorry!!” started again. After saying that it was ok a lot of times, I told them that I knew they were going to curse. That for them it was a part of their vocabulary, they did not see it as wrong and it did not annoy them. That I knew it was going to happen. I just asked them to try to cut it back a bit. They said they would try, and started talking again. Somewhere around that point in time is when I fell asleep. I had been reviewing my day, and it had not been a bad one!

Yeah, having a bad ankle was not fun. But getting ready for Newlyweds was! And maybe picking up the trash was not my favorite thing in the world to do… (I found some nasty stuff!) But lunch was yummy! Ok, the ladders were not fun. Period. But reaching the summit was probably one of the proudest moments of my life! I had come together with a bunch of complete strangers, lived with them for three days, and together we had climbed up a mountain and part of the way down! How awesome is that? Yes, the water run turned out to be the worst water run of the trip, and I did not really enjoy it. But I was able to talk with Ben and Kayce, something that I had not really had the opportunity to do before. And they were these really nice guys that I could talk to now! The snake? Um… Can’t really come up with a good thing to counteract that. 😀 And what happened during twilight meeting changed the way I looked at some of my crewmates.

So yeah, Day Three was a good day. It was a really productive day too! I slept well that night, which was good. I was going to need all my energy for the hard day we would have the next day! It’s a good thing God did not give us the ability to see into the future, because if I had seen what was going to happen the next afternoon, I would probably not have slept a wink, trying to figure out a way to prevent what happened.

Click here to read the first part of Day Four.

*Everything here is from my own memory and may not be correct. Outward Bound is not responsible for anything I post here.*

More in this series:

<< Outward Bound – Day Three, Part ElevenOutward Bound – Day Four, Part One >>