To read part sixteen of day four, click here.
I don’t remember how they actually got Ben into the car, I just remember it took a while. I remember “yelling” at someone to move over and let Ben have the middle seat so he had a spot for his ankle to rest, but I don’t remember much else.
Sitting closest to the door in the second row was my favorite place to sit, and I managed to get that seat. Luke was next to me, and Kayce was next to him. While we had the car lights on, I opened up the letter that had been handed to me as I was getting in. It was from Matt and Whitney at the NCOBS office, thanking me for sending them soap and telling me good luck. I was glad they had gotten their soap and they liked it – I had sent it to them to thank them for putting up with my endless questions. 😀
Putting my letter away, I pulled out my journal.
“It looks like Ben will be staying with us! I hope so – I would feel so bad if our crew had to split up. Ben getting hurt united us. We are more like a team, a family now. Hopefully by the end of this course we will be even closer.
I wish I could have done more to help Ben. Every time he would thank me for giving him water or making them take a break, I felt weird. I don’t think I did that much. Everyone else did so much more than me. All I did was carry the water.”
Just as I finished writing that, we started moving and the lights went out. I put my journal away and tried to talk to Luke, but he decided that he was going to a nap and if I wanted to keep my head I should leave him alone.
OK, just kidding there. Mostly. 😀
I leaned back against the seat and sang songs in my head, looking around at where we were going. What I could see looked really pretty! Of course, I couldn’t see much, but whatever.
We had about a two hour car ride to get to our “mystery campsite”. It was supposed to be a three hour trip, but the French Broad River, (where we were supposed to be) didn’t have enough water in it for us to canoe on. So we were going to a different river.
After about twenty minutes in the car, I leaned forward and tapped Ben’s shoulder. When he looked back at me I asked how his ankle was doing. He told me that it was ok, it still really hurt but it was doing better. I smiled at him and tried to rest my head against the back of my seat. My head hit something hard – something that was NOT the back of the seat. I shifted so I could see what it was, and because of the dark it took me a minute to realize what it was.
It was Bobby’s head – he had crossed his arms on the back of the seat and was resting his head on them. I glared at the top of his head for a minute before I realized that it was not going to do anything. I tried to mimic him, but my torso was too short to comfortably reach the back of the seat in front of me. I sat back up and looked around.
Maggie, Sarah Margaret and Rebecca were in the back row. It looked like Sarah Margaret was sleeping, and Maggie was showing Rebecca something on what I assumed was her camera. Bobby was resting his head on the back of my seat, and Tullia was using his back as a pillow, while Jordan was using Tullia as a pillow. In my row, Kayce was resting his head on the window and Luke was leaning up against his shoulder. Up in the front row Bruce was half asleep, his head shaking as the window that his head rested on shook. Ben sat staring straight at the rearview mirror, not moving at all.
I wanted to lean my head back, but Bobby was still in the way. I decided that I really wanted to put my head on the back of the seat, so he needed to move.
I pushed at his head, but he didn’t move.
I pushed again. He still wasn’t moving.
Wondering if he was this hard to wake up in the mornings, I thought about asking Bruce and Ben if they knew how to wake him up. I decided that I would try a couple more times before disturbing the silence.
I pushed his head to the side, to the other side, then pushed it up so he was looking straight at me. There was still no movement, no recognition, no nothing. I could not believe how hard it was to wake this guy up, and I did not envy the guys, who had to wake him up every morning.
I had just quit and was sitting in an uncomfortable position when Bobby moved, pulling his arms out from under his head. He slapped at the back of his neck like something had bit him there. Resting his chin where his arms had been, he looked at me and said, quite simply, “There was a fly on my neck.”
The look on my face must have been quite interesting, as I stared at him for a moment. I couldn’t believe what I had just heard. All of my pushing hadn’t done a thing, but he had woken up because there had been a fly on his neck?!?
A questioning look crossed his face as he asked me why I was looking at him like that. I explained, laughing at his reaction. He started to sit up and stopped, like he was only just realizing that Tullia was using his back as a pillow. I tried not to start cracking up as he tried to get Tullia off his back without waking her up, but he couldn’t.
He gave up and shook his back, waking her up. When she woke up and moved it woke up Jordan, and they both sat up and stretched. We talked for a minute before they all settled back to sleep.
Sitting around doing nothing was boring, but what else could I do?
About twenty minutes later, Luke had a bad dream. How do I know he had a bad dream? Because he woke up with a jump, almost pushing me off the seat. He had a wild look in his eyes, and when I asked what was wrong it took him a minute to reply. “There was a bear. You guys all ran away, leaving me, and it mauled me.”
It was tempting to make a reference to what he had said earlier about bears, but I didn’t. Telling him that he had said “I would give any bears a big hug or smile them down” wouldn’t help the situation. I told him that we would never leave him, and that I would be the one who got mauled because I was the slowest. He grinned at me before settling back down and falling asleep again.
We had been in the car for almost an hour. I was getting really bored, so I was happy when Rebecca asked if they could turn on the radio. I wanted music! It had been over three days since I had heard any music, and I wanted to hear some so badly. 😀
Katie turned the music on and most of crew woke up. We spent the next hour or so singing, laughing, dancing if we wanted to. We heard songs like Call Me Maybe, Give Your Heart A Break, What Makes You Beautiful… I had never heard some of the songs before, but I picked them up quickly. Apparently it’s pretty easy to pick up a song if you hear it at least three times in one hour. LOL
We got off the highway and started driving on a gravel road. It was bumpy and anyone who might have been asleep was awake by then. I don’t think they were asleep – we were singing pretty loudly. But they might have been…
We pulled into the parking lot of a building that had a sign out front.
It said something like “North Carolina Outward Bound School”.
Jen turned off the car, turned to us and said, “We’re sleeping here tonight”.
We all looked at each other, looks of amazement and then fear on our faces. Were they going to make us sleep outside with this building right here?!?
Click here to read the next 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. Thanks to NCOBS for letting me use their photos.*
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Outward Bound – Day Four, Part Eighteen