Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-4893169-20141231040024

Sometimes you may have really horrible days descending without any hint of warning. You wake up with a strong sense of foreboding; and you know that things will turn sour the moment you step outside. And yet on other days, everything seems to be going great until a sinkhole suddenly opens up while you were rollerblading or an elfin air ship crash-lands into your backyard, taking out your tree house.

As was typically the case, this particular descent into the abyss started out as a pretty decent day. I had just turned 14 that July and had also hit a growth spurt, going from a measly 4'8 to a petite 5'3". Next fall was high school where hopefully I won't get dumped in the special self-esteem class for sufferers of extreme shyness and other awkward geekiness. But I wasn't thinking about that at that moment. I was more concerned with upcoming camping trip and how I was going to spend it.

As my dad pulled the station wagon over into a spot on to the main street, I looked over. Through the bug-flecked wind shield, I could see a crowd of fidgety parents. Piles of luggage were haphazardly stacked in the broad collage parking lot, and still people were streaming in all directions. Pushing open the door, I got out, while Dad opened the back and began unloading the essential stuff I needed for my two week stay at Camp Kim-Tu: plenty of light summer clothes, sun lotion, Deet bug and fire witch repellent and books and sketch pads for when I wasn’t doing entries and writing exercise.

Picking up my sleeping bag and back pack, I hurried after my dad across the street just as the first of the collage Geology busses pulled up near the excited crowd.

It was a fine weekday morning and a cool breeze was blowing from the Pacific. It felt good, but I knew this refreshing breeze wasn’t going to last once we reached the mountains and by the time we get to the Willow Creek Writer’s Camp, it was going to be stifling hot and muggy. A few minutes later, I was aboard, my gear secured in the metal rack above my seat. Up in front, kids were already seated, chatting away, reading while listening on some iPod or jabbing away at some noisy handheld game. I, on the other hand, sat quietly, feeling a bit miffed that I missed out on the good seats. However, my glumness died away as soon I started perusing my newly purchased paper, all a while trying to ignore the heavy thumps of suitcases being heaved into the lower compartments. I was just glad I didn’t stowed my delicate camera and binoculars in my back pack and not in my suitcase, which had already been buried into the massive collection of baggage.

Leafing absentmindedly through the pages of the usual weighty, multi-verse matters and elven/celebrity scandals, I found myself wondering about what the two weeks at Camp Kim-Tu would be like.

My three older, triplet sisters, being the wicked witches that they were, teased me for weeks before my trip saying that the woods were full of hungry bears, Sasquatches and wendigos and that the cabins were nothing but old trapper shacks with hardly any intact doors and tattered screen windows with the only ‘furniture’ being several grimy, urine stained, mouse-infested mattresses. Naturally, I didn’t believe them upon seeing the photos they took of their enjoyable stay there. Even though were right about the cabins being a bit rustic and outdated, they were fairly clean and well-kept, plus there wasn't an animal pest in sight—big or minuscule. But it was what they told me afterwards that scared me even more than any horror movie or scary campfire story out there…because it happened to be true and the incident actually occurred in my hometown. 