WALKABOUT : 2011

...Thursday night we had dinner at the president's house.

no joke. Jon Wallace had all of the RA's over his house for our walkabout reunion dinner. Celebrating/reflecting/enjoying our time with our walkabout team that we spend 10 days in the wilderness with :) At dinner Mike Yuen, one of our team guides, gave us all a CD of 300 photos from walkabout. SO HERE THEY ARE. I was stoked to see them. Mike is a professional photographer, so he is legit. I love looking at these...I get sucked right back into our time of simplicity!

ready..!?? here we go....

day one: rock climbing. the real way to rock climb. 

 learning how to tie the right knots.

 pretty hard stuff.

 there I am...in the shirt I wore for 5 days straight...joy!

 day two. getting ready to repel...scariest thing of the whole trip. 

 this meadow we're standing in front of...UNREAL. it was straight out of a movie. or some fairy tale. 

 taking a little snack break. (crackers, peanut butter, dried fruit, trail mix)

 OUR FINAL DESTINATION :) CHITTENDEN LAKE!!!!

 Here's Hoey and Jen Meyer, two of our guides. Hoey is known as being "sassy". He's a soccer coach, extreme hiker man, and know-it-all. but we love him! And Jen Meyer might possibly be the sweetest lady ever. She is only like 5ft tall...so tiny and so adorable!!! 

 here's Paul's solo spot. RIDICULOUS. 48hrs of this view. lucky man.

 Taylor getting some shade. poor guy had to make his own tent on solo. 

 THERE I AM!!! in my solo spot!! people, can you believe I spent 2 days here?? right there. from those trees on the left...to that massive rock on the right. This was where I had 48hrs of just me and God. I will never forget this place..and I am so thankful to have pictures to remember the time the Lord and I shared at that spot. thank you Jesus!!!

 thank you Chittenden...you truly are beautiful. 

 this is our team..returning from 48hrs of solo. You can't really tell in this picture...but we were all SO STOKED to see people again! hahaha. 2 days without any human contact is rough for anyone. and we screamed for joy when we were reunited! haha. 

 our team name was "skink" apparently some type of lizard. But...we kind of ended up just calling ourselves "skanks" ...and would shout "skanks congregate!" when we needed to find each other. haha. But in all seriousness...10 days with these people was incredible. Hearing their stories, eating meals with them, being dirty and gross...and loving each other through it all. beautiful. 

 relaxing around dinner time. 

 every night we had a campfire...two people told their life stories...and we prayed over them. such a real sense of community and fellowship. man, some of the best times were around that fire. no phones, no tv, no computers, no distractions....just each other. 

 day 6 or 7?? here we are...all in our second pair of clothes. praise the lord! ready to hike out back to the  trailhead...YAYYYY! p.s i'm in the front. grossly tan from solo. ew. 

 water time! stopped at this lake on our way out and had time to take a swim. Not as good as a shower...but this will suffice. 

 my beautiful team!!! this is like...day 7 without a shower. not bad eh??

 WE MADE IT BACK! here we are on day 10. at Soquell ranch with the rest of the teams. This is at around 8am...we are all still nasty dirty and there is Jon (president) giving us a little pep talk before our run. He told us to get a piece of tape a write down someone back home down the mountain that we would run for. It was an awesome way to end the trip.

3 miles here we come!!! Like I said before, we ended 10 days in the wilderness with a run. Either 3, 6, or 9 miles. unreal, right?? The point is that when you think you can't go any further - you can. Your body is strong, your mind is strong, and your God is strongest. It was invigorating, and ridiculous...after this we FINALLY got to take a 2min shower. PRAISE HIM! 

okay. wow. long post. walkabout 2011. one of the best memories of my life. unreal. praise God.