The 8th Grade Poconos Trip
Jolijt Tamanaha
On the day before the last day of school the former BSGE 8th grade was busy getting their funk on with nature. They went to the Poconos Environmental Education Center (P.E.E.C) in the Pennsylvania Poconos. On Monday at 9:00am (sharp) 48 BSGE students and 4 teachers boarded two coach buses. With snacks in hand and sleeping bags in cargo the 8th graders (and Niki, Mrs. Africano, Linda and Mr. Powell) began their adventure.
The first bus smelled like someone dumped a bottle of cherry flavored Tylenol all over the backseat. Turns out the bus company just had something for the cherry smell. The bathrooms were hot because they were right by the engine so the bathroom smelled like hot cherries, which was even more disgusting. I am never going to eat hot cherries.Even though the bathroom was hot the air conditioning in the bus was on full blast. Meghan McCullough was even sitting in a small corner rocking back and forth and chanting. That’s how cold she was! Wow! You guys must be dreading the trip, so far I’ve described a freezing bus, hot cherries and a nasty bathroom! Well I’m just getting started. The trip was actually the best trip of the whole school year.
When we arrived at PEEC we were all ready to chill in the cabin for the rest of the night. That’s one thing you learn quickly, there isn’t much resting in PEEC. We got to the cabins and began to unpack. The girls all slept in one cabin. There were two rooms with about 10 bunk beds in
each room. The rooms had a connecting hallway but each room had a separate bathroom. The boys slept in the other cabin but there weren’t many of them so they shared one room and one bathroom. The chaperones slept in a separate (but connected) room. We had just begun relaxing when we were informed that we needed to get up and socialize outside. We walked down to the pavilion and ate/played volleyball and soccer.
After that we went into the woods to do team building activities. We spilt up into four teams
and followed a teacher. The “team building” activities were difficult to say the least. There were 6 different activities complete with scenarios, challenges and rules. In one activity the whole team had to get across a swap with three planks. In another activity the whole team had to climb up a wall. (I was pretending I was in boot camp like in that Disney Channel movie with Hilary Duff).
Then half of us went off to play games like “everyone’s it tag” and “a what?”. The other half
went to do courage courses. (Don’t worry everyone got to do everything, we switched the next day).
There were four levels to the courage courses. At the first level you had to walk across a tightrope while holding onto another tightrope. Then you had to walk across a tightrope with only 6 loose George of the Jungle ropes. In the third level you and a partner had to lean on each other to balance and cross a tightrope. The last level was the hardest (duh!!). We had to cross a tightrope with just one loose rope. Only Karina was able to do it.
Then we went back to the cabin to relax for 20 minutes. When we heard dinner
we got up and rushed to the cafeteria. Unfortunately that was when we learned we were really
in boot camp. We were served chicken slop over rice. Luckily the salad bar was actually
good. After dinner we went back and started a nice big campfire. Our teachers bought smore supplies in bulk. We roasted marshmallows and smashed them between chocolate and graham.
As soon as it got dark we were told to get up and move. We were separated into three groups and then headed out for a night hike. If you’ve never done a night hike you don’t understand how cool this is. It was dark and we had no idea what was going on. It was also extremely easy to scare people (make sure you get into a group with squealish girls).
We learned to use our other senses (it didn’t really work because a lot of people had flashlights).
One of the staff members was my guide and he scared us when he said he had no idea where we where. (Don’t worry we got back safe).
Then we were finally able to chill. That is if you call fighting for the showers and changing in 2 inch by 2 inch stalls chilling. We all took showers (I hope) and then “got into bed.” Lights out was at 11pm but lights out didn’t really mean you had to go to bed. It actually meant you had to be really, really quiet so that the teachers didn’t know you were awake.
That was basically impossible. People (Kristen Spang) were jumping up and down like hyper bunnies. I was hit in the head with a flip flop (I didn’t really notice) and cell phones kept going off.
To top it all off we were all waiting for someone to fall asleep so that we could play a prank on them. Of course no one really thought of bringing and prank materials. We tried to stick Band-Aids on Hannah’s face but she woke up. People (Kristen Spang) rubbed sunscreen all over my face and the boys drew all over everyone’s faces. We snuck in every junk food imaginable. I didn’t know Pamela could fit a box of Oreos and Rice Krispies in one tiny bag. There were Doritos, Cheetos, Popcorn, Fruit Loops, Twizllers and Swedish Fish. (And that’s only what I remember). We woke up at around 7ish and were told that we needed to be packed, cleaned, dressed and ready to go by eight. After that announcement came a flurry of rolling sleeping bags, brushing teeth and throwing clothes. We rushed our packing and then lugged our bags up the hill to the main center.
Then we went across to the cafeteria for breakfast. Breakfast was the best meal of the whole
trip. We ate eggs, sausage and cereal. After every meal there were assigned swappers who had to clean the tables off.
After more confidence courses and games we went on another hike. It was a mile long. I think
their goal was to tire us out so that we would collapse on the bus (it didn’t work).
We then went to lunch. The lunch was okay. We ate pizza and more salad. Then we were told
to quickly clean up and head outside. We grabbed our bags and ran to the buses. On the way back we tried to watch High School Musical. We ended up watching the music videos and signing along because, to our disappointment, the movie wasn’t working. We arrived back at 3:45 and all ran off the bus. Then we picked up our bags and made our way home. The adventure was over but the memory was still smelled fresh(with a little hint of cherry).
--Send a letter to the editor telling us what you think and we'll publish it.