I ate breakfast at Levi�s house. We had eggs, toast, and sausage. It may not have been the healthiest meal but it sure tasted good. We took all our stuff from the house and crammed all of it into their small car trunk. I was impressed by how we accomplished this feat.

The phone rang, and Bobbi was on the other line. (She was invited to come for the weekend, but her parents were punishing her by not letting her go camping.) Mary, Levi�s mother took the call. Bobbi had said that she was packing and her father allowed her to go. Now, all of us had to make even more room for her.

So all of us, Levi, Mary, Betsy (Levi�s sister) and I crammed our bodies into their small car. We had all our pillows in the back seat which was really comfortable. With ten minutes on the road under our belt, we arrived at Bobbi�s house. She was out there sitting on her bag looking like she had just woken up. Bobbi can be nice but thinks everyone is mean to her (which is sometimes true, but we�re just joking with her). She got her bags in the car. Packed up like sardines we started out our camping adventure. Mary drove us to Brown County where there was a rather large flea market. "Do you want to go to the flea market?" she asked.

I thought, "no," but she said, "Well, we�re going anyway." I thought, "Okay."

I have never seen so much senseless junk in my life until I got to this place. Barbie dolls with missing appendages, cassette tapes with no tape, and dirty underwear. I thought, "How do these people make a living?" I pitied them and vowed to myself never to end up like that. But it was fun in the least because I was with my friends, and nothing serious had gone wrong yet.

Continuing from Brown County, we went to the next two counties south and finally made the entire road trip to Starve Hollow. We had to wake Bobbi up, for she had found our journey too boring to actually talk to us. Mike, Mary�s husband was already there with his dog Sparky. This weekend was his birthday, which was the whole reason we went camping. Now Mike, I have to tell you, is some character. He has only one arm because he lost the other one in a serious car accident; he was the only survivor. He can sometimes be serious and other times sarcastic and it is hard for me to distinguish the difference. But overall, he�s a nice guy.

He had lunch fixed for us already and we devoured the hot dogs and cheeseburgers that were there. Now that was good camp food. After lunch, I immediately ran toward the swing set and started swinging. When I jumped off, my swing was stolen by Levi. Wanting it back, I went to my favorite pastime of karate chopping him right in the tuckus. My plan backfired, as I fell on my derriere and broke the band of my watch. "Ow, that hurt," I said, but of course I was okay for I have "buns of steel."

Our peril did not end there. We got tired of the swings and reverted to the nearby see-saw. Levi and Bobbi hopped aboard and both started going up and down. They started doing the trick where you go all the way down to the ground and your partner is catapulted into the air. Levi gave it too much of a force while Bobbi wasn�t paying attention. Without a grip, she did a flip in the air and her shoulder and head landed on the wooden see-saw. She lay on the ground, tending to herself for about ten minutes. She overreacted to it and I thought she deserved an Oscar for her wonderful performance, but I didn�t have the guts to say it.

Swimming at the nearby beach took up the rest of the afternoon. I call it a beach because it�s one of the rare instances where there is a body of water in Indiana with sand nearby. We had dinner and prepared for the wonderful concert that was to be there that night. The music genre was one of my favorites, (which I say sarcastically), country! I don�t remember the name but I think it was called the �Beavertails Gang.�

I hopped in the back of the truck along with Levi, and Bobbi and Betsy were hanging their legs off the tailgate. About five minutes later, we were there. I hate country and so does Levi, so we left the spectacle and played basketball at one of the nearby courts. When we were finished, we returned back to the blanket from which we listened to the band. It was Mike�s birthday, and the whole crowd serenaded him with "Happy Birthday." The concert finished and we returned to our campsite.

We all hit the sack for the night. I found myself sleeping on the hardest ground in the whole state of Indiana. I slept soundly for a whole four hours. It seemed like everybody else slept the same way I did.

I woke up with sore neck and back, but after stretching out and popping all my joints, I started to feel better. It was Sunday morning and of course we went to church. It seemed like we were the only teenagers there during Sunday School. All the people in our class were either over the hill or rolling down it. The lesson was dry, and the teacher made Al Gore look like Patrick Henry. The regular service was the same way. In spite of the service, I left the First Baptist Church with a smile because I had spent that morning in the House of God.

Back at the campsite, we again returned to the beach. We spent the whole afternoon there once again and Mike and Mary came to meet us right before we left. Sparky was there, and ran around with us for a while. Mike went to play horseshoes, and Mary went to fix supper.

As we walked back to the campsite, we saw Mike throwing horseshoes with his one arm. Levi yelled facetiously, "Men with one arm are losers!" We all joined in on the cackling. I hope he didn�t take us too seriously. At the campsite, Mike�s family from French Lick was there to celebrate his birthday.

We had a scrumptious meal as far as camp food goes, and had Mike�s favorite cake, Angel Food. After filling our stomachs, we all decided to burn off the calories with a long hike. The serpentine trail led us around the lake, taking what I thought was the roughest hike possible. The poorly made trail was filled with roots popping up and loose rocks making it easy to fall, which a lot of people did. I even had to grab a few tree trunks to keep my balance. At the top of what I thought was the highest mountain in Indiana, there came an intersection. The trail sign said to keep going straight, but there was a very flat and wide path going to the right. Using their brains, Mike and his family took the large trail, while we, the naive, inexperienced teenagers decided to follow the sign and go straight.

I was still wearing my swimming trunks, a beater, and sandals from the beach, thinking that this was going to be a short hike. But I was dead wrong. Horse flies infested the trail which seemed to be going forever upward. The thin pathway sometimes disappeared in the poison ivy but we found it easily for the sun was still out. The path never seemed to turn and my senses told me we were getting far away from camp. The path eventually disappeared and we had to make a decision: to go back, or to keep going and find another path. The vote was three to one and we kept going.

An hour passed, and it got dark quickly. Our morale was getting terribly low. They all asked me to pray that we find our way back. I thought that was a grand idea and started to pray. "Dear Lord, please be with us during this time of trouble. Help us to find our way back easily, and shed your grace and safe haven around us. Please don�t let Mike and Mary be too worried about us. I know we are lost, but you always seem to work things out for us. Don�t fail us now."

We all felt better about ourselves and God led us to a large path which we thought was the same one that Mike took. We chose that trail and kept on it and our spirits lifted. There were many signs on the edge of the trail, so we knew we had to stay on this path until we got back to the campsite. The trail led around the lake because I could see the reflection of the moon on the surface of it. As we kept walking the trail always looked the same. The signs always read "8" and had a picture on it of what seemed to be a park station. So we thought we would see one sometime.

Bobbi and Betsy kept tripping in the loose gravel or over branches that were unseen because of the darkness. Levi and I ended up holding their arms to make sure they wouldn�t injure anything. We started to sing songs to keep ourselves from losing hope. Bobbi started cracking up jokes about us not making it back home but I took them the wrong way. "Nothing is funny right now, you know we are lost and laughing won�t get us any closer. Nothing is funny!"

Bobbi almost cried for she didn�t want to realize it either. "We need to keep walking," I said, "We won�t get anywhere if we stop."

Hours and hours went by as we walked the never ending path. My left foot ached. Betsy was wheezing because of exhaustion. Bobbi was complaining about her ankle. Levi and I had to step up and take the lead. Then we heard a noise, it sounded like an engine. Betsy yelled, "Help!" We thought the rangers had found us, but we never saw anything.

Then out of nowhere, fireworks appeared in the sky. "They�re shooting off flares for us! They�re trying to find us!" Bobbi yelled. We all ran off the path and found ourselves in a clearing, with a lake. People were shooting off fireworks and we walked up to a man with long hair riding a four wheeler.

"Could you please help us? We got lost in the woods and we need someone to take us back to the campsite," Levi said.

"You got lost? In these woods?" Then the man started to laugh hysterically at us. I felt humiliated; it was kind of embarrassing. We hopped in the back of his Ford F-450 supertruck and he took us back to camp at seventy miles an hour.

At the entrance to the camp, there was a police car parked. Levi asked the officer, "Are you guys looking for four teenagers who were lost in the woods. If you are, we�ve found you."

"Yes," the officer said. He then took us back to our site in his car.

"Oh, thank you, thank you." we all replied.

"I�m sorry if we caused you a lot of trouble," I said.

"That�s okay. That�s what we�re here for. That�s why our procedures are set up, for situations just like these."

We stayed up about an hour later. Never in my life was I more glad to see civilization than at that time. We all conversed about our adventure to Mike and Mary, the ups and downs, and everything else. The injuries were minor, I had about twelve blisters on each foot, Bobbi�s ankle needed to be wrapped, but we were all fine. I went back to my bed, glad to be on the hard ground rather than searching for a hole to crawl in. I had the best sleep in my life to end the most chaotic day of my young life.

Last updated on 06/12/2002