Tag: trip

College Trip

pottymouth818Leave a comment

I’m writing this blog post early because I’m leaving to go visit my sister in college tomorrow. This post is about the upcoming trip and college and it’s really all over the place 🙂

Not only am I excited to see where my sister goes to school but also because it’s where my mom went to college. My mom has always been my biggest role model so it’s intriguing to see where she lived during such a critical part of her life. I’d like to be able to picture my mom at my own age and the way she lived her life. I’ve always wished that I could meet my mom at the age I am now.

My sister recently told me that she wants me to go to the same college as her. This was an absolute shock. I questioned her reasoning and replied saying that she doesn’t even like me that much. Despite my skepticism, she stood firm backing her statement. Clearly college really does make people miss their family and reminisce about childhood. Whatever her thought process, I’m just happy that she actually wants me around or at least wants me to see a glimpse into her life.  

Teachers have always told me how much of a leap up college is from high school but I’m not convinced. Everyone I’ve talked to in college has told me that it’s exponentially better than high school. I completely and full-heartily and possibly naively believe them. My sister’s hardest class is Spanish 4 and that doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that she’s in college. Let’s just say despite my family’s many talents, not one includes being linguistically inclined. I personally feel like everything is easier when you’re doing it on your own terms, and when you are in college, everything is up to you.  

In addition to seeing my sister, I get to visit my family in Maryland who I rarely get to see and I also once again get a taste of freedom. It’s crazy to me how before coming to OVS I couldn’t care less about flying across the country but now it’s turned into something highly anticipated. Every day where I feel in control is now a blessing.

“Airplane Blue” by Tomasz%20Gaw%u0142owski/ CC0 1.0

Camping

Daphne PsaledakisLeave a comment

This past weekend the Juniors went on their class camping trip. Personally, I love camping. Some of the best memories I have are of camping with my family and friends. So of course I was excited for this trip.

We were told it was going to be cold before leaving, and so me being me, I packed my ski clothes. That was probably the one time I’ve over-packed and it’s been a good thing.

We left school Friday afternoon and drove up towards Mammoth, California. The minute we stepped out of the vans after our five-hour drive, I was glad I had stuffed my bag with extra clothes until it was bursting at the seams.

That night, we struggled to get our tent up in the dark. The tent poles would numb our hands, forcing us to take turns trying to set it up. It also didn’t help that the four of us had no clue how to set it up. But with help from our teacher, we were eventually able to get it standing.

The next day we took a trip to the local fish hatchery, which was apparently one of the largest rainbow trout hatcheries in the West. Or something like that. From there, we continued to a much needed trip to the natural hot springs.

Definitely the highlight of the trip right there.

There were two different pools – we called them the party pool and the senior pool. In the party pool they did belly-flops and covered each other in mud. My friends and I were not a part of that. We went to the senior pool (which wasn’t actually a senior pool, we just decided to relax and enjoy it) instead. It was so nice sitting in the hot water and looking at a stunning view, even if the water wasn’t exactly the cleanest.

After the hot springs we headed back to the camp and another freezing night. We attempted to make beef stroganoff for dinner, which didn’t work out too well. As soon as dinner was over we all crawled into our tents and sleeping bags and huddled for warmth.

The next two days we spent hiking. We hiked quite a ways the first day, and the second day we made the short trek to the Devil’s Postpile, and then continued on to Rainbow Falls, which was amazing.

The night after our hike to Rainbow Falls was our last, and we froze our toes off yet again. In the morning, we woke up, packed our bags, and loaded into the vans.

We took a small detour to Pie in the Sky up the road, and had some 0f the best pie I’ve ever had. The Pecan Chocolate Chip Pie was to die for.

After our detour, we loaded back into the vans for the five hour drive back to school – and some much needed showers.

Overall, the trip was fun. We may have been cold and hungry, but the things we did and saw were really cool. We also grew much closer as a class. It was definitely worth it.

Daph

Honors Ski Trip

rangerthecat1 Comment

Last week, I had one of the best weeks I’ve had so far this year. I took a trip with 18 of my classmates and close friends along with 4 faculty members to Yosemite for the Honors Ski Trip.

Now, I’ve been to Yosemite before when I was younger and I do remember parts of it. But it was so different than I had remembered and so amazing. It was a completely different experience and a really great one at that.

Day #1:
After arriving the night before when there was hardly any snow, we woke up unsure if there would be good skiing conditions. Nevertheless, we went up to Badger pass, rented our skis, and set off on our first cross country skiing journey. The skiing itself was extremely difficult for me, and I fell over at least every 3 minutes. It was so frustrating and I wasn’t really having the best time. about 20 or 30 minutes in, it started snowing lightly. It got colder, then began to snow harder and harder until I could hardly feel my hands or see very far ahead of me. We stopped for lunch at a campground, which was about 3 miles from where we started, and took a break in the cold snow storm for about 20 minutes. Then, we headed back the way we came to make a 6 mile trip. It wasn’t that far, really, but it seemed like it to be because I was terrible at the skiing, but being surrounded by beautiful scenery definitely enhanced the experience.

Day #2:
It wasn’t as hard for me the 2nd day because I had gotten used to the hang of the skiing, but I was still really slow. We went the same way as we did the 1st day, but part way through, we cut off the main path and went a few miles out on a side trail. It was so beautiful, with many less people, and it was sunny and warm (well, compared to the first day). At our stopping spot, we went up a really steep hill onto a flat area where some of us (including myself) stopped and ate lunch as a small group continued on to another destination. We stayed at this spot for an hour or a little bit more, making snow forts, having a snowball fight, building a snowman, and sleeping in the snow with the warm sun beating down on us. It was a very peaceful and beautiful experience. When we got back and were loading up the vans, a group of us saw a coyote that was so close to us we could almost touch it. Its eyes were extremely greenish-yellow and vibrant, and he was so much more calm than I would expect.

Day #3:
This was by far my favorite day. We split into two groups, one that went on another ski trip and one that went on a hike by half dome and the huge waterfall. We walked a while through the trees until we spotted a beautiful bobcat that was only about 20 feet away from us. It wasn’t scared or nervous, and just went about doing whatever it wanted to. I had never seen one before and it was probably the best part of the day – it’s not very often people see bobcats roaming around, even in Yosemite. We took a very nice hike about 4 more miles out to a location called Mirror lake. It wasn’t a very full lake when we were there, it was a bit more dried up than I imagined, but it was still beautiful. We stopped and ate lunch here and did some rock-climbing, if you could call it that… it was more of a sad attempt.
At the end of the day, we went back to where the hike started and took an interesting journey into what are called the “spider caves”. It’s pitch black, cold, rocky, and the spaces to fit through are extremely small. We weren’t allowed to use lamps, so we were all helping the person behind us through. I only made it through the first half of the cave; I chickened out and found a way to get out. The rest of the group, however, crawled through more small spaces for about 20 minutes until they made it out at the other end.

Overall, I would say it was an extremely valuable experience. I saw so many things that I hadn’t ever seen before, and we had SO much fun in our cabins at night playing charades, twister, and cooking dinner together.

To be honest, I was extremely sad for this trip to end and I wish I could do it at least one more time. All I can say is, I’m thankful for the time I spent with those people and that I had the opportunity to experience these new things. It was truly great.