How I Ended Up In Wisconsin

By the time I am able to post this without ruining this without ruining the surprise, all of what I’m about to say will have happened, and perhaps I have already had the pleasure of telling you this story in person, but in case not, here’s what just happened.

Back in the first week of June at one of our nightly staff meetings, the CRM staff were informed that one of the rental groups had canceled on us and we no longer had a group for the week of July 14^th. This was supposed to be Camp Sign Shine, a group of kids with hearing impairments, mostly deaf. Unfortunately, due to many unforeseen circumstances, they weren’t able to return this summer and we’d have a week with no one at Camp. At some summer camps this could be a good week for the staff to work on special projects and get caught up on housekeeping formalities. However, since CRM is so small there isn’t work for us to do without campers using the facility. And with that we were given a week off. We were given July 13^th -20^th  off. We were encouraged to visit California, rest and spend the time enjoying ourselves to rest up since we’ve worked hard and have hit our mid-summer mark. Upon hearing the dates of our week off, my mind immediately started to spin, and I was almost positive that this would be Family Camp at Sky Lodge and the rest was history. The timing couldn’t have been better.

I kept debating whether or not I should go home for that week. It was family camp, so it was the best week to go home. However, there would be many logistics and expenses to be figured out. I couldn’t decide what to do. For about a week I kept going back and forth, trying to decide whether or not I would  visit home for a week. “Is it really worth it,” I thought. But it was. I would have regretted not coming home for family camp on my week off, and to make things better, I’d make it a surprise. From that point onward I would do my best to keep my traveling plans a secret and try to find my way home without telling any of my friends of family. It’d make a pretty good surprise, if you ask me.

So for the past month I’ve planned and planned trying to figure out how I could pull this off. But in the end, I somehow managed to pull it off, and this is how it went (or how it’s going to go, since as I’m writing this I’m only half way through my journey):

On July 13^th we got done with work at 11:00 am and people started pulling out of camp. Me and my friend Char waited for the rest of the campers to leave camp and then our boss, Vicky, drove us to Reno on her way home. We flew out about the same time, and our week off had begun. From Reno I flew to Phoenix, where I am currently waiting for my connecting flight to Chicago, O’Hare. Once I land in Chicago at 5:30 am (July14th) I will take the blue line downtown and meet one of my roommates (Liz) for coffee. My roommates are one of the only people I told I was coming home because I wanted to meet them in Chicago if at all possible. One of my other roommates, Lauren will also meet us in Chicago later that morning, so my Sunday will be spend hanging around town with two of my lovely roommates. My third roommate, Bri, wasn’t able to join us, but is headed to Chicago next week, unfortunately.

Then at 2:15 pm I will leave by train for Portage. I’m hoping that I can sleep some since I know my sleep will be messed up since I’ve been traveling for a better part of 24 hours. I’ll arrive in Portage where two of my friends from high school, Matt and Peter, will pick me up. We’ll spend some time in Portage before they drop me off at Camp. It’ll be good to catch up, especially since I never know when I’m going to see them next. Our schedules don’t exactly mix very well, and the fact that I currently live on the west coast doesn’t help our situation.

From there, I’ll go home. I’ll probably stop at home first before heading to Sky Lodge, but wither way I cannot wait. And I cannot stress that enough. I can’t wait to see everyone I have been missing very much this summer, and I cannot wait to see their faces when they find out my surprise visit home. If there’s one thing I’ve realized this summer, it’s that my heart belongs to Sky Lodge, but sometimes you have to leave and go to other places as the Lord calls. But it’s still hard leaving familiar faces and places. These are the people I love and cherish the most and getting to spend an extra week with them will be a blessing for sure.