The next day was our last La Vida challenge, the 8.6 mile run. Of course, I'm not sure exactly how many people actually ran the whole way. I know of maybe two for sure. I ran as far as I could at first and then walked a ways before setting a new goal. I took the whole way with Sweet n' Spazzy, and we talked about life at home and stuff. Once in a while one of us would say, "See that street sign all the way up there?"
"Yeah?"
"Wanna run there?"
"Sure." So we'd run up and drop back into the walk to get our breath back before doing it again. Not the most incredible athletics, but we covered the whole distance on foot, ran the last stretch, and had some good conversations in the meantime. It was astonishing how much shorter 8.6 miles is than I had anticipated, after killing myself to go 4-7 miles a day on trail.
We weren't even the last ones back.
Upon arriving back, we returned the last of our group gear, filled out program eval forms and stuffed the stuff we brought in the back of the bus. Then we climbed in ourselves for the 7-hour (it wound up longer than that) bus ride back to campus.
Stop. Close your eyes (once you have finished reading this paragraph) and imagine. A school bus, yes, a yellow school bus filled with more than thirty people, mostly teenagers, who have been exercising strenuously nonstop for the past nine days, with absolutely no showers and maybe two changes of clothes. For about eight hours.
We opened almost every single window(literally, I counted two that we didn't open) and rode off. We stopped three times; once at Pizza Hut for lunch, once to get gas in the bus and snacks for us and once at Chick-fil-a for dinner. I don't want to know what the people at the restaurants thought when we came in! After the snack break, the leaders would walk down the bus billing themselves as "snack checkers." Hey, they need their perks after all they did that month. They deserve them.
I was singing a song to myself at one point in the bus, and was surprised when the guy behind me, whom I shall call "Calvin" because he was the group's only and most devoted Calvinist, leaned over and told me, "Lisa, it's so good to hear you singing that, because it's old-school ('90s) and it's got good theology." I was so happy to be with a group that cared about theology. It was the third of July, and there were fireworks out the window a few minutes after we left Chick-fil-a. The entire bus screamed the national anthem, cheered and laughed. It was amazing and so much fun!
We got back to the dorm around 11 PM, and were given instructions: Do your laundry, take a shower, call your parents (we were so happy to have an hour of cell phones allowed) and please go to bed!
I found a care package of a few dozen cookies my little brother baked for me had been left at the dorm, we called home and did all that, and it was bliss to have a mattress, and pajamas, and a shower, again for the first time in more than a week. I was so happy to be off La Vida (to be quite honest, it was a very very very painful week), and still be with the rest of the group, and we all slept soundly that night.
We weren't even the last ones back.
Upon arriving back, we returned the last of our group gear, filled out program eval forms and stuffed the stuff we brought in the back of the bus. Then we climbed in ourselves for the 7-hour (it wound up longer than that) bus ride back to campus.
Stop. Close your eyes (once you have finished reading this paragraph) and imagine. A school bus, yes, a yellow school bus filled with more than thirty people, mostly teenagers, who have been exercising strenuously nonstop for the past nine days, with absolutely no showers and maybe two changes of clothes. For about eight hours.
We opened almost every single window(literally, I counted two that we didn't open) and rode off. We stopped three times; once at Pizza Hut for lunch, once to get gas in the bus and snacks for us and once at Chick-fil-a for dinner. I don't want to know what the people at the restaurants thought when we came in! After the snack break, the leaders would walk down the bus billing themselves as "snack checkers." Hey, they need their perks after all they did that month. They deserve them.
I was singing a song to myself at one point in the bus, and was surprised when the guy behind me, whom I shall call "Calvin" because he was the group's only and most devoted Calvinist, leaned over and told me, "Lisa, it's so good to hear you singing that, because it's old-school ('90s) and it's got good theology." I was so happy to be with a group that cared about theology. It was the third of July, and there were fireworks out the window a few minutes after we left Chick-fil-a. The entire bus screamed the national anthem, cheered and laughed. It was amazing and so much fun!
We got back to the dorm around 11 PM, and were given instructions: Do your laundry, take a shower, call your parents (we were so happy to have an hour of cell phones allowed) and please go to bed!
I found a care package of a few dozen cookies my little brother baked for me had been left at the dorm, we called home and did all that, and it was bliss to have a mattress, and pajamas, and a shower, again for the first time in more than a week. I was so happy to be off La Vida (to be quite honest, it was a very very very painful week), and still be with the rest of the group, and we all slept soundly that night.
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