Chapter Two: The Mountains of Mordor

Starting over is hard.

The last two years of my life have been spent at Camp Luther.  I knew the place upside down and backwards.  I knew how things worked, where things were, what to do, where to go.  If life was a book, I was in the middle part of the chapters, where the hero has finally settled into his adventure and things don't look quite as grim as they did at the start.  

Now I’m starting over.  Camp Perkins, Chapter One.

Now I know that this too will pass, and I’ll eventually get to know the people, and the place, and things will be swell.  But it’s going to take a while. 

When I moved to Idaho, instead of heading straight to Trinity Eden I detoured to Camp Perkins first.  I got to spend a week touring the place and meeting the people who I will be spending the summer with.  And I’m very glad I got this week, to come and to meet everyone who works at Camp Perkins, and to begin learning about the place and its history and its quirks.  I've gotten to do a lot of fun things.

I went kayaking in Lake Perkins, and forded the inlet over to the much larger Lake Alturas.  Lake Alturas gets as deep as 300 feet in some spots, and every drop of it is crystal clear mountain water, as is Lake Perkins.

Some of the crystal clear mountain water.

I got to see a literal babbling brook, kayak under an old wooden bridge that you could smell the years on, kayak over sunken logs that looked like I could reach out and touch them, even though they were ten feet down, and see a large fish at the bottom of the lake.

I was most excited about that last one, actually.  It was a pretty big fish, probably two feet long, and I could see it perfectly even though it was probably about 15 feet down.  You don't get to do that in Wisconsin!

The view entering Lake Alturas.

I went hiking with Katie, the office assistant at Camp Perkins.  We hiked a trail that ran through the woods next to the lake.  The trees surrounded us and all you could hear was yourself and the noise your feet made as you stepped over branches.  We had to ford two streams along the way, stepping on rocks and logs to avoid getting wet.  Along the way I got a chance to ask Katie a ton of questions about the more mundane details of life at Camp Perkins, questions that she graciously answered without fail.  And when we arrived at our destination, the opposite shore of Lake Alturas, we sat on a fallen log in the sand and ate some launch while surrounded by the lake and mountains on all sides.

I watched Snow-White and the Huntsman in Signe’s cabin.  Signe is the Director of Programs at Camp Perkins.  She let us all pile into her house and fed us ice cream and talked at length about how Kristin Stewart acts exactly the same in every movie she is in. 

I played Settlers of Cataan with Isaac, Levi, Tracy, and Aiden. (Seasonal staff, seasonal staff, Program Director, and Maintenance Director, respectively.)  We played in the Loft, which is a loft in the Lodge full of old couches and chairs where the staff can hang out in the summer.  I got my butt kicked, which I blame on bad luck more than on bad tactics, and got to see the competitive nature of everyone at the table. 

I played Funnel Ball with a group of Outdoor Ed kids.  Funnel Ball is essentially Angleball, except you can only take three steps once you have the ball and missed shots are automatic turnovers.  We played in the Rec Field, which is more appropriately called the Rock Field, as it is all dirt and gravel and rocks. 

I went with Isaac and Katie to a Fireman’s Ball at a Bar in Stanley, the closest (small) town to Camp Perkins.  We got to listen to The Billy Goats, an Idaho folk band, and I got to experience my first taste of real, authentic Idaho-ian culture.

They had a guitar, a violin, a double-bass, a mandolin...it was great!

You know in movies where people in small towns go dancing, and they do swing dancing and everyone is wearing jeans and belts and checkered shirts and cowboy hats?

It’s not just in the movies. 

Needless to say, I had a blast, although I could not quite find it within myself to join in the swing dancing, and stuck to a little bit of head bobbing while standing against a pillar. 

I participated in a ladies retreat with participants from Grace Lutheran Church in Pocatello and was welcomed in with open arms.  The ladies were incredibly friendly and kind.  They wanted to know about my life, about my new job, about me, and they wanted to know ways that they could help.  One of the ladies offered to connect me with the youth director at Grace, saying she she knew how important connections can be when starting out at a place.

I drove with Signe, Katie, and Kristin (camp cook) to Stanley, and as we drove all of the mountains were covered in a heavy, thick mist.  They exclaimed over the few aspens we passed that had changed colors for the fall, I exclaimed over the mountains, and we all went in to the small diner in Stanley to enjoy a delicious breakfast.  I had absolutely amazing oatmeal pancakes, dense and delicious, as well as a buttery-sweet blueberry scone.  

I played guitar during Campfire for Outdoor Ed, and discovered what I already knew.  The more familiar a setting is to me, the more it drives home the point that I am a stranger in a strange land.  There is nothing so peculiar as the intimately familiar being twisted in a different way.  And that’s what makes me long for home the most, when I begin to think that I have arrived at some place I recognize, only to find that the rules have all been changed and that I am lost.

But Campfire also drove home something else I already knew, and it is this: God is the same wherever you go, and the rules for serving Him do not change. 

Issac, Aiden, Kristin, Levi, Me, Signe, and Katie

“You can't stop the future

You can't rewind the past
The only way to learn the secret
...is to press play.”