27 October, 2016 (Emily Smith)

Holy smokes, what an unreal day! It started off as our earliest day yet, with the crew taking off at 5:00 am. Well, it was supposed to be 5:00 am but Jeff decided to sleep in a little bit, delaying our departure time by a few minutes. Oh, it was only minutes until everyone in the van was fast asleep again as we rolled on through the state of California towards the much anticipated lands of Mexico. We have all been waiting for this leg of our journey. It was one of the first parts we talked about last spring - originally being worried that we wouldn't be able to make Baja, California happen. After a lot of thought and a lot of talk, we more or less decided to make Baja, California our mission. And we did it! Well, we're about to do it anyway. Getting here was an adventure in and of itself. It was all smooth sailing right up until we actually got to the border. It was already a much slower process than what we've experienced in Canada, and then we were of course asked for our registration for the trailer, which I thought, "Why in the world would we have it?" Jeff and Ryan scrambled to figure out this dilemma while we were approached by officers letting us know that we had to turn right back around to the states. A quick stop at Church's Chicken to print the registration and another go at crossing the border proved successful. Just barely though, as our printed registration was just a cell phone picture taken by Bryan from Transportation Services back in Macomb. It just barely let us slide by, probably with the help from Jeff's charismatic charm. We trucked through Tijuana, all of us noting the vast differences between where we came from and where we were. Finally getting to Ensenada, we met up with Jeff's pal Francisco who led us the long way to his ranch house where we would spend the night. We discovered that our adventures were not over... The winding and uneven roads were a little much for our trusty van and trailer to handle. With three of us riding along with Francisco and the rest of us in good ole' van 63, those of us in the ban all piled into the very back seat as we attempted to get our mobilized house up the hill. Surprise! We got stuck... Now all of us are behind the trailer, pushing it up the hill as Jeff applied the gas. Once we made it up, we celebrated with smiles and laughs and allowed Jeff to give us a lesson in backing up a trailer. As exhausting and eventful as today was, I couldn't imagine entering Mexico with this bunch any other way. Be grateful.

26 October, 2016 (Kolin O'Keefe)

Another day spent at Summit Adventure after a long night of homework. I awoke to the smell of french toast and bacon, none of which was burnt! After doing some cleaning and various chores, we went into town for a couple of hours to send out newsletters and to get supplies four out trip to Baja. We hit up Radio Shack and a couple of thrift stores. I bought a bomb pair of sandals. However, they ended up being orthopedic sandals, more than likely worn by someone who is dead now. I shall carry on their legacy. All jokes aside, it was great to be able to spend on more day at Summit before leaving for good. We ate a conglomeration of leftovers for supper and we were treated to an XXXL brownie cake monster. Solid choice on the pecans and the size of the brownie. Cody got to teach us on his "Mountain Lion stalks group" incident scenario and Liv taught the group on her "Lightning Strikes" incident scenario. Her topic sparked discussion and curiosity as we found out that Jeff had been struck on 3 separate occasions. Now we know that Jeff is a great conductor of electricity. We also got to hear about how a deer jumped over his shoulder and how the mountain lion chasing it almost ran over Jeff. Luckily the lion applied the brakes and did a 180 degree turn before reaching Jeff. I doubt that lion wanted a piece of Jeff, it probably knew better. I got to finish watching my B class movie last night, "Attack of the Herbals." It was so God awful that it came back around, full circle, and ended up being a pretty comical movie. (highly recommend that anyone watch it). I shut my laptop and got ready for bed. As I lay there, I remember the conversation I had with my father the night before. My sister got engaged, my other sister got a second job as an artist in Minneapolis, my brother was back in Wisconsin with his wife and 2 daughters (one of which I haven't got to see yet), and my youngest brothers college football team is top of the conference his first year as a starter. I am reminded that so much happens in the span of a couple of months, especially when I don't have many means of talking to people. I can't wait to tell them all what has happened on my side... but that will have to wait. Still got another month of traveling and adventures ahead of me.

"Short cuts often lead to long delays"
     ~ J.R.R. Tolken

25 October, 2016 (Liv Smith)

Waking up to the clanging of pots and pans never sounded quite so beautiful this morning, especially when the previous morning we were all awoken by the intense thunder and lightning above us in the Sierra Mountains. After a hearty breakfast, we all went straight to work on our group chores. From airing out megalight tents to cleaning out Nalgene bottles, we all worked together in order to make the tedious jobs go all the much faster. The chores seemed to go a lot faster than they have had been before. Maybe it was the brief dance parties, the warmth of the sun, or the fact that there was still cold pizza to be devoured, it was just great to have the work done and be given some free time. Time was set aside for newsletters, journal entries and critiques to be done which everyone took full advantage of. Many of us even had time to run up the hill to get sodas and souvenirs from the small Bass Lake shops. The night is young, and many of us have homework to complete before we cross the border into Mexico this Thursday. When I look across Summit’s Lodge and see nothing but smiles and hear only laughter, it’s hard to be anything but grateful. How can we only have a little over a month to go? From steep mountains to sandy beaches, this will prove to be a very challenging, yet exciting week.

“Out of the Frying Pan and into the Fire!”

J.R.R. Tolkien

24 October, 2016 (Nick Walberg)

After several days in a row of nice weather, everything changed last night. Last night it started raining and snowing throughout the night. Around midnight lightning began to rattle the tent and went until after sunrise. By the time that everyone started getting up Liv had spoken with the rest of the LOW's and decided that we are leaving the mountains and heading back to the trailer. It was a necessary move to allow everyone to dry off and warm up. The girl’s sleeping area ended up being a drainage area and Emily was floating on the water in the morning. We walked our way out of the wilderness while keeping our eyes on the sky to see if another storm was going to roll in. slowly but surely we walked out to the van only to have to stay out a little longer to do a debrief of the back country. Because we hadn’t planned to be eating in the front country yet, we needed to go grocer shopping tonight and we were then treated to pizza. Even though our adventure ended early, the bright side is that we now have the time to get completely ready for our next adventure into Mexico.

            “Beware the Jabberwocky” Lewis Carrol       

23 October, 2016 (Tommy LeGrand)

Today was all in all a pretty cool day, in reflection that is. When we started the day we were in the normal routine of, debrief the old lows, brief with the new lows, switch the tent groups… hold on switch the tent groups?! Great, new people, new food bags, new tasks. Well that will be fun to work with but what’s this? Meet back at 2pm with water and a bit of food? OK Jeff is up to something, and indeed he was, as we were given the chance to do our solo we spent the next 24 hours to ourselves. Plenty if time to think, think about everything but especially a few prompted things. Here goes nothing, and it was an early night with no light or watch, just a pen, sunlight and the light of the half lit moon. Well… Goodnight Moon. Until tomorrow.

22 October, 2016 (Tyler Gebel)

Today we woke to an easy start after a hard day of winding to Lady Lake. We had our LOW meeting this morning and enjoyed a nice breakfast between our tent groups. My group had a scrumptious breakfast of hash browns and veggies, and Nick was able to replenish his need for a hearty meal. My feet were looking a lot better this morning too. After the LOW group debrief we were summoned to another meeting with Jeff and Ryan as a group. Only able to bring things like our thermarests, sleeping bag, and whistle, we packed carefully and considered what may come ahead. We were also told to not bring our watches and our headlamps. When we arrived we soon found out we were partaking in a solo. We were told to only bring what food could fit in Jeff’s mug, and some chose to fast during the reflection even so. After we were all ready to go, Jeff and Ryan escorted us to our spaces. After reflecting for a while and thinking a lot, I decided to go to bed. The next day I woke up a bit later than I normally do and hung out drawing pictures and reflecting a bit more. Due to the weather coming in, we were brought back for debrief a bit earlier. I never got to experience a solo before, but from my experience I was definitely glad I had the opportunity to do so in the Sierras. I know this experience will be good for the group and what is to come ahead. 

21 October, 2016 (Cody Hardy)

After another long day of backpacking we finally made it to Lady Lake. Who knew a couple of miles could feel like such a long distance. Today started off with the group splitting up into smaller groups of five at Lower Jackass and heading off thirty minutes apart from each other. My group consisted of Alex, Tyler, Joel, Kolin, and myself. Our group was the first to leave and we had a great time today. Slow and steady we marched on. Everything went fairly smoothly until we reached the top of a steep ridge with what looked like no way down. After an hour of searching, we finally found the route down that we decided to take. Once we reached the bottom it was all laughs and high fives. Again we marched on slowly but surely making it to camp around 2:00 pm. When we arrived at camp we found a note to Jeff from Ryan saying, “He had not seen us since 10:30 am so he was going to go looking for us, and he would be back before dark. We stayed put and began to set up camp. Shortly after that Ryan arrived back at camp. He was both happy and mad to see us. As afternoon turned into evening there was no sign of the other group and the worry level began to increase. Luckily they arrived right before dark and I found out that Nick had gotten sick. I have not had a chance to see how he is doing because he is already in bed, but I hear he is doing better. I hope that is the case. Overall yesterday was one of the best days I have had on ECOEE so far. I can only hope the rest of the week goes just as well!