This summer was one for the books. About a couple weeks after returning from Italy, I threw myself into 4 part time jobs: 2 consulting projects, coaching dance team, and choreographing dance routines across the country. But man, was it awesome! In all the spare moments (that I had to fight for) this summer, I found a couple petty awesome things to do.
Three of my good friends surprised me with a weekend in Duluth, MN--I've never really been to Duluth, so I was pretty excited to get away for the weekend. We left on a Friday night and spent the night in Superior and went out on the town. In the morning, all three of them were acting really weird and wouldn't tell me what was going on, except that we had to be at WalMart by noon on Saturday. Which was odd, considering one of the friends on the trip detests WalMart, and I mean really detests WalMart. Sure enough, we didn't go to WalMart at noon. We wound up at Skydive Superior!! Yep, first timer here.
That's right! We jumped out of this plane that had only 1 seat: for the pilot...
My spiffy 1980's, yet "Zeenon Girl of the 21st Century" skydiving suit...I just had to document it.
Once all of us had our adrenaline rush, my friends informed me that we were going camping--I've also never camped in my life. The best part? I'm the planner in my group of friends, so they had not reserved a plot, nor did they pack bring sleeping bags or tents. Off to WalMart we went...despite James' disgust (sorry for outing you, Briggs!)
Once we had all of our gear, we headed to Gooseberry falls to find a spot to camp, and what do you know...all full. But a woman told us about a camping spot that was a free for all off a dirt road. As long as we could find a spot to camp, the space was ours and we could stay for the night. The catch was that we had to hike "a mile or so" to the designated areas. Us city slickers were pretty excited when we arrived. Nobody had camped in the woods before. They had always found a natural park...or what ever you call those places...where you can pay for a camping space.
The "mile or so" turned into what felt like 5...all uphill. And not to sound like everyone's grandmother with the "when I was little I walked 20 miles to school in the snow uphill both ways!"...but it kind of felt like that. Nobody knew where we were going, but we just followed the path for 2 hours until we came to the camp site.
I like to think of myself as a female handyman (would I be a handywoman?...I digress) so I volunteered to build the tents.
Not too shabby for a first timer huh?
We had about 2 hours of sunlight left when we arrived so we scrambled for firewood. We were the only group out in the woods that night, and we didn't buy firewood to bring with us since the woman at Gooseberry Falls swore that we could find wood laying along the trail. There was plenty laying around, except it rained the night before...wet firewood=smoky mess.
We got creative using tortilla chips for kindling but that only lasted us so long. With the sun rapidly setting and almost no firewood, we resorted to using our iPhones as flashlights...which drained our batteries quickly. Kelsey and I started getting scared at the thought of something bad happening to us and not having cell phones to call for help if we needed it.
I think that was the earliest we've ever gone to sleep on a Saturday night, and it was purely out of fear. I'm terrified of the dark, and I've seen way too many horror movies that involve college age kids camping in the wilderness. I was NOT having it.
We woke up in the morning and visited the Split Rock Lighthouse...
...and the harbor
All in all, it was an awesome weekend with some awesome people. I got to explore the beautiful city of Duluth, MN and experience a lot of "firsts" with some of my best friends.
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