Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Crazy Day

Ok, so Alyssa (my sister) is a counselor at her church's summer camp this week. I'm at her house baby-siting Rowan, and yesterday I was gonna bring Rowan out there for lunch, the camp site is only like 45 minutes away. Anyways, we left the house at about 10:45 because I wanted to give myself some extra time in case I got lost or something.

First we went to the gas station, but since we're in Washington I had to pump it myself (which I didn't know how to do) so the lady who worked inside helped me, she wasn't very happy about that, and we had a lot of problems with paying and stuff, but after about 10 minutes we got things worked out.

Logan had written down directions for me the night before, so I was following those. And everything was going great until I had to find a road that didn't seem to exist. I was supposed to turn left onto Skookumchuck, but I couldn't find it....so I kept driving. I ended up going through Centralia and Chehalis. I got onto the freeway and saw a sign that said "South to Portland" so I got off and had no idea where I was, all I knew was that I was still in Chehalis.

I pulled onto a side street and called my mom, and she told me just to go back onto the freeway, but to go north towards Seatle, and to go back to Alyssa's house. Right after that Alyssa called me and asked where I was, I had been crying when I was talking to my mom and I started crying again when I was talking to her. When I told her where I was she went and got a guy who was working at the camp with her to give me directions.

So after the guy gave me directions, I got back to where I was supposed to be. And I turned left onto 184th, not Skookumchuck. The camp is on 184th, but I couldn't find it. So I drove back and forth on that road for awhile and at one point I was turning around on a gravel side road, and I accidentally backed into a ditch and got stuck....and my phone didn't have signal at all.

Rowan had been in his carseat since 10:45, and now it was about 2:30, but he was being great. I decided that I wasn't going to just sit and try to get the car out myself (cause that would be dumb), so I got Rowan out and then we walked to a house that had a car in the driveway. I went and knocked on the door, and this older woman came out and I told her that my car was stuck and I asked if anyone was there who could help me. She said that her husband wasn't home, but her neighbor could probably help. So she drove me and Rowan to her neighbor's house, but he wasn't there, so we went to her other neighbor's house. It turns out that the first neighbor was at the second neighbor's house with his brother. They said that they would help us.

So the lady drove me and Rowan back to the car and another guy drove passed and then came back and asked if I needed any help, I told him that 2 people were coming to help. He said "ok" and then stayed around and ended up helping the other two push my car out of the ditch. I thanked them about a million and a half times, and so did Rowan =)

I started driving, and I had only driven for about 3 minutes when I saw he sign for the camp....I was SO mad, and I felt SO dumb =P
So, we got to the camp at about 3:30pm...and then the Day Campers (Alyssa is a counselor for them) left at like 4:15-ish, so I was just gonna follow the bus back to the church and then drive Lyssa home.

Two buses came out to the driveway, one turned left and the other turned right, I didn't know which one Alyssa had gotten on, but something told me to follow the one with more kids, so I did.

The bus ended up breaking down, and they needed someone to go back and tell the other people at the camp what had happened. So me, Alyssa, and Rowan went back to the camp, and when we got there we found out that one of the JH tents ripped in half, one of the high schoolers was getting arrested, and we had to tell the camp leaders about the broken down bus. We also found a lot of prayer circles.
We stayed around for about an hour and then we were sent back to the bus with snacks, but the other bus that we called when we got to the camp had already gotten there and taken the kids back to the church. So we just went to the church. Then we went home.

Alyssa and I were talking about it and we like looked back on the day and we feel like God's hand was in it all day. Because if I hadn't gotten lost, and hadn't gotten stuck in the ditch, I wouldn't have had to follow the bus home. If I hadn't followed the bus someone would've had to walk 6 miles in 80-90 degree weather back to the camp.

When Logan and Lyssa and I were at the house we were looking at Google Maps to see where I went...and we found out that 184th turns into Skookumchuck....so there really wasn't a Skookumchuck that I could've turned onto!

So, thats my story...and I'm sticking to it!