Dear Boundless Families:
The outdoor crew returned safely to port this afternoon. I got to hang with them on Friday night, and also led them through the whitewater madness on Saturday, which proved to be not so maddening after all.
The river dropped two feet from the last time we were there. Had it dropped four feet, the obstacles would have presented a new set of sweat inducing challenges. But at two feet, the river found its own sweet spot, and the descent went smoothly, without stress, and nary a canoe dump.
So what we had before us was a group that found its sweet spot on day one, meeting a river with its own sweetness.
The result? Paradise. There’s no other word for it. The joy on their faces was magnetic. Every last one of them.
Stranger called a Houdini maneuver on Saturday morning. The staff wake up an hour earlier than the kids and simply vanish into thin air, leaving only a note of instruction as to what time the group is expected to dip their paddles in the water. Call it an ultimate group dynamics exercise.
9:00am was the challenge. Tents need to be taken down, breakfast prepared, and elaborate no-trace clean up protocol must be adhered to. 70,000 loose articles must be fit neatly into packs. Shit jobs and joe jobs abound when breaking camp.
Perched from their clandestine lookout points, the staff observed expected early morning whining transform into a team that behaved like a well oiled machine.
I challenged the staff to a pool – exactly what time the group would dip their first paddle into H2O. One staff chose 9:22. The other two 9:40 and 9:14 respectively. I chose 8:52. A chocolate bar was at stake to the winner – serious business.
I won, ha ha. They made 8:59, and were proud as acne prone peacocks when everyone reunited. How interesting that adults with them everyday underestimated their capacity. Perhaps a lesson for the reader who believes the way kids behave at home transfers to the outside world. Teens more often than not are just fine out there in the indifferent universe.
As to English, tomorrow is a day where the kids polish up their final essays. They were running around in a field game this afternoon called “MANHUNT” to burn off some literary steam. That group, declared officially by Sam, “is the most adept group Boundless has ever seen in an English class”.
Parents, please expect a group of very happy kids to come home on Tuesday.
Warm Regards,
Steven
