Back for another year of fun

It's been a while, I know.

But, after a summer of reading, relaxing and hanging out with family and friends I'm back on Outtatown ready for another year of crazy adventures.

It’s been a normal beginning to the Outtatown year, that is to say intense, overwhelming, crazy, awesome, hardcore and fun!  A real gong show, if you like.   Oh how I love my job.

Site 2: South Africa

Registration day went smoothly as Steve, Stefan, Lisa and I met, and tried desperately to remember the names of, our 31 students.   We weren’t at CMU for very long before heading out in the vans for Manitoba Pioneer Camp and our ‘start the year with a bang’ canoe trip.   The trip to MPC involves a boat trip on the good ole PIII, a fun event that puts us in the snazziest lifejackets I’ve ever seen; very aptly described as one-size-fits-none.  We boat-pooled our way over with the French Africa site, and I have never seen so much luggage in one place before in my life.  The boat moved waaaay slower than normal.

now picture her at least a foot lower in the water

Now, you may be thinking to yourself: ‘What a lovely, warm, sunny fall we’ve been having, it’d been wonderful going on a canoe trip right now’.  Wrong.  The weather decided to wage war against us and it turned overcast, windy and cold the very first night we got there.

already you can see what type of day we had...

Things hadn’t improved by morning and so it was that we left MPC with a very strong wind at our backs.  The key word being ‘backs’.  In fact, we were having trouble moving as a group, so we rafted up and sailed for 3km.  Absolutely the most successful canoe-sail I’ve ever been a part of, although going straight was somewhat difficult to achieve.

watching the storm roll in

The weather didn’t improve as the trip went on – we proceeded to paddle both with gale force winds, riding the huge rolling waves and against gale force winds, watching the huge rolling waves crash into our boats.  Don’t worry, no one tipped.  But we did need to do a bit of a rescue; one of our bowmen was so light the bow of the canoe wasn’t even in the water as they tried to move forward into the headwind.  We paddled in hail, rain, sleet, SNOW (ok, so there were like, 6 snowflakes, but STILL!  It’s a canoe trip!) and one morning we woke up and there was frost on the ground.  It was epic and I loved it.  Being out in the woods makes me feel alive.

alive!

We had some other adventures along the way – rainbows, exploring abandoned mines, cliff jumping, hanging around campfires, seeing the northern lights, getting to know everyone, running out of toilet paper halfway through the trip… In all it was a blast!

checking out the mine

it's almost like a giant hamster wheel!

more creepy abandoned mine

We’re living at a camp a few hours outside of Winnipeg at the moment, continuing to make friends and figure out what it means to be a part of Outtatown.  Our students are just fabulous – they love hanging out, playing games, singing (we have a guy who plays the mandolin with us this year!) and laughing.  It’s shaping up to be a great year.

what better way to get to know one another that a human log pile?

or a rousing game of human jenga?

It’s been challenging at times transitioning back into Outtatown – I have to work much harder to find reading time for one thing!  But I love living in a community of people and I love laughing with friends, so I’m not too worried.

We’re off to our Winnipeg Urban Plunge in a few days, so I’ll keep you posted.

Cheers,

Sandy