July 9, 2019

This morning, we were able pack up our things from our first campsite in Washington and start heading towards Oregon state. After waking up at what felt like the crack of dawn, my tent-mates and I packed up our things and folded our tent. My team and I had the morning duty of getting breakfast started. Let me tell you it was so difficult pulling out all of our cereal and milk options for the crew to eat. Upon finishing breakfast, the entire crew started to pack up our set up and once we finished, we headed towards Camp Chaparral were we started to fill our water jugs and personal items.

The team I was assigned to for the trail cameras needed to go ahead of the rest of the crew to pick up our cameras before heading on the road. Monet was kind enough to drive Noah, Erik, Alexa, and I to pick up our cameras. Noah and Erik retrieved our cameras since Alexa, and I were in shorts and sandals and didn’t want to risk getting any ticks or get jabbed with sticks. Once we retrieved the last camera, we waited for the rest of the crew and then started to hit the road.

Before leaving the Yakama reservation we stopped by certain spots to look at and ponder over. One of them being another abounded shed or home that was said to be haunted. Once we exited the reservation, we entered into another small town that I had never heard of, but it was quite quaint. There was a slight moment of panic when we were lost in the backroads trying to find the Dalles. Once we got cell service, we were able to overcome that slight inconvenience.

We arrived to Dalles, Oregon and headed towards Walmart. Let me tell you that being a part of civilization was so interesting. I felt like a very dusty person walking alongside the customers at Walmart. I must say that the stares made us feel so special.  We had an hour to do what we wanted, and that hour went by so quickly. This was also the first point that most of us had service for the first time in what felt like ages but was only a mere seventy-two hours.

Once all the cars were gassed up and we had done our grocery shopping we kept on driving. As we were approaching Warm Springs, we were tuned in on a local radio station that was speaking about the certain topics. It was something from up above because Jess hadn’t changed the radio for a while (she normally did when the ads started to play) and we heard that Warm Springs didn’t have any drinkable water. We hadn’t filled the RV with water yet and that’s the water that we use to wash dishes and so we let the rest of the crew go up before us to spot the area that we were supposed to stay and start setting up their tents. We had a small adventure of our own as they drove to Warm Springs. For a small moment we contemplated stealing water from a home next to a sonics in a small town- but we did not. Jess used her charming skills and asked the Sonic’s manager to use their water. Luckily for those that stayed behind, we got to enjoy some form of sugar by getting some sonic drinks. Once the RV was filled with water we headed towards Warm Springs.

We arrived at Warm Springs at the later time than expected due to the unexpected reasons. Upon our arrival we noticed our sleeping arrangements weren’t the best nor completely private. If you live in Yakima, it looked like a section of the greenway but none the less I was grateful that the tribe had found a location for us to stay at. Once we parked, my tent-mates and I started to look for a location for our tent. After setting up we walked towards the available restrooms that were across the street. We went to the restrooms in a group of four and caught up with some people from the crew. When we got there, we experienced some interesting behaviors from a couple of people there that was sort of sketchy but then we walked over as a group.

Once dinner was over, my team and I had the task of cleaning dishes. We were all pretty exhausted after the long day of travel, but we managed to have some fun amongst getting our hands all soapy. I asked questions that allowed us to get to know each other a bit more. Once we finished dishes we headed to bed.

My tent-mates and I went into our tent and talked about how the day went and had a little heart to heart, just to make sure that we were doing okay. And then we expressed our concern about the incident that occurred earlier that evening. I opened up the back “window” in our tent because Warm Springs was pretty humid. We laid down in our sleeping bags and personally I started drifting away in sleep when all of a sudden, we see a bunch of flash lights flashing over our tent. The girls and I assumed it was a friend of ours trying to scare us, so we yelled out “Sam? Xavier? Alex?” and there was no answer. Briseida yelled out “Stop!” and I awoke pretty quickly and looked outside of the window that was open and saw a black figure move quickly past our tent. I honestly tried to close the tent because I thought that one of our classmates might have needed to use the restroom. But then we felt the side left side of the tent get kicked in. Briseida, Jazmin, and I all stood up extremely quickly. It was as if all the sleepiness I had fled from my body and I grabbed my knife and my lamps. I yelled out one more time and then I unzipped the tent and walked out. By that time, Sam, Grayson, Xavier, Alex, and Erik had came out of their tents. I showed them the direction that I saw the individual go. Grayson and Sam saw the trail that was left behind as some form of evidence.

The rest of the night was filled with emotions and relocating our tents into other places near the RV. In our tent, we were pretty restless, so we invited Sam and Grayson to watch Moana on my computer to mellow down the mood. I didn’t even make it to my favorite part in the movie when I fell into a deep sleep to be awakened by Sam letting me know that the movie had ended, and that Grayson had fallen asleep by me. I saw them leave our tent and then I fell back asleep.

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Life Lesson:

It’s okay to let need help and to let others help you.