Ali Ballweg

Surprise!  Week two I was put on River Boaters even though I’m a middle school counselor and it’s a high school program and therefore wasn’t trained in driving the house boats.  But for whatever reason Jake thought I would be a good fit and placed me on an all girls boat with Kathryn… And it was SO much fun!  We had ten girls (two going into 10^th grade and eight going into 9^th) who were all amazing and so much fun.  I was also with some amazing staff- Kathryn, Jesse, Amanda, Kirsten and Matt.

            We spent Sunday night on the floor of the air-conditioned Retreat Center and then right away on Monday we headed to the boat rental place and then out on the river.  We drove down stream a few miles and I got to drive my first boat!  Amanda came over the radio asking who was driving our boat because I was swerving all over the place and Kathryn radioed back saying it was me and reminding her how hard it is the first time (it really is, those things are huge).  Also during our drive as ran into a problem of one boat having no lunchmeat.  So one of the boats pulled up aside the other and threw two bags of turkey over, which was quite hilarious.  Monday night we slept on the roof of the boat with a beautiful blanket of stars above us.

            Tuesday was the hottest day so far this summer so we spent the whole afternoon in the river staying cool and doing River Boat Olympics (of which I have some pictures posted).  Tuesday it looked like it was going to storm but it only sprinkled for a little bit and we were able to sleep on the roof again.  Also Tuesday night we did something called counselors on the beach where all six of us spread out on the beach and were available for any questions campers had.

            Wednesday we went on a canteen run to Lansing (oh yeah we were docked on the Iowa side of the Mississippi for the three days we were on the river).  We played a night game on the dunes that Kathryn made up called ultimate kickball, which was a combo of capture, the flag and kickball.  It didn’t really work out the best, but it was still fun.  On our way back to the boats we had to walk through water for a short stretch and there were like eight snakes swimming around our feet!  It was so scary and I couldn’t pretend it didn’t bother me because it definitely did.

            Thursday morning we cleaned the boats top to bottom and then headed back to camp where we rode horses, visited canteen, had a pool party, did the Christ Hike (which I was in again), and did Spirit Worship for our campers.  We slept in the upper part of the barn Thursday night and had a busy day Friday.  Before I knew it all my campers were gone, which was sad.  But it was a great week and I am very thankful that I got the opportunity to try River Boaters.