Stinky Van

This is Camp Brookwoods. It’s fun, has nice cabins, and has nice camp directors. Now this is the hiking trip at Camp Brookwoods. According to almost all of the older campers, it stinks, always rains, and gives 80% of the kids blisters, sunburns, or acute annoying disease (or a mix of all of them. I’m lucky I only got the last one.) I don’t even know why we need to drive 90 minutes from our cozy, fun cabins to a wet, smelly campground and then hike up a mountain. At least I had some friends to kill the time with.

We loaded our luggage onto the van. Seven (Eight including me) twelve-year old boys climbed into the cramped van. The van was hot, humid, and stunk of young teenagers that haven’t taken a bath in a week. I sat between Lucas and Michael. I had known Lucas since the second grade. I had known everybody else for two weeks. We didn’t even start moving before Kevin started complaining.

“Heyyy, you’re invading my privacy!” he whined.

“Shut up Kevin, you're so annoying, I also barely have any space!” replied Duke.

“Doc, he said ‘shut up’!”

We had two camp directors, but only one came with us on this trip. His name was Peter, but he earned the nickname “Doc” (short for doctor) because he was so careful and he didn’t participate in any of the rough activities the camp directors at Brookwoods hosted.

“Duke, you know the rules, ‘shut up’ is banned from this camp,” said Doc calmly.

“But you just said…”

“Shut up!”

Duke sighed as he admitted defeat. This hiking trip is off to a rough start, I thought. But at least we can get out of this van! 

After what seemed like several hours, our van finally pulled into the parking lot. Eager to get off the van, all of us sprinted onto the path. The trail had trees and rocks on both sides, and the sun still shone brightly in the sky. We made it up the mountain in almost no time. Maybe the rumors going around aren’t real, I thought hopefully. Doc pulled out our pre-packed lunches and we wolfed down our lunches like wild animals.

As we started our descent down the mountain, I felt a single raindrop.

“Did you feel that?” I asked. I looked up into the sky, where many dark gray storm clouds were forming. 

“Yeah, I think I felt a drop of rain,” Lucas responded.

“It’s fine, it’ll be over soon,” said Michael.

Michael was right. At least for a while. Around 15 minutes later, the singular raindrops evolved into a drizzle, then rain, then a shower, then a downpour. Our footsteps went from a walk to a trot to a jog and then to a sprint. Each rock was very slippery, and one misplaced step could mean a soggy bottom for the rest of the “hike” (more like a sprint in an obstacle course). We stumbled along, shoes completely soaked on the outside and the inside. I had no idea what we were doing. There was no shelter and no way out except for forward, out of this watery nightmare. It was like going on a hike while the skies opened up and a waterfall poured down. Each rock and tree now seemed like a different place and we looked like we were making no progress at all. 

After what seemed like 5 hours of running, slipping, and getting soaked, we finally made it to the parking lot. The rain slowed to a stop as we climbed into our van, not a stinking, boring place, but a shelter in our storm (literally). At that moment, I realized that the stinking van we were longing to get off of at the start now became a shelter and home. The van may still stink of teenagers (even worse, soaked teengers), but none of us complained. I was just thankful to be out of that downpour, in the not-so-stinky-anymore van with my new friends playing card games as we drove back to Camp Brookwoods. 

Considering how eager I was to get out of this van before the hike and how grateful and content I felt now back in the same old van, I realized how one can have drastically different perceptions. Maybe in order to understand others’ perspectives, it may just take understanding their experiences.