I went to Panama City Beach, FL for break, and it was warm, sunny, and absolutely gorgeous as expected. Seriously though, it was Florida, and it is March, there is a big difference between Florida in March and Iowa in March. Substantial. Anyway, I went to the Big Break Conference with Campus Crusade for Christ (Cru). I had signed up for this, only knowing one other person that was going, but it turned out to not matter at all. I do have to say, that the drive down was a little awkward, because I rode in a van with strangers, but it got less and less awkward as the 23-hour road trip went. So, I am going to summarize my whole week, so be prepared, this post will be rather lengthy.
March 13th
The trip began around 5:40 p.m. Danger and Adam, two Cru staff members, in front of MWL, along with two of my new friends Austin and Emily, picked me up. We jumped into the van and headed to meet the other travelers at a near by gas station. Once we got there we had to meet some other people at a Burger King near Adventureland in Des Moines. Finally around 6:45 p.m. we all got on the road and headed for Florida. The ride was a little odd in the beginning, and was filled with some small talk, and name that tune. Soon we watched some Kung Fu Panda and I drifted into dreamland.
March 14th
I did not really sleep that well, seeing how I was in the back of the van, but I do remember stopping frequently for gas and bathrooms. Once daylight had returned we continued with some name that tune, and observed Austin and his awake but sleeping persona. He cannot sleep in a car, so he was awake for, well, a really long time, hence his slightly unorganized speech. We continued driving, without any car trouble until “Topper” (one of the vans) had knocking in the engine. Turned out to be bad gas (fuel), so we made it to Florida safely and around 5 p.m. We all went to Sonny’s BBQ joint and got dinner, and there I began to put names to faces and faces to names. I was becoming more comfortable with the crowd around me. We all got some food for the week ahead, and crashed in the apartment. However, this was after the staff gave the ladies the speech “don’t go anywhere without a guy with you after 6 p.m.” I found this funny, but as the week progressed and I experienced being “barked” at by strange men, this speech made complete sense. Be careful at Panama City beach homeskillets, it is straight up CrAzY!!
March 15th
Today was a free day, at least until the kickoff meeting at 7:30 p.m. Basically we all lounged around on the beach, and sat on our butts watching TV. Once we got to the meeting, the conference center was packed with 962 other college students from universities all over the United States. However, the ISU Cru band were the lucky ones to get picked to lead the meeting/worship. They totally rocked it, total awesomeness.
Everyday began with a meeting in the morning, lunch, telling people about God on the beach, dinner, and an evening meeting. It was fun. Telling people about God on the beach wasn’t tough, at least it was not as scary as I predicted. I talked to a lot of drunken people, but it was spring break, what else can you expect, sadly. I participated in a lot of deep conversations and learned one vitally important fact. If you are offered a beer by a group of people, you know you are in good with them. I got offered 5, so I must have been doing a good job. Just kidding, that was not a vitally important fact, but it is indeed a fact. No one was rude and everyone was open to talk. I had initially expected to have sand thrown at me, and be turned down. But, that didn’t happen at all or to anyone in my group. One highlight was I was almost on MTV. Totally ballin’ too bad I couldn’t look in the camera and say “hi mom.” Well, I wouldn’t do that but maybe next year. Throughout the week I got to know everyone a lot better. No more awkwardness. The boys made us ladies a delicious dinner one night and sang “My Girl” to us. It was cheesy, but adorable. We even made a tower in the pool. I dubbed myself photographer for this little endeavor. Overall, these few days were amazing, and a really good experience.
Today was our day off. So, we chilled on the beach did some shopping, and went to a pirate ship for dinner. Yes, a pirate ship. I got some really yummy salmon there. After dinner, we went mini golfing. We went in teams or groups of 4. In my group was Lee, Andy, Emily, and of course me. The first hole I took like 4 shots (?) to get the ball in the hole. I thought it was going to be a bad night. But, on the second hole I impressed the crowd by getting a whole in one while saying “I suck!!” It was pretty sweet; I won a free game because of it too. We continued on completing the 18 holes, and got into some good conversations. Bonded as a team. I was winning for a while, until Andy (total cutie) decided to pull ahead and be cool. I guess he couldn’t live with being beat by a girl. But in the end, I was the one who won the free game. SO THERE! Just kidding, it was a blast. Made some good memories and discovered that Lee totally sucks at mini golf.
March 21st-22nd
This was the trip home. Took us 22 hours this time. Topper, the weakest link, had no trouble this time, and we made it safely back. I slept all day and was navigator from 2 a.m. until 7 a.m. that’s a tough shift to stay awake for, but I did have some more good conversations with the staff guys Jeff and Adam. I made it back to Ames at 8 a.m. Went to my room, checked my 100 unread emails, took a shower, and CRASHED! Let me tell you I was tired, and had finally gotten ride of the road trip funk, if you know what I mean.
I had one of the most fun weeks of my life. I learned a lot, made some good friends, discovered the art of map reading, and didn’t use a computer for 7 days. And the surprising thing was, I didn’t even notice.
No comments:
Post a Comment