Out of the Woods

Last week I got to spend 5 days in the woods with 10 high school students, 3 guides, and Jay. It was a great trip. I will use these photos to help highlight some of my experiences:



The Group:
Our students were amazing. Each of them grew as leaders: taking initiative, serving, and affirming each other's giftings. We also had a blast. They are some of the most fun students I have ever spent time with. Note Jay and I in the middle...our outfits need explanation. I wore that wool t-shirt all week day and night. It didn't smell until the last day. The day before this photo was taken I jumped into a 45 degree river thinking it would be great for cleaning my pants i was wearing all week. It wasn't really great for that because the weather wasn't warm enough to dry the pants. The water was good for taking the breath out of my lungs. That's about it. So i wore my wool long underwear the rest of the week. Jay bought his shirt at Backwoods, making it automatically "outdoorsy." I kept saying, "And now we have Jay Leeson, his outfit can go from a trail to a night on the town in a snap."



Trail Signs:
North Georgia is Deliverance country (we actually saw a house they used in the movie). Noted for its high retention of hill-billies and rednecks. This is not my own cultural assumption, but that of our waitress at Nanny's Home Cooking. She said, "My husband is the biggest red-neck I know. But my momma, she's a hill-billy." Don't confuse the two. To illustrate the point we have a sign pointing to "big rock". .5 miles later there was a big rock. Helpful. Really. I got lost in the woods by myself one morning and had visions of some guys floating down the river on a raft offering me a ride...


The Falls:
We saw a few great waterfalls on the Bartrum trail. Totally beautiful. This day specifically we gave the kids Snickers and you would have thought we struck gold.