I'm sure you can tell by looking at me that I was and forever will be a sleep-away camp kid! Every summer up until I was about 16 years old I would be shipped off to the deep dark woods of Deep River, CT for 8 weeks of sun, smore's and sexual experimentation.
When campers at my particular camp turn 14yrs old they are expected to go on 2 5-day trips (hike, bike or canoe) throughout the summer.
These trips were expertly planned to torture teenagers, to test their camping skills and to assess whether or not they would be given the opportunity to apply for a coveted "junior counsellor" position when they turned 16. And covet I did so the summer I turned 15, I signed up for the 5 day bike trip. I was gonna prove to all of the camp administration that "I" was ready to be a junior counsellor!
All I had to do was learn how to ride a bike! Simples!
I can remember riding (and falling off) my shiny, brand new, black and red, never ridden, 5 speed bike bought from the finest department store in Long Island...K-Mart! I tried my very best to teach myself to ride a bike the entire summer before my bike trip. I was obsessed! I mean there was a very important job on the line!
I eventually learned how to ride well enough to bike around camp and was hot damn I was ready! Well I thought I was ready until they attached the 20lbs saddle bags to my bike rack. And Boom! down I went. Luckily I had 3 hrs before we set off on the trip to relearn how to ride a bike with 20lb saddle bags.
But I somehow managed and off we went on our 5 day bike trip starting from our camp in Deep River, CT to some random shithole town in Rhode Island and back into camp in CT.
There was 15 of us in total; 10 teenagers and 3 very sad, delusional adults on this trip. I was one of 2 girls on this particular Bike trip. The rest were boys...Very horny, very impatient, very angry testosterone filled teenage boys. Woo-hoo Fun times !
Here are some day to day highlights of this amazing bike trip:
Day 1:
Oh I forgot to mention the other member of our merry journey...
My period. My super heavy period. My period came an hour after we set off from camp. I can remember the joy I felt as I sat upon my ultra narrow bicycle seat with a thick overnight sized menstrual pad for the next 10hrs on a bike and then for the remainder of this glorious trip!
The joys of teenage womanhood! So me, my heavy period and the rest of my fellow campers and counsellors biked about 20 miles that first day.
Day 2 was actually a fun day. We only had to bike a total of 5 miles and we were allowed to camp on a private beach. We lit a huge bonfire and ate copious amounts of chocolate, baked potatoes, fun dip and nerd rope. It kinda was awesome.
Day 3 however was less awesome. I woke up with an allergic reaction under my arms to a generic brand of deodorant that my mom bought because it was cheaper than my normal name brand.
Thanks mom.
As soon as it was time us to set off for the day, both of my underarms began to bleed and puss and I had to ride my bike without putting my arms down.
Oh and I still had my period.
Day 4 was quite eventful. Remember the merry band of boys I mentioned earlier. Well on this day they refused to wait for us and the other girl and I took a wrong turn and we ended up biking 20 miles off our plotted bike route. We then somehow managed to bike into a wasp sanctuary and as those wasp declared war on us they got trapped inside our mesh basketball shorts and re-stung us about 10 times as they tried to escape our very fashionable basketball shorts. We then dropped our bikes and begin to strip naked right in front of the local fire station in Mystic, CT where luckily the firemen were all outside cleaning the fire truck.
Oh and I still have the underarm rash and my period.
Day 5: This was the last day of the trip and it was pretty uneventful besides biking the last 30 miles of the trip all uphill with 20 lbs saddle bags, a heavy period, scabbed underarms, wasp bites all over my ass.
But gosh darn it, I made it! I did it. I completed the 5 day bike trip and because this trip was so eventful for me, I was given a pass and I didn't have to go on any other camp trips. And I eventually earned a coveted junior counsellor position that very next year!
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