Under the Arch

Imagine spending three days in a family friendly environment, with an endless number of things to do and see and learn.

Imagine a county fair of sorts where you have an instant connection with everyone you meet. There are no strangers here because you all have something fundamental in common. You love your Jeep.

An outdoor conference of Jeep enthusiasts, Camp Jeep is an owner event that takes place every year in various parts of the country. We drive hours from all over to get together and play in the dirt.

The parking lots are covered in Jeeps young and old tricked out to within an inch of their lives....



....and every owner is eager to test what their baby is made of on the trails.

On our third set of rapids, I think I got a little cocky. The raft hit a boulder and I saw my little brother start to lose his balance. I reached forward to save him and all I managed to do was land us both in the drink. My first thought? Dammit, Jared! This wasn't the first time that attempting to help him landed me in over my head.

My little brother, Jared is 10 years my junior and 6 feet tall to my 5 foot 7, so every time I call him my "little" brother, part of me wants to clarify the statement. Every. single. time. Even though he outweighs me by a good 50 pounds, I can't help thinking of him as the tiny, timid 9 year old that he was when I moved out of our parents' home.

One of my favorite bloggers, Ree, often talks about the things she does because she's a middle child and I can relate in that I often find myself doing things because I'm the oldest child. I spent most of Jared's first years playing mediator between him and our sister, the middle child. I think my lifelong desire to be a teacher can be attributed to being the oldest child and my ability to let Jared literally put me in over my head is just another symptom of "oldest child syndrome"....... if there is such a thing.

The last summer vacation we took as a family before I left included a float trip down the Current River in Missouri. We had been canoeing many times, but this time we thought it would be fun to take it easy and simply float down the river in innertubes. Jared would have been 8 or 9 at the time, and even though he got all the athletic ability in the family, he wasn't terribly coordinated at this point. There was a point in the river where it split for a while, one side slow and easy, the other fast and scary looking. Me and Dad took the fast side; the others went the slower way. During the pass of the cooler bearing innertube, Jared decided he wanted to go the faster way too. I'm not sure what happened then, but Jared was standing in shallow water and he was yelling about something and scared about how fast the water was rushing past his little feet, when he lost the grip on his tube and I, like an idiot, stepped deeper into the rushing water to grab it as it went past me. Whoosh! Feet out from under me, I was skimming along at a fast pace, completely out of control with no tube and no way to stop myself from slamming into a tree partially submerged in the river. The river spun me around and around until I was close enough to the shore for my Mom to grab my hand and pull me out. I stood there on the bank, shaking, watching the blood run down my leg, and wondering how I manage to get myself into these situations. Nothing broken, I NEVER break bones, but sometimes it hurts so bad you can't help thinking that it SHOULD be broken. Stupid shin turned practically black, let me tell ya, I make some pretty bruises. My leg was still bruised that winter when I was standing outside my dorm in sleep shorts after some joker pulled a fire alarm. (Bastard.) So....back to the rafting story.

Once again I was at the mercy of a river, this time in New York, though at least this time I was wearing a helmet and life jacket. The big difference is that I actually knew what to do. The river guides lectured us on what to do in the event that we fall out of the raft, of course the idea is to NOT fall out of the raft. What can I say? I'm a rebel and a thrill seeker. Heh.
They told us to point our toes down river and float on our backs, steering with our arms. WHATEVER YOU DO, they said, DON"T TRY TO STAND UP!!! DON'T DO IT! How silly, I thought, I'm wearing a life jacket, of course I'll float, why would I try to stand up? They were so right. My first instinct in my momentary panic until I remembered what to do was to stand up. I resisted the urge and was quite proud of my floating ability, only yelling when my back made contact with a particularly large rock. Ouch. That one left a mark. My brother and I were picked up by rafts further down the river and then transferred back to our own. The best part? I had the presence of mind to not only save my paddle, but my brother's as well. I. am. AWESOME. My dad later told me that he was glad my Mom had changed her mind about going with us because his heart stopped when we tumbled into the river. My Mom? She can't swim. No rapids for her, thanks.

So, that's it. Two instances of rushing water over my head; both involving my brother. The moral of the story? I blame Jared.

*I have some pictures of me in the helmet and life jacket somewhere, but I can't seem to find the disc, but if I find them later, I will definitely post them, even though I look sort of ridiculous.

I promise to have something more substantial tomorrow......until then, here's a photo...or two.

We're a bunch of Jeep nuts. This is me and my brother a couple of years ago. Since 2002, this past summer is the first summer we, as a family, have missed Camp Jeep. Camp Jeep is an owner celebration offered every summer by Jeep so that we can spend 3 days playing in the mud with fellow weirdos, just like us. So. fun.

This photo was taken after singing the national anthem for the eleventy-billionth time for a promotion that Jeep was doing for the National Anthem Project. We lined up our Jeeps to make an american flag and sang our little hearts out while they taped the whole thing from a helicopter.

And the finished product...Stars, Stripes and Jeeps forever. Hee. The arrow is pointing to my brother's Jeep Wrangler. So, if you ever saw this commercial, I was there, true story.

These were all taken on a sailing ship that you can take from Navy Pier in Chicago. If I had the money...and well somewhere to sail, I would totally take up sailing.

As promised, more pictures from the Niagara Falls trip...for anyone who cares...and the rest of you who don't....

I was unpacking this weekend (yes, I'm still doing that) and came across some old photos of myself that were kinda fun, so think of this entry as show and tell.

That's me in the middle, my senior year in high school...my god, look at all that hair! Yes, I was a scrawny little thing, and no, I'm not anymore. I wore that sweater practically every day until it disinigrated in protest.

This one isn't of me, but I did take it. It's my nephew, Hayden, at about 2 months. He was such a great subject and made all kinds of funny faces for me.

This one is me, my brother, Jared, and our Dad at Niagara Falls. We look like stairsteps..if my Mom weren't taking the picture she would have to stand to the right of me...I got the tall genes. As soon as I find the rest of the pics from this vacation, I'll post them for the "reminiscing about when I had the money to take vacations" part of this blog which I have been sadly neglecting so far.

This is me...I'm one. I was actually blonde originally, but it went away in grade school...the chubby thighs...didn't.

This is my kindergarten photo, one of the last cute school photos. I had a really loooonnng awkward period.

This is me and my brother, Jared at Holiday World in Santa Claus, Indiana. I was in high school when this photo was taken, but I'm not sure on the year. We went to this theme park several summers. I'm still this much of a dork, maybe worse.

Dorkiness runs in the family..that's my brother, Jared at Niagara Falls again. We were on the Maid in the Mist boat, the blue ponchos were supposed to keep you relatively dry, but I think they make quite the fashion statement. I'm sure Jared agrees with me.

This was in high school again, my senior year...also at another theme park..Six Flags St. Louis this time. That's my old buddy Travis...it was raining, so this is how we entertained ourselves. Gah, again with all the hair and the eyebrows. Would you believe that I put off taking care of that until I was 27?

One last one for the night, this was taken in Texas on a church trip when I briefly flirted with organized religion. (And apparently both of these guys.) That's Travis again and on the other side is Billy, both of whom are happily married. (still with the hair and in this photo you can tell that I had no boobs)

Korean War Veterans Memorial
This is part two of my '04 vacation...beginning with these guys...this was my favorite war memorial just because these statues look so incredibly real it gives you goosebumps...

Ok, this is where I start to reminisce about all the vacations taken before.... I am still finding things in boxes and I found ONE of the photo discs that I was looking for....so welcome to 2004, which is the only one available. This is one of the Camp Jeep vacations, which also includes Washington D.C. , Mount Vernon, and Monticello since it was in Virginia that year. Along for the ride (actually I was along for the ride, which means this vacation was free!) or the cast of characters included Me, Mom, Dad and my brother Jared.

Washington Monument

This is our first day, right out of the metro station onto the Mall (which frankly confused the crap out of me, saying and using this term)....there was construction everyfreakingwhere, so we didn't actually get to go in to the monument...but it was neat to look at....

World War II Monument
These are some pics of the WWII monument that I took, it was really too big to get in one shot and there were so many details to look at...I thought the whole thing was beautiful and...uplifting.





These are some of the more "artistic" pics from the same place...I loved all the kids playing in the fountains, I would have loved to take more pics like that, but this was back when I was afraid of taking pictures of people that I'm not related to...I've gotten over that, but I still try to do it without the subject of the photo being aware. (I think you get better pictures that way...kids, even adults often have this fake smile that they only bring out when people are looking...I hate that smile.) By the way, all of these photos and more that wouldn't fit, can be found on flickr....you can click on the shortcut on the right side of this page...should take you right to my photos.


More pics later.....