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Thanks for looking here, but.....

I'm in Guatemala this week, so just go to http://fbcguatemalatrip.blogspot.com to see what's going on. Everyone on the trip is encouraged to post, so you're not stuck with my cockeyed viewpoint all the time.

Here's a recap of the Journey On trip just using 3 words or less.

Big houseboat / copperhead on boat!
big skiboat/ waterslide showers
jetski/ hilljack!
tubing/ taking trips
swimming/ sound of music?
solitude/ farkle
book of Daniel/ signs
Connie cooking/ attack tubing
big lake / aquaskipper
late nights/ Beth Moore
sleeping til 9/ Shadrach,Meshach,Abednego
Kashi GoLean/ Nebuchadnezzar
Micky and Jane/ Orange Crush!

You probably need to ask someone who went on the trip to provide you fuller references for these. so do it. Find someone and ask them to tell you.

...That's why we do it!

Wed.

RAIN.RAIN. RAIN.

Not the worst thing in the world for us today. We were tired from playing so hard the previous days. We took the morning and doubled up on assignments. After a late lunch(2:00) we spent a lazy afternoon. Some played cards and others watched "The Sound Of Music".
I know what you're thinking.
You're wrong.
I watched the movie.

Watching the girls sing along and talk about their favorite parts was hilarious.
Plus I got to make snarky comments.

The lessons have been really good. The first 6 chapters of Daniel have some of the absolute best stories in the Bible. The verses where Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego stand up to Nebuchadnezzar are one of my favorite parts of the entire Bible. Today we spent time on Nebuchadnezzar and his seven year period of madness.

For supper, we gave the cooks a break and piled in the ski boat and went across the border into Kentucky to a marina with a restaurant. With the exception of one couple, we were the only ones there. So we could be loud and cut up. We had a table of 14, 6 facing 6, and one table of 4. Perfect for playing "Up Jenkins". (Google it)

We're in the marina right now finishing the movie and getting ready to head out. We have to observe the 10 o'clock quiet time rules in the marina so we try not to spend the night here. We tend to be loud, especially at night.

I think we have a night-swim planned for later. The top of the boat is probably 12 ft. above the water. Jumping from it in the dark can be sketchy and a little scary, because you can't see the water.
Sketchy and scary?...........

...I know but I'm not telling.....not yet, anyway.

This is coming from Dale Hollow lake in Tennessee. We're on our "Journey On "trip, which is a discipleship retreat for rising Seniors and Juniors in High School. This is our 5th year doing it.
The 1st year we went to California and spent the week - half the time in L.A. and Malibu and the other half in Yosemite.
2nd year - HAWAII !
3rd year -a house on the coast of Maine.
Last year - Pigeon Forge, Tenn. "Myrtle beach of the Mountains".
'
This year - 6 days on an 83 ft. house boat on gorgeous Dale Hollow lake. Don"s cousin Micky owns the houseboat and he and his wife are wonderful hosts.
We take the house boat and beach it in a cove out away from the marina. Then we can be as loud as we want.
Our schedule:
9 -WAKE UP AND BREAKFAST
9:45 QUIET TIME
10:15 VIDEO SESSION
11:30 INDIVIDUAL STUDY AND DISCUSSION
12:30 LUNCH
1:00 PLAY HARD THE REST OF THE DAY

8:00 NIGHT SESSION

Micky has a 26 ft ski boat that we tube and wake board with. He's also got a jet ski on the back of the houseboat (Micky rolls big). We've been running all of them pretty wide open all afternoon.

We"re going through the 1st 6 chapters of Daniel. The discussions have been good. The youth have also done a great job of memorizing Scripture so far this week.

Last night we built a fire on the beach beside the houseboat and had worship out there. So nice.

The tubing has been insane. One big tube and a normal size tube makes for big fun.
The guys like to play "Hammerhead".
That's where every body gets on the big one and lets the other one fly around and hit them repeatedly.
They also play Attacker and Defender.
3 people on each tube. One tube is attackers and the other tube is two defenders and one target.
1 point for either successfully defending or tossing the target. 1st one to 3 wins.

We're in the marina right now emptying waste tanks, filling up water and charging batteries. That's why I've got wireless to do this.

It"s Tuesday and we're here 'til Sat. morning. t
Then we head to Nashville for a night out and home on Sun.

Connie and Micky"s wife Jane are cooking for us and doing a bang up job. The meals have been tremendous and every time we turn around the snacks coming at us.

Right now the big mystery is who opened the chocolate icing and ate a third of it. There was a note in it that says"sorry we ate it. Haley and Chamberlain"
They're claiming set up. Who really ate it?........

...a lot of what happens in Bimini, stays in Bimini

Let's talk about Bimini. We took about 20 kids who just graduated from High School for one last trip as Youth Groupers. We drove to Ft. Lauderdale and loaded up 2 catamarans and siled to Bimini during the night. It's one of my favorite parts of the trip. You sail out from the marina through some magnificent houses and boats. Then you hit open water. Once the lights of shore have faded, you can see the stars. With no other light to compete with, it's amazing how many you see.

We got to Bimini around 11. The captains do the customs paperwork while we wait on the boat. Then we do our paperwork and we're good. While Don went to rent some Scuba tanks (showoff) I took the rest 100yars to the other side of the island to the beach.
The deal with Bimini is it might be the clearest water on the planet. Describing it is hard because it's just too beautiful.

Then the plan is to leave and anchor out at a deserted island some miles away. We'll spend the next day and a half there, swimming , snorkeling, laying out,....pretty much doing whatever we want whenever we want. Reakfast and lunch are basically individual choices on the boats, but we tie the boats together at night for supper. We ate great this year thanks to McCall and Abby. They planned them and did the inside prep. Me and whoever did the outside grilling, but no real skill involved there. Cavemen did that,so....

We caught some fish and a guyy paddled up and gave us some so one night we put them on the grill. Way,way delicioso.

Snorkeling this year was outstanding. Sharks, rays, turtles, barracudas, and eels, were in abundance, in addition to the multitude of other fish we saw. We saw enough sharks that one day we were playing "Catch and Eat" on the port side of the boat when someone saw a big shark on the front starboard side, we didn't even get out of the water, nebver mind going to look at it.

What's "Catch and Eat"?
It's where I take a life preserver and straddle it like a horse in the water towards the back port side of the boat. We take a pan of left over hot dog weiners from the night before and put them on top of a float cushion beside me.then we open a section of rails on the side so people can jump off the side of the boat.
I throw weiners and they jump and try to catch one and take a bite before they hit the water.
"Catch and Eat" Hasn't everyone played it?
Funny thing. Nobody was catching them UNTIL...I started taking a good luck bite of the weiner, then throwing it. Every single one I took a good luck bite of got caught. The power of suggestion, maybe.
We also throw the football and let them catch it.

After 3 days out we sail back to Bimini and spend 2 nights in a marina. This year we went to the ultra swanky Bimini Bay Marina. It's part of the resort which is gated and very nice. We had access to the pools(crazy nice).
We take them down to this semi-outdoor dive called Big John's to dance and blow their ya-ya's out. We started later and stayed longer this year. In the past it was usually just us and random fishermen and tourists. Usually a small #. With the new resort open, it's like the movie Dirty Dancing. The resort people wanna go local and cut loose. The place was packed.
Of course our crowd gets in the middle and starts going to town.
Thet always dress for it, so the girls always look great. That means I spend my time on P and P patrol. Pervs and Purses. Looking after their purses and making sure all the Skeevy Steves and Pervy Mervs keep their distance. It's always been cool with no problems, but you never know.
Then we sail back out for a few more days out on the water of snorkeling and fun.

The last night on the water is the water balloon fight. We anchor the boats about 75-100 yds apart. We each have water balloons and water balloon launchers (the surgical tubing kind that takes 3 people to operate) and a handheld spotlight.
We yell and talk junk at each other, seeing who'll be the first to shoot. Once someone does, it's on!
I always tell my boat "there's going to come a point when you hear one go right by your head that you never saw. Your knees will buckle and you'll want to hide. Fight it "
It's scary as crap but fun.
The deal with the spotlight is that you can light up their boat for aiming AND it blinds them, affecting thr aim.

They busted our spotlight with just the 8th balloon they shot.
Are you kidding me?
BUSTED it?
We've hit the person holding it a couple of times.
We've knocked it out of their hands, but they just picked it up and kept using it.
BUSTED it? Broke the glass and everything.

We got smoked like a cheap cigar after that. Now they could see us and blind us. All we could see on their boat was the light, which blinded us. We got lucky a couple of. Times but they had bulls-eyes on us. I got tagged on top of the head, square in the hip, and dead in the back. Everybody on the boat got hit at least once.
One of the reasons it's so much fun is because everyone gets so jacked up once it starts. Balloons are zooming by, hitting right beside you, there' yelling and junk talking .....it's very adrenaline inducing. The hour or two after it's over is always a blast. Everyone is still amped up. We raid the kitchen, crank the iPods and play cards. Great night.

Then we get up and sail to Miami and spend the night in the Bayside Marina, then head back to Ft. Laud the next day.
Unload the boats, load the bus and drive to Cocoa Beach. Eat supper, visit Ron-Jon and crash. Next morning we roll all the way back to Wilmywood. Obviously some of things change a little every year.
And I can't tell u everything, because .....

Life on the road is tough.....

Oh-kay.
So posting from the road on a Crackberry isn't as easy a I thought. I spent an hour from 1 am to 2am.typing up a Bimini post and a beach camp update, only to find out next morning they didn't post.
Crap.
Don't know what I did wrong....but it killed some of my enthusiasm.

Flying home right this minute. Went to bed at 1 so I could get up at 2:45 and leave for San Juan International at arhro for a 7:10 flight to Orlando.
More later.......