Day 14

This morning Jerome and I woke up to the sound of Rusty's harmonica-a sound hardly describable, the closest I can get is a dying walrus. After everyone was awake, we spent time talking about our experiences during our expedition. This was the wrap up day. We all talked about the oohs and ahhs of our trip and laughed about our awkward introductions and how we are such great friends now. Everyone was doing fine emotionally until Julie dropped the crying bomb! She pulled out eight journals and had us guess which one belonged to which person based on the quotations that she used as a personality description. There was some major tearing up and I definitely let loose a water fall. The realization that our trip was coming to an end didn't damper anyones' attitudes and we all sucked it up and started cleaning the Reserve so that we would leave it in better condition that we found it. So by 3:00 p.m. we had the place spick and span and split into two groups to run errands because we had a PARTAY to put on that evening. Jerome, Arky, Julie and I headed into Banning to go to Fedex and to get the red-mean machine washed. Everyone else went to Idyllwild for groceries and to drop equipment off at the Annex for storage purposes. There was also some last minute souvenir shopping that had to be completed. Icka had me covered since I went with Jewels to Banning. So we looked all over for a Fedex and ended up who knows where on Orange street off the highway from Banning where we mailed Rusty's precious packages. We also printed off a couple pictures for Taylor, the best handiman I've ever met, as going away presents. Then we made a detour to McDonalds for some much needed medium chocolate milkshakes! Those sure brought smiles to our faces. Then we headed back to the reserve where we decided that we needed to get in some last minute "swimming" at Lake Fulmor before we went home. Icka, Jerome and I had some things to prove. Then we got the Reserve party ready, ate the marvelous meal prepared by Rusty, watched an amazing puppet show by Skadoosh and Icka and a rap performance by Arky, Skadoosh, and Shannon. I'm still laughing about it. The highlight of the evening was probably the epic pinata bashing. It was sooo much fun. Shannon spun us around and then we had to blindly swing at the pinata-it was hilarious and a workout. After we all attacked the candy that poured endlessly from the wreck of a pinata onto the ground, we cleaned up...again. That night everyone packed, except Shannon who didn't pack until 4:30 a.m. Actually no one except Arky went to bed. I tried to sleep but failed miserably. Overall, the day was action packed and really fun. No one wanted this trip to end! I still don't.

-Katie