Here at camp we like all things Pork: hotdogs, ham, pork chops, pork tacos, pulled pork, pork tenderloin, spam, sausage, pork kabobs (also known as porkabobs), pork jerky, pork pizza, pork gumbo, porkabello mushrooms, and especially, BACOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!!!  Unfortunately, that is not what this post is about.  It is actually about our staff trip to the Porcupine Mountains.  They are not actually mountains, but close enough for us.  This area is commonly referred to as “The Porkies”.  Some of you readers may know, however, that the cool thing to do is to leave key syllables off of certain words.  Hence, we began to refer to our trip as going to “the Pork.”

In the days preceding our trip one could often hear these words falling off the lips of the volunteers, full time staff, and some summer staff who joined us.  “I can’t wait to go to the Pork!” was our cry. But first, there were some preparations that had to be made.  We needed to pack our bags with all of the 10 essentials (things you need to take on every camping trip), group gear such as tents and food, and a finger bullet (a nerf type toy you can launch at your friend).

I think Sean and Andy are actually trying to fit a small person into this bag…

We met at 6:00 on Friday morning to eat breakfast and load Gus the bus.  Many sleepyheads were rewarded with a nice nap on the bus, and some not-so-sleepyheads were rewarded with a great view of the sun rising and the rest of the world waking up.  As nice as this was, though, our real rewards were to come later, when we actually got to the Pork. 

Friday we hiked in, Saturday we hiked all day, and Sunday we had the hike out.  In between we survived a cold night with temperatures in the twenties.  We also survived our own cooking and peed and pooped in the woods.  The best part, though, was lots of time to enjoy each others’ company and grow closer to God through the awesome experiences we were having in nature.  Here are some of the sights we got to see.

And here we are having tons of fun along the way!!!