Last several days and COPE!

I'm tired. Even though I actually got everything done for COPE on Thursday, and I haven't done a whole lot today, I'm still tired. Oh well. I'll start with Wednesday.

Wednesday was abnormal. I did schoolwork (finishing the last chapter's actual work in the last subject) but no mowing. Mom was a little under the weather, so there wasn't a ton going on, including prayer meeting, which was canceled. I got all (well, almost all) of my packing for COPE done. I was expecting to stay overnight, but I would have been in a cabin with the summer camp youth staff, so I didn't need to pack a tent or most camping supplies. However, since I wasn't sure what the cabin would be like, I got my cot ready. After that, I headed off to bed.

Thursday morning I was up at 0630, not too horribly early. We got down there, I found out where I was supposed to be, and Mom and Dad drove off, leaving a bunch of my stuff in the car, including the camera! We're not really sure whose fault it was, but oh well. After getting to the high COPE course, they pulled up, so I ended up having the pics done. Here they are!

The main platform. You climb up here and start from here.

A few elements. You don't need to do all of these, by the way. :)

The man in the green shirt is Rich Dieslin, the COPE instructor.

The most insane element--the Pirate's Bridge. Basically, you run across these planks, with no hand support, trying not to fall.

Looking down the zipline path.

Group getting ready.

The rest of the group.

The first guy going up gets to climb the staples. Don't worry--he's belayed.

Up to the top (nearly.)

More group shots.
Ditto.
Instructor at the top. He insisted we all called him Rich, so I'll call him that on here.
Climbing the caving ladder, which is, in my opinion, the hardest part.
Belaying.
Jeff doing this. Two ropes low, one high, and they switch places. Look at the next picture, too.
As I said...
The easiest segment.
Swings seemed hard. I haven't tried yet. Jeff makes everything look easy.
Quite nonchalant.

Someone's about to come down the zipline.

Me.

Ditto. I'm not too comfortable up here, but I got the job done. I fell, so I just hung for a minute.
Instead of getting back up, I pulled myself along and got up at the end. :)

I'm at the end, getting ready to go on the zipline.

Dining hall at Birch.Something in the dining hall.
Self-portrait.
Me climbing up for the practice rescues.

Alrighty. That's it for the pictures. After I got home, we had a district scout meeting that wasn't too terribly interesting.

Yesterday was finishing school. I got done with Literature finally, so I'm done! That was about the limit of the interesting stuff yesterday.

Today was much more active. Three guys in our troop advanced from Tenderfoot to First Class today, holding the rank of Second Class for under an hour each! :) After the Boards of Review, our family all went into town for lunch and other stuff. We ended up buying a dining fly for our troop, since it was on sale, and a generous donor had given a bunch of money to our troop to help out.

After that, I started plotting. It ended up that a friend from scouts and I put about 16-17 miles on our bikes, mostly on-road, but somewhat off-road. We went down the railroad bed behind my house to the old stream, eventually having a splash contest to see who could get the other wetter. I won. :)

That's been pretty much it. I'm needing to get off, since I have a lesson for tomorrow that I have to finish, and, since we're having Mortons tomorrow, I'll be needing to help out in the morning. Good night, but check out the video!