Welcome to my blog! My names Abby and I like to share my nature and trip expirences that I get to go on. Over the four day Martin Luther King Junior weekend, I went with my fellow Wilderness Youth Project peers on a trip called Wolf Moon without any phones! We went to Montana De Oro (the Golden Mountain) to watch the Blood Moon Ecplise Sunday night. We met up with another program called Outside Now, from another town. The first night we all went to the beach and got to climb up the GIANT boulder / cliff and watch at the sun set and the sky fill with stars. Finally when the sun fell we all got together and sang a song before we climbed back down and headed back to camp. After a quick fire we all went to bed for we had a long day ahead of us.

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Saturday morning came and we all prepped for the day, but when we circled up there was a twist. The mentors had each of blind folded and put us into groups, and told us we could only say ONE given word for the rest of the day, my group was Wah. They lead us into vans and drove us to a destination of there choice but we had no idea where. They led each person to an individual spot. I was told to count to 300 before looking for my team members while my blindfold was still on by only using the word Wah, and to only remove my blindfold when I had found 5 members of my group. After 300 seconds I began to yell my word awaiting a reply, and when I heard another Wah I ran towards it as fast as I could while being unable to see and ran into my friend Ismael, together we found the remaining 3 members, Peytra, Finn, and Adrian. When we removed our blindfolds we were shocked to see we were in the middle of sand dunes and bushes. Petra held a hint that said to follow the trail left behind by our 6th team member and to find them. Immediately we all began to bolt across the dunes yelling Wah and pointing where to go. We found our 6th member Seqouia at the edge of a cliff.

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Sequoia had a note that said “learn the other teams languages without being seen, and Find your way back to camp by sunset”. We were shocked by this but instantly began to figure out where we were. We all hung out on the cliff side for a buit, while Adrian and Petra tackled each other and jumped down the dune. Once we began our treck to camp we very quickly decided to take a break, and slowly other groups joined us on the top of dune, and we all gave up and spoke English to one another. When I was running down the dune Adrian ended up tackling me and we flew about 5 feet before hitting the ground, and little did I know from this moment forward, people would start tackling me about once very 30 minutes even after the trip. The rest of the day was spent laughing at especially Adrian who we buried in the sand all the way over his head and he claimed to be a not Oracle Oracle, and digging giant holes that people could stand in that would reach their head. We all returned to camp together and had a small fire before beginning the chili cook off. Two teams competed in who could make the best pot of chili, my group made ours based on flavor and spice, lots and lots of tapatio went into that pot of chili. We ended up winning the competition. After the cleaning was done we had another fire where we played a game called “Sheila” and let’s just say its very confusing. We all took a moment to appreciate the wonderful land we were surrounded by and went to bed awaiting another fun filled day. When I went to bed I ended up getting so cold I barely slept.

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Sunday morning came and I was awake before almost everyone, my friend Grayson taught me a few chords on his guitar, while Ezzy was strumming on his own instrument. Once everyone was up we got ready for the day and headed into the vans back to the sand dunes. We got back into our groups from the previous day for a game of “Kingdoms”, there was a Monarch, Bishops who protected the Monarch, and Knights who tried to kill the enemy Monarchs, the healers who could revive you if you did a specific task, and the ghost riders who could kill everyone. I was the Monarch in my Group and well, when I got chased by a ghost rider lets say i had never run so fast in my life. As the game continued my group got out and we had the task of making a love song about dew drops. I came up with the fabulous lyrics “Dew drop, the things you make me do, Dew drops, I’m so in love with you, Dew drops.”. We didn’t win the game but we had a fun time. After the game everyone dispersed into groups, some went mushroom picking, some went down to beach to find some sea food for our dinner, and some stayed on top of the sand dune to hang out and continue to build giant holes.

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I stayed on the sand dune to watch the hole progress, but as the holes got to deep for the boys to get out on their own, they collapsed! Ezzy, Arran, Adrian, and Sage especially got almost competly buried in sand so the mentors had to carefully dig them out. It rained for a bit unfortunately and I was very cold, and my shoes got wet so I had to continue to be barefoot. Some of us piled into the van and headed back to camp while others walked back. I hung out with my friends by the fire while we awaited for our seafood dinner. Once dinner was served my friends and I sat in my tent waiting to witness the blood moon eclipse. The wind started to shake the tent violently while we watched the eclipse, until the tent actually broke, everyone made it out except for me because I was trying to grab all my stuff, it was super stressful and I got scared that the tent would just completely break with me in it. But new found friend Finn was there to help me with my stuff and helped calmed me down. We looked for a new place for my friend Chloe and I to sleep, luckily one of the mentors Noah had an extra tent for us to use. Another mentor Sara helped me stake down the tent with wood so it wouldn’t fly away. After that mess my friends and I stacked on top of each other under the tarp since it was raining, but everyone quickly found out I was very ticklish and decided to all gang up and tickle me. I started laughing so hard that tears came from my eyes. Once The rain stopped we had a small fire all starting to get sad realizing we were going to leave the next morning. After hanging out with my friend at the fire for a little longer I headed to bed.

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The final morning had come, the first thing I did was pack up my stuff and put my tent away. I had breakfast with my friends and we all helped each other pack up. Finally when it came for the finale circle we all had to say our goodbyes, lots of hugs and smiles were exchanged. I was sad to leave the new friends I had made, knowing they all live two or three hours away but I was excited to see them again in April when we will have another trip all together. I got into the van and we drove back to Santa Barbara, but I napped for about half the ride from the lack of sleep on the trip I had gotten, I was exhausted and ready for my bed.