Camp Sunrise

Its rare that I come home from an event and immediately write a blog post about it but this weekend is an exception! Today I got home from three days volunteering at Camp Sunrise (Click to watch video) in Guthrie, Oklahoma. Camp Sunrise is a Christian camp for brain injury survivors, and the people I met truly are survivors in every sense of the word.

I arrived at the campsite in the middle of nowhere with a borrowed sleeping bag, duffle bag full of what I thought I might need, and no idea of what to expect. Immediately I was greeted by a larger than life man, Dennis, whom although wheelchair bound just wants to share his love with you, talk to you and if you're a girl, braid your hair. So after my hair was braided I headed into the main cabin to register and found out I was to be assigned a camper to share the weekend with and assist where I could.

My camper, now my friend, was Mike. Immediately upon meeting him I knew I had so much left to learn about life and what it means to live. Mike was born with two arms but only one wrist and one hand but that didn't stop him from rock climbing his way across the states! His experiences and stories are amazing, however his last climb caused his injury as he was free soloing with no ropes or support and fell 50ft putting himself in a coma. As he says, God saved his life. After nine days he regained consciousness however had to re-learn how to eat, talk and walk with his two new prosthetic legs. He tells his story with confidence wanting everyone to know he did a 'stupid' thing and is so thankful to have his life. His speech is perfect however his memory fails him at times, this I learnt is a common problem for brain injury survivors. Mike taught me that you can live without fear and conquer your personal challenges but you are not invincible... Wear a helmet.

Mike and I, along with his other volunteer Michael (it got pretty confusing), had a weekend full of great activities... The first evening kicked off with hotdogs and roasting marshmallows on an open fire, which I was terrible at setting all our marshmallows on fire. Luckily I was forgiven as they didn't taste that bad when you peeled the black parts off.

We ended the evening with a talent show that I couldn't convince Mike to sing in anymore than he could convince me. The show truly touched everyone when Martha, a courageous woman wheelchair bound, sung Amazing Grace. That was the first, but certainly not last, time I genuinely felt the endless spirit of the people I was surrounded by when everyone joined it at the chorus.

On the second day we started off with a horseshoes competition, a game I had never tried properly but was roped into participating in by Mike and Mike. Needless to say I did not qualify for the finals of my category however Mike not only qualified for his finals but won it to! This was his first year taking home the trophy and I am convinced it will not be his last. We went paddle boating after lunch and enjoyed free snow cones. It was over snow cones I had the pleasure of meeting Jay, ex navy personnel, who told me all about his time in Japan, struggles and conquests in life. We skipped fishing, because Mike didn't like it and I was no good, and headed straight over to archery. It was at archery that I witnessed first hand the sheer joy miracles can bring... At first Mike refused to participate because his legs were tired and he only has one hand however we convinced him he could still do it. With myself and another volunteer (who is also a survivor) holding him up Mike played assisted archery, and actually did very well at it! I wish I could describe the look on his face when he realised he was playing archery properly for the first time in his life but it was something you had to see and an energy you had to feel.    

In the evening after playing bingo a disco was set up in the main hall. Those in wheelchairs were lifted up to have the chance to dance and I was lucky enough to dance with Mike and a lovely man called Randy, a survivor of a car accident, who taught me how to two-step (a country western dance). The last day was slightly more chilled out as we got to watch a dog agility show. The best part about that was getting to play with all the dogs at the end, despite wanting to take at least three of them home with me. We ended the weekend with a hayride (photo to the left) and a beautiful closing ceremony that didn't leave a dry eye in the building.

I won't share each individual's story that touched me because it would take me all night but I will say that there was something different to learn from each and every one of them. They were all brought together by a common denominator however each injury is different as the brain is an incredible, complex organ. I hope that after this experience I am able to work daily on not taking my health or my life for granted and I will honestly keep all of those people in my heart forever.

Middle of Nowhere Continued...

Carlsbad Caverns

On the second night of our trip we stayed in El Paso, Texas (as there was no civilisation in South of New Mexico for us to find shelter) and headed off early in the morning to Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico.

By now we were getting used to long drives through miles of nothing (literally not even a petrol station for over 100 miles) and this drive was no exception. We had a few hiccups with the GPS early on, you know the usual telling you to 'please make a U-turn now' in the middle of the highway, no big deal. But after an hour we were pretty sure we were going in the right direction... You can only imagine my confusion when suddenly we were fast approaching a series of flashing orange lights on the side of the road directing us to a station just off the road... Which brings me to:

Border Control 

I reluctantly pulled into the shelter guarded by men in uniforms carrying guns and also armed with HUGE sniffer dogs whom didn't look like they could be bribed with our sweets. All five of us immediately started freaking out as we joined the queue of cars just waiting to be deported. Naturally we assumed we were going into Mexico, and under NO circumstances could we go into Mexico, our visas wouldn't allow us back into the U.S. All sorts of things were running through my head, how could we escape? Was it too late to turn around? Should we ask them to turn around or just do it? Does the control station count as crossing the border? HOW DID WE GET TO MEXICO?

We get to the front of the queue and the conversation goes a little something like this:

Man with gun: Hello mam, can I see your driving licence?

Me: Of course, can I just ask if we're going in the right direction? We're trying to get to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, our GPS hasn't been working, where are we? (by now this is word vomit trying to get out as much as physically possible before we're stuck in Mexico for the rest of our lives)

Man with gun: No man, you're going into Mexico

Me: Mexico?

Man with gun: Yes mam this is the Mexico border

*all of us look like we're about to cry*

Man with gun continues: I'm only joking mam, this is the border to New Mexico, are you all U.S citizens?

Me: No, none of us

So I pull over to where I thought he told me to pull over (turns out it was the wrong place and we ended up causing an even larger queue than before) and we all get out our documents, he no longer thinks we're illegals and he lets us on our way while I try to recover from the minor heart attack he gave me. We're back on track to...

Carlsbad Caverns

Now I learnt that day that these caverns contain over 118 limestone caves, although we only got to explore the largest one. We took a self guided tour that taught us about all the animals that still live in the caves, such as bats, however it wasn't the right season for them and they wouldn't be back until Summer, such a shame. The cave was HUGE and it took us almost 4 hours to walk all the down and around the bottom. Surprisingly it wasn't cold inside, I don't know much about caves but I expected to be freezing! It was well worth the crazy drive. 

Cadillac Ranch

After our day at the caves we made our way back to Texas, staying in Lubbock, a small University town very similar to Norman, Oklahoma. On the way back to Oklahoma on the Monday we stopped by Amarillo, Texas to see the famous Cadillac Ranch. I had read about it before coming to the states and put it on my list of 'random things to do around Oklahoma'. The ranch is quite literally an empty dirt field with maybe 8-10 old style cadillacs lined in the center of it. You are legally allowed to decorate them artistically with spray paint (a.k.a graffiti, vandalism) and it is so much fun! I met a nice Texan lady while we were there who explained that a 'local eccentric billionaire' placed the cadillacs there a number of years ago for this exact purpose, to be painted. 

And eventually we found ourselves back in Oklahoma wondering how we could ever beat that trip... At least that was until Spring Break came along!

The Definition of 'The Middle of Nowhere'

During the first week back from our Christmas travels we were informed that Monday January 20th was a public holiday (Martin Luther King Day) and so decided to book another trip! This time it was a road trip through New Mexico.

Now if you live on a farm in the middle of the Gower, or a small retreat somewhere in Yorkshire or even in the Valleys, the Highlands etc, you do not live in the middle of nowhere. If you live in New Mexico on the other hand you hold every claim to that title. New Mexico is the land of tumble weeds, deserts, caves and mountains... And pretty much nothing else. 

The Drive

This was my first experience of renting a car and it all went surprisingly smoothly. That is as smoothly as 5 foreign exchange students renting a car to drive 1676.7miles in 4 days could go. The first hiccup was when we rolled up to a gas station for our first top up. Picture five girls in a tiny blue Ford Focus, two carrying coffee, two (one being me) fussing over which pump to use and the other attempting to swipe her dutch credit card at the pump and failing miserably... This was the view of the attendant who soon had the pleasure of dealing with our payment problem. Some fifteen minutes later we finally had petrol in the tank and were able to leave. 

The second hiccup was around midnight when I finally turned off the straight road we had been driving along for over 5 hours. The GPS lead us onto a side road, on which we were the only car, there were no buildings or street lights on either side of the road for the entire 50 miles we were on it. That was disheartening enough without the fact that the GPS estimated time of arrival was 00.08 and there was no way we were driving 50 miles in 8 minutes. We had planned our petrol stops around the ETA of 00.08 and so I really started to panic when I noticed the petrol gauge was approaching the red zone.. With all the girls in the back sleeping I didn't want panic to set in so decided to suggest to my roommate in the passenger seat that we should probably look for a petrol station soon... To which Julliane from behind shouted 'WE'RE OUT OF GAS?' turning the next ten minutes into a car ride full of screaming girls trying to plan our quick escape out of the wilderness. Luckily Marion spotted a button on the steering wheel which would bring up how many miles we had till empty and we were in the clear again. So far that it second my list of most frightening moments of my entire life. 

Santa Fe

Santa Fe, the capital of New Mexico, was our first stop after we recovered in a Super 8 Motel from the ordeal the night before. Santa Fe is beautiful but is like stepping back in time 100 years... The houses and buildings all look like the ones in the photo to the left and the whole town is what I can only imagine Mexico looking like (having never been there). It was warmer than Oklahoma but still not hot, although we were surrounded by desert.

The town was very artsy with statues, churches, paintings and galleries everywhere. In the main square (which was very small) they had a Saturday crafts market where several locals were selling their hand made goods, a lot of which were native American Indian pottery/jewellery. One of the jewellers asked me if I'd come from England to study Native Indians, I laughed and said yes, he pointed to himself and said 'well you're looking at all of them' the truth behind the joke was quite sad and I could see it was a topic they would usually take quite seriously.

We got to visit the oldest foundations of a house in the USA... I can't imagine why all those years ago no one decided to stay and make New Mexico the capital of the new USA. Similarly we saw the oldest church, which was not as small as I expected considering the size of the house and how tiny its doors were, anyone taller than me would have no chance going in, and that pretty much rules out 90% of the worlds population.

White Sands

The next stop was White Sands, located towards the south of New Mexico, and is exactly what it says on the tin; an area covered by white sand dunes that has been turned into a national park. It is awesome. Despite the fact the photo may look photoshopped - it is not - the park is just that picturesque. Being the cheesey travellers we are we stayed until sunset and it was beautiful although it got cold, fast. 

While the sun was still up we took the chance to re-live our youth and slide the dune in toboggans... The race was Wales against Sweden, both set off at good speed but it was a sad day for Wales when Sweden finally won. Wales got scared half way down and decided to stop for a bit of sightseeing before being peer pressured into finishing the race.  

By now the second day had come to an end, still two more to go, which will be covered in the next post :)

The Red River Rivalry

So its been almost two months since I last spoke about American football which means this post is well overdue... I'd like to take you back to Saturday October 12th 2013 when the Oklahoma Sooners played the Texas Longhorns in Dallas, TX. This game is known in this small part of the world as The Red River Rivalry after the river which runs through the two states.

This is the famous game I have mentioned time and time again for which the whole University is given the Friday before the game off in order to travel down to Dallas ready for a Saturday morning kickoff. This is undoubtedly OU's biggest game of the season. And for the privilege of attending this game I paid $130, which believe it or not was one of the cheapest student options available! We were perched right at the top of the stadium, one step backwards and I would have fallen over the rail and into the crowd outside. Yes there was a huge crowd outside watching the game on TV, every time someone scored we could hear the crowds from roar inside the stadium echoed five seconds later by the crowd outside.

Now you have to imagine the stadium was packed with fans! Granted there were more OU fans than UT (university of Texas) fans but still we each had to stay on our own Uni's designated side. The atmosphere was crazy: we were all on our feet for 3/4 of the four game in 25 degrees heat shouting our heads off! One side of our area would shout "TEXAS" and in response the other side would shout "SUCK". It was nice to see maturity always prevails... Although with OU being the favourite to win after beating Texas for the previous three years we had too much riding on this game to be mature. Pride meant we had to win!

Some people, especially those at home, have criticized me for paying so much for a college football match but you would have to have been there to really appreciate how well spent that money was. For me even the lead-up to the game was warrant enough for the big spend - our local radio station here in Norman, Oklahoma 'KJ 103' released the best rendition of 'blurred lines' I have ever heard, you have to check it out: Everybody say 'BOOMER SOONER'. If this didn't get everybody riled up for the game I don't know what would have! My favorite lines would be "You'll be saying well there our season went, we'll shut you down like the government" or maybe "you suck you know it". Clearly lyrical genius'.

So into the stadium we all went, expecting a great win (like usual), only to set off to a terrible start. After a great season we lost our touch during the only game that really mattered. The only game I paid a small fortune to watch. The game we had bigged-up all year. We lost. Miserably. To this day I still believe the worst part of the entire atrocity was the lack of dedication in the fans, as soon as a comeback was out of the question half the OU fans left the stadium. I think it would be fair to say us international students were close to the last ones standing. I think the biggest regret was that of the guy to my left who spent the first half of the game throwing his guts up over the edge of the stadium thanks to the hangover of the century... And he dragged himself to the game to watch his team lose. Poor Fraternity boy partying too hard in the big city.

But... Texas still sucks.