"At about 8 we had to stop and wait for the moon to come up so we could see to continue. I lay on the ground watching the stars and talking to Kayla. Found out she was a high school friend of my freshman boyfriend! Small world. We've all pretty much dropped any pretenses. We talk openly--and hug a lot. Lots and lots of hugging ALL the time!!! Some more than others. The moon came out, so we got up and hiked for another couple of hours just beyond the next pinnacle and then just beyond the next pinnacle, through huge reeds that snapped us in the face. We got to the campsite and then had to go still farther to the water which made you want to cry. Some of us did. Our waterhole that we'd been hiking hours and hours for was a mud puddle, the result of a recent rainstorm. All around the puddle was clay mud. Linda sank into it up to her knees and just stood there crying until someone pulled her out. Funniest thing, but I wanted to laugh! Here we were wading like zombies at two in the morning to find water to sustain our very lives, and we end up sinking to the depths of despair to get a before-bed glass of water!! But the Lord is good.
Saturday morning we pushed on out for base camp.I walked all day with Craig. He gave me a flint and steel and also the promise of kissing lessons later that night! (Back in the day here, I had very conservative kissing ideas. I'm assuming I must have educated him on those while we walked.) Today was cake. We got to rest while the sun was hot for a couple of hours.
Roy, who walked with me on the first night, is dehydrated. He throws up VERY VERY loudly. The sounds of that shake the whole canyon. The leaders can't get him to move. He is giving up the will to survive! Jeff is very patient with him and stands with him all the time he is throwing up.
A scorpion bit Larry (our main leader--Larry Mullins, survivor extraordinaire and bodyguard to President Kimball later). Larry is a beautiful person. He is so obviously sick from the bite/sting, but he said, "Don't have time to be sick or anything to take for medicine, so let's go!"
A glorious indescribable night. We climbed out of the canyon that had taken us the first two nights to hike into. Everyone was singing and laughing and pulling each other up. Food was secondary. Paula had a hard time, but we helped her. She has so many blisters. Two boys got on either side of Roy, and he found some will somewhere to almost run up the mountain! The whole experience of us singing and Roy going up was like the Lord had placed his hand down, and we had stepped into it for the journey up.
When we got to the top Craig and I lay on our back and talked about food (which I would soon learn was THE favorite topic of almost any conversation!) Craig is not Mormon. He spent the summer doing seasonal ranger work at Glen Canyon. Iowa boy, spent some time in foster care, graduate of Ames. When he was in college he got drunk, fell in a bathtub, and knocked some teeth out.) We hiked in the moonlight for 2 hours more. Craig took my hand very nonchalantly. (This too became the norm. EVERYONE held hands ALL the time--girls with girl, and boys with girls.) I was perfectly happy walking down a dusty road under the moon with a hand in mine. At one point we passed the boys with Roy. He was lying on the ground, and when they tried to pull him up, he wouldn't come. They had to kick him and yell because he had reached that point. Roy is very very large. There isn't going to be any carrying going on!! Very sad and too dramatic for me. Such a contrast to the perfect night.
We fell into camp. They gave us a carrot, which I thought odd, and then some lemonade to build up our blood sugar up, I guess."
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