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Follow along with our trip down the Patuxent

We'll be posting photos and stories from our adventures at Jug Bay as often as we can. Please feel free to add your comments and stories from the week below!
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2018 Teen Paddle

Disclaimer -- these blogs reflect the paddlers' uniqueness, creativity, and fondness for "Mafia," a sneaky camp storytelling game where people "die," doctor's "heal," and paddlers have to try to solve a crime through creative storytelling.  No one REALLY died, nor would any paddlers want the others "dead." (a few of the paddlers worried about what their parents might think when they read this year's blog -- and to be honest -- so did the adult facilitators)
 
Monday 7.16.18
 
CULT QUEST
 
 
> When you entered the nature center, many think it but an elaborate cult. 
> They were kinda right. 
> Enter the NAME OF THE CULT
 
> Linda
 
> That is not the cult's name.
> Cult activities include FENDING OFF BEARS WITH CANOE PADDLES, as well as AVOIDING LAVA.
> Cult initiation starts in 3 hours, and consists of BEING BRUTALLY THROWN INTO A RIVER TO FEND FOR YOURSELF. 
> The cult fights constantly on topics such as NUMERICALLY INCONSISTENT COWS, SASS, T-SHIRTS, and LISTS
> What do you do?
 
> Visit CULT SITE ONE
 
> As you enter the cult, you view cultists trying to set up a NON EUCLIDIAN TENT. Behind them, a cultist lies on a TABLE. NUCLEAR WASTE over flows from a PORTA-POTTY in the distance. Several cultists chant as they place an OBJECT OF POOR REPUTATION into a pit.
 
> Examine NON EUCLIDIAN TENT
 
> It hurts your head to look at. Folds of cloth and tarp lash in and out of existence. Ropes writhe around the mass, like worms on on a long abandoned burrito, burst outwards with it's juices. A jaunty logo of an octopus roasting marshmallows over a campfire is prominently featured. Do you wish to assist the CULTISTS?
 
> Assist cultists with NON EUCLIDIAN TENT
 
> Something appears to have gone terribly wrong. You find yourself attempting to pull a loop of poles out of the fabric monstrosity. This is incredibly silly! You head back to the central area.
 
> Examine PORTA-POTTY
 
> How about you don't do that.
 
> Examine cultist on TABLE
 
> You look at the cultist. For a second, you thought they were dead. Fortunately, they are sleeping, judging by the copious snores emerging from the cultist's robes. Join them?
 
> Join SLEEPING CULTIST
 
> You lie next to the cultist for an hour or so. You feel like you understand the world a little bit more.
 
> Leave TABLE
 
> Reluctantly, you leave the embrace of sleep. Back to the cult with you.
 
> Examine ritual concerning OBJECT OF PURE REPUTATION 
 
> It's a potato. Or, at least it was. It has been smothered with chili, butter, bacon bits, cheese sauce, and pure cholesterol. You feel your arteries hardening. The smell is so enticing, you almost fall in. Seems like that was the point. Maybe it's best to stay away right now.
 
> BWAAAAAAAAA
 
> What was that?
 
> Find out next time, at CULT QUEST PART II, The Revenge of Last Night's Chili

 
 
Tuesday 7.17.18
 
We woke up this morning to find that we had lost people in the night. Seems like that owl we called in didn't take too kindly to us disrupting his hunting. Nevertheless, we had things to do, so the day started. 
 
Breakfast consisted of cereal and something that might have been raspberries; the smell, whatever it was, wafted from one of the tents. When we did roll call we found that someone was missing. Seems Alex had decided that he'd rather stay and sleep, even after we announced that we were leaving. No one touched the cereal. We suspected that it may have been poisoned.
 
Still, we had to eat SOMETHING, so sandwiches were prepared to be eaten later. Naomi was excited about her cheese sandwich, but first, water quality testing. Only three campers drowned then. A new record! We may or may not have seen one of the counselors slip some PH fluid into Naomi's sandwich, but I feel it wouldn't be smart to mention it. Especially since she keeled over later.
 
It took a while but we FINALLY made it into the water. The current was almost unnaturally rough. Poor Ellie was left alone in her canoe due to the not at all suspicious loss of hr boat partner. She lagged further and further behind, the bright yellow of her canoe paddle becoming a tiny dot in the distance. The river was dragging us forward, making it impossible to go back. One of the counselors was with her, so we thought we wouldn't need to worry. It wasn't until the night had gone dark when her canoe and life vest washed up on shore, both chillingly empty.
 
The day wasn't all terrible though! We saw some interesting flora and fauna. In particular, the dragonflies were brighter colored and bigger than any we had ever seen. Much bigger. Cat was fascinated with them, coaxing them on to her boat. That may have been a mistake. Once again the river prevented us from turning back, but the faint screams in the distance were all we needed to hear. Each of us was liberal with the bug spray after that.
 
Still, we paddled on. our muscles were aching and our breath was short. We didn't dare risk taking a break, not between the river and the counselors. We're still debating which one is more intimidating. Even the rain couldn't deter us, and goodness, did it rain. We heard it in the distance, a slow drip, drip, drip, and then it was on us. Sheets upon sheets of water pouring from the sky, burning the skin, reducing visibility to zero. Anyone who dared put down their paddle used hats and long-empty water bottles to bail. Someone tried drinking it; not a good idea. What happened to him is far too gruesome to write. Kira and Liz managed to hang on for a while, but not forever. Kira's boat was tipped by the wind and rain, paddling desperately until she disappeared beneath the waves with a fatal shriek. Liz was struck by lightning, a massive bolt that illuminated her skeleton like a glowstick. Thankfully the weather cleared after that, and the last of us struggled on. 
 
At last, the final survivors pulled themselves, gasping, onto the beach. There were fewer than a handful of us left. One unlucky soul collapsed in the mud, inches from safety, and was dragged back into the water with a disturbing splash. Exhausted, spent, and ready to face the night if it at least we could sleep, we were unprepared for the worst horror of all. One of our counselors, silhouetted by firelight, uttered the words that sent the camp into chaos.
 
"Grilled cheese is not a sandwich"
 
Wednesday 7.18.18
The horns tooted at 7:00 Am️, the malicious conniving wardens  awaited our arrival at the cafeteria. Everyone reeks  of desperation to end this week long sentence. Camden decided he wanted to eat a bowl  of old bay. Shuddering 🤧from the spice of the old bay " wow " Camden said " old bay and watermelon has a quite appealing taste🤥 " . Everyone laughed. " EVERYONE CLEAN UP CAMP WERE GOING ON A RIDE " the voice of someone who's beard is stuffed with composting snacks from the week earlier🥞 . 
( ❌ NO BEAN TACOS ) " We're going on a ride " this Seth rogan looking guy stated. Everyone's face went limp . " Why, we'll finally see outside with our own Slave driver instead of being the slave driver," boy was I wrong. When the guy pulled up he had a motor boat🥃🏼 with 3 seats in them. Sadly, we had to throw some campers over board ( sorry Neomie, Alex, and Kat with a k ). Before we went on, Lillian had a great idea, she wanted  to know what bug spray tasted like. Tshh tshh tshh, three sprays to her lips. I couldn't hear what she was saying after, but from the look of her crinkled up aluminum foil looking face she hated it. "Tastes like heaven," Lillian said with a heavily sarcastic voice. We boarded the boat with happy faces, and up the stream we went. ( ❌ NO BEAN TACOS ) The weird guy who drove us talked endlessly, and no one knew what he was talking about⁉️. I could tell because I took one look around and saw 3 blank faces, 2 forced smiles, and 4 people asleep, accompanied by the constant pressuring of Weenie telling him to take us back🔄🔙. Oh that poor guy! The one cool thing he did was take us to a birds nest🦅🦉🦆. The bird on the other hand, did not think it was cool, as he looked like squidward when we picked him up, "Put me down retched aliens," the bird thought. "I would try to bite you, but I'm to lazy to do it,". We got back to campsite and had a thousand little warden Chris's flying around they were annoying. I'm going to skip the archeologists part but she was awesome. We entered the water as stupid slave drivers and wardens entered on red jet skis. As we paddled, the sound of an old lady crying caught the attention of my ears. "What is it that?" Rayevon asked. "idk sounds horrible but someone should help her," someone replied. As we looked back, we noticed the culprits: Camden and Naomi. "Ba ba ba da do di ba bo," they said, with a mix of Weenie rapping☠️. Later on in the paddle, we tried to find i nvasive catfish, but we didn't find any so we'll just go home and turn on MTV to see a lot of them. (GRILLED CHEESE ARE SANDWICHES🥖) As we got closer to the shore, the lead warden Lee Lee put a spell on us about horses boxes and scenes. Oh I can't feel my head. After we woke up from our mysterious sleep, the dinner was a bowl of pain and heartbreak. (BEAN TACOS) So, the campers decided to chop up Alex and eat 'em🥔. "I got dibs on the leg!" Cat with a C says. "shave 'em first!" Megan yelled back. And that's how we figured out Alex wasn't the mafia⚔️. Nighty night!⭐️🤡🤠
 
Thursday 7.19.18
We ended Day Three with a peaceful shoutout session, intense bracelet making, and the nearly revolting consumption of gooey, chocolatey s'mores. We thought the night was coming to a close until some Davey Crocket looking guy slyly suggested "Let's take a night hike to the Fire Tower". ⭐️🤡🤠🥔
Nature Mamma, Liz, protected us like her own cubs throughout the horrifying treck. When we finally reached the wooden structure and began our climb up the stairs, the lake was illuminated by fluttering fireflies over the river.
 
 
We fought the raging river today. We set out some bottles prepare it for battle. The first enemy we made was a Gerald Alfred. He came for the canoes from under the river. When he attacked we took the precaution pierce him with a hook. We wrestled Gerald, rocking the boats. We hauled Gerald Alfred, a 17 foot channel catfish, onto our canoe. Before we could catch our breath, another bottle submerged in the river. 
 
Unknown was supposedly a blue catfish. Unknown was aggressive, extremely aggressive. Two of our boaters rocked back and forth trying to catch him, eventually ending up in the water. Luckily they were rescued with no more than a slight chill.
 
Grilled cheese, better known as Timmy Panini Sandwich, was an enemy that we finally managed to catch! He was massive, at least twelve feet long. The boat nearly tipped before hauling him in. Another, smaller fish, named Poof, was also successfully captured before we retired from the river,

2017 Teen Paddle

Thursday, Day 3
8/10/17


This is the gruesome story of a shady type of camp whose name has originated from the few survivors of "prison camp
Kimberly sung in a high pitched voice until we had awoken from our thick slumber. We tripped through a not so Amazonian jungle in search of purple flowers. All we had as protection from thorny plants and airborne menaces were hot sweaty swamp-prison ware. After an hour of his torture we were released and told to swim back to camp. The water was freezing and hyperthermia was setting in when we finally arrived back at torture camp and were ordered to clean. Under male inmates housing where the brutal remains of an unfortunate mafia murder of a turtle. We were loaded onto boats and paddled through the scorching hot sun suffering 3rd degree burns and extramarital exhaustion. Along the way Jo Mama had to give MD the heimlich because she was given toxic gum. Luckily she lived. Halfway through the trip suggs@mappz and Sully crashed into kit Kat and zackattack capsizing their boat. Don't touch the meat and King of hyperbole displayed their amazing muscle and fixed their boat. When we landed we were forced to carry our boats up steep hills then were frog marched down to a cream colored dock were we were pushed into the water and carried far downstream by the amazing current. We had nowhere to go and had to swim against the powerful waves back to the dock. We trudged up the rolling hills and served our prison guards dinner. The last night was coming to an end, and that's when Suggs@mappz broke a stick over his head trying to start a fire he started getting dizzy he said he was seeing things. Then he turned into a zombie!!!



​

​Wednesday, Day 2
8/9/17

I'm going to tell you a story of 9 kids, two counselors, a Sasquatch, and the river from hell. Viewer Discretion is Advised. Don't read at night in front of a campfire or bad things will happen.

Today was hard. Like really hard. The inferior men did a bad and put their rainfly on wrong and all sorts of liquids leaked in their tent. Wow. How could you be that ding dang dumb. As we woke, team taxes made a hearty breakfast of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and blueberry muffins with bleach to wash down the precooked hard boiled frog eggs. In the future, Hairy Poppins took the Aqua Thugs out on a tour of his river crib. On the water we saw his bae hummy the hummingbird's kids. After creepily staring at the babies like sick stalkers, tents were packed and artifacts were artifacted. We learned about Hairy Poppins's lost family, the beardie bunch. During lunch, we saw WASPS. ANGRY. SWARMING. WASPS. AMD THEY DRIED TO EAT US. So Randy Man, Speedy Gonzales, MD, and Matty B shot them down with their super soaker 3000s.
After lunch we had a blast from the past, and learned about the wonderous world of RKology. We went into an ancient abode, and touched a circuit breaker. Some of us were more entertained than others...
While on the river, the torturous team in the guide boat decided to race snails and ,with Katniss steering, sank the titanic... again! But they were not as bad as Speedy Gonzales and Matty B's boat, who played battleship with the rest of the fleet. The paddddddlers were starting to get "River Rage", while Hairy Poppins lagged behind the traffic jam to catch his fancey shmancy Pokémans and having deep meaningful conversations with his best friend River Dale Baptist the Frog. Luckily he had Zach King and MD the mafia 😱🔪😵🔫🙀 to keep him company. 79.2 magikarp later, he caught up with the rest of us, only to see that we have rafted up and were eating all of the rations. When we finally arrived in the land of no wifi, dun dun dun all of the snooty teenagers except Matty B and Joe Mama tried to sail away to the nearest Coscos. Unfortunately the titanic had taken one too many icebergs. Most of the team faced a watery demise and didn't come back the same. For dinner, team taxes 🤢made some food south of the wall, tico tacos 🌮. Unfortunately for Hairy Poppins, Joe Mama ate the last lemón James, so Hairy Poppins and his beard cried themselves to sleep. Illuminati confirmed. 🌚🌚🌚 After we landed, we attempted to sabotage our own ship, and sunk our selves instead. Now we are gathered around the campfire to sing our campfire song, and to share our feelings.

August 09th, 2016

8/9/2016

0 Comments

 
It was a day; a day like most days. We all arrived at the queen Anne's 4h center, except one person was missing, we were too excited to check so we went in the water and paddled on (we really wanted our rebates, man). On the "road" we had impromptu drama and solved a million impossible riddles. Some people were sticks, some were not, and some just could never figure out what was which. Joe also took on the world, paddle in hand, and ready to fight! " I'm not gonna cooperate here," joe said when questioned about the incidences. He had enough leaves for one day or one lifetime. We did science!! While navigation crew attempted to do their thing, others tested water quality... Maddie stared at grass intensely... We hope she found what she was looking for. In the grass, and in life. Well, I mean... She found dancer the turtle among other cool things along our journey. She just loved the way dancer kept peeing on her hand. "It was kind of cute,"she was quoted as saying. Stick stick stick stick stick. Sorry... Eventually every word became stick on the journey. There were various birds, patriotic Eagles, awkward blue herons, Ospreys, egrets and regrets, well that was the feeling after many failed attempts to photograph the lovely creatures. Joe caught a mummy chog; " I didn't kill it, they ran themselves over" said joe. Joe is the speaker of our time. After a long journey and no extreme wading, we had to set up tents. By the time we set up the tents we realized it was time to go home... And that there were no rebates, but we bonded anyways. We watched the clouds in admiration and settled in for the night. We look for to more food, more stupidity and more sticks stick stick stick stick. " yeah you know it" joe was quoted as saying, hopeful for the rest of the journey that would follow and very well kill him... Or the mummy chogs.
Emoji translation:
☀️☁️; ☀️☁️. 👥🍀❓🌊🚣🤑. 🏞🎭⁉️❓. 😀🎍😟🎍🤔⁉️. 🚶💪😡🌎🏏👋💪☠. 🗣"🙄😡." 🚶🍃🍂🌿1️⃣☀️👶👦👨👴. ,⚗💥‼️ 🌎🗺⁉️⚗🌊👌... 👧👀🌾🙏. 🌾👶👧👩👵. 💃🐢🏞. Etc. 🎍🎍🎍🎍🎍🎍🎍🎍🎍🎍🎍🎍🎍🎍
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