Danielle's Pathfinder Trip

Every year the fifth grades here at all the schools in the valley go to an outdoor science camp at a ranch about an hour away up in the mountains. At our school it is called Pathfinder. Danielle had been anticipating this trip since last year and was so excited the day of departure had finally come. I was so grateful that I was able to go with her and see her experience this amazing adventure. The picture above is Danielle and Indy anxiously waiting for the sign to load up in the cars.
After we got there and got settled, the instructors started off with a game of Bear, Salmon, and Mosquito which was similar to rock, paper, scissors. The difference being that in this game, you had to run away from your partner if you were "lower" than them after turning around and revealing your sign for whatever creature you chose to be. You had to reach the "safe zone" before they tagged you.


Just before the picture above, Danielle said, "Mom, you don't have to take pictures 24/7." Which would explain the almost-teenager-look on her face.
The next activity was called "Predator and Prey." It involved several groups of animals, Danielle ended up in the crickets group (a prey group). The group had to search for containers with the words food, water, and shelter in them. Plus, in Danielle's group's case, you had to watch out for predator groups who might attack and take members of our group who were tagged after 10 seconds back to their group. The only way a member of Danielle's group did not get tagged is if they had found a "death and decay" card, then the predator had to stay with us.
Look at this huge tree! We took this picture shortly after Bailey played the "death and decay" card on one of the predators. YA!

Couldn't have done this without my friend Jenie! Kids and teachers kept getting us mixed up the whole time. I was so complimented! My friend Rachelle came too and I got to know some of the other parents and teachers as well. I hardly saw Jenie and Rachelle after the first day. We each had our own cabin of girls, own table to supervise at meal times, and own groups to stay with for classes. The first night they had an astronomer talk to the kids and then set up these really powerful telescopes. The kids were able look at Jupiter and the moon.

Day 2 started with WATER ECOLOGY:
Looking for bugs to look at under a powerful microscope.

EWWWWWW!

The second class for the day was Forest Ecology. One of the games they played involved two kinds of birds: one was chicks and I can't remember the other one but it stole food (cheerios) from the chicks. As a chick, you had to chirp the loudest at the instructor to get your cheerios and then hide your nest of cheerios. If you were the stealing bird, you tried to find chicks' nests and take their cheerios. Everyone got a chance to be the stealing bird. In the end, Danielle got the most cheerios. She won! She was so excited.

Canoeing class with Indy

Horseback riding on Daisy

Our last class for Day 2 was Animal Ecology. First they played "Camoflage."

Can you see me?

Then we held the animals! This was called something? Dragon.

Then there was the boa constrictor!

I was 17 when I first held a snake. I was excited that Danielle had this opportunity so much younger. She loved holding all the animals which included a couple of other lizards, a turtle, a frog, etc. She never was scared once to hold them and loved it!
Our second night, the instructors held a Mad Science Fair. They all dressed up like mad scientists and then performed cool experiements at several different stations after explaining the scientific concept behind them. I was so excited that Danielle could be doing this! We were tired though...
But no rest for the weary! The last morning we studied geology in a beautiful setting.

Then we rock climbed! This is something that neither of us had done before (outside on a real rock anyway) so I loved it that we could experience it for the first time together!

Almost there!

Yay! She made it!

Coming down...

The picture above was the view from rock climbing class.

I will spare everyone the pictures that Danielle took of my bottom from right below me :) But I did make it to the top, having to rest a couple of times along the way. I loved that I got to do it with Danielle. It was a great trip and I feel so blessed that Danielle was in a situation to be able to do it, and that I was able to go with her. Good times!