members of boys' club - for a day

The guys headed to Mammoth Cave State Park for Sabbath. The girls are all gone this weekend - either home, Young Women's Retreat, S.U. Leadership Retreat, or elsewhere. The dorm is closed and it's a very quiet weekend for our supervision team.

John Watkins gave a mini- sermon and then we ate subs with every imaginable topping (even for Ryan), baked beans, cookies, soda, and chips. A hike was definitely in order after that lunch.

How many guys do you think can fit on a picnic table? Most piled on to listen to John's talk while the rest sat on the ground. When we started eating, this table was covered by honey bees hoping for a taste of the guys' sodas. Then the game became "lets see how many bees we can anger."

Nikie, Chadd, and Carson getting ready to listen to worship. Carson had fun sitting on the sheet with Anita and playing with the leaves and sticks. Poor Chadd's been sick this week and we ended up dragging him down and up some pretty big hills during the afternoon. He and his dad are wishing they could go watch some of the Ryder Cup while it's being played in Kentucky.

We left the picnic area on a trail that led us to the trail Ryan and I hiked a couple of summers ago. We caught up with Corey, Wes, Nathanael, Michael, and Kyle on the trail. Kyle was taking lots of pictures of things with his new D-SLR.

We had a view of the Green river (longest river in KY) from above, but most of what we could see is a little spur that was pretty dry. At least there was some water in there this time. Two years ago, it was lots of dirt and rocks with very little water.


I told everyone to look like they're seeing birds in the trees. Since it's not "birding season" or a migration time, we didn't really see anything. They played along pretty well though.

Carson and I had fun walking up the big hill from the river. He was quite the little jockey, making clicking noises and patting my head. I told Nikie he's very encouraging. He also flopped forward a few times and just held my entire head while we walked.

The cave entrance is felt before it's seen because of the cold air. Sometime I want to come up and actually take the tour of the cave. I've been to the entrance twice now.

I'm convinced that having the cool, cool air blowing toward you as you finish a marathon uphill climb is the best way to end the hike.