Today’s day was a mixture of some learning and a ton of FUN. We started out this exciting day by getting suddenly awakened by some pretty crazy junior leaders. It wasn’t just a regular wake-up call either…we were waken up by the sound of Britta Seifert’s trumpet. This was a little startling at 8:00 in the morning, but we all eventually got up. After the usual breakfast of cereal, granola bars, and orange juice, we all loaded into the vans and started making our way to the University of Alaska Fairbanks museum.
      At the museum, we were all given a task, which was to write down a total of ten facts in our journal. This kept us all busy while we were looking around the museum. According to Laura Genise, the museum was small, but very informative. One of the exhibits at the museum was filled with taxidermic animals. This exhibit was Kory Pehrson’s favorite part. “Some of it was boring, but I liked the part where all the animals were,” said Kory.
      By the time everyone had been through the entire museum, we were all starving. Since the weather was so sunny, we decided to go straight to the beach instead of going to the pipeline. Once we got to the North Pole, Marlene’s van started preparing lunch. Once everyone had changed, the task was to escape Matt Crapo, who was throwing everyone into the lake. Kay Fitzsimmons was one of these victims. “Hannah and I had an escape plan set, and were almost successful, but then Matt Bowers turned us in.” The worst part about being thrown into the water was the initial shock of how cold the water was. “The water definitely felt like an icy abyss,” Hannah Richardson commented.
      The cold water definitely kept a lot of people out of the water, but another reason why not a lot of people were swimming was because Austin Robison came out of the water with a leech on his leg! Even though not many were swimming, there was plenty to do on shore. Some were playing frisbee, skipping rocks, or doing henna tattoos. Junior leaders Britta Seifert, Jen Long, and Dana Lowell were drawing some pretty awesome tattoos with the henna,
      All of this fun finally worked up an appetite. After about five hours at the beach, we packed up and returned to camp for a delicious dinner of sloppy joes. After hug-time at 10;30, everyone went right to sleep.

     We left the University of Alaska Fairbanks Museum and were going to the beach in North Pole. Everyone was really excited to be going. This was a perfect day to go to the beach. The sun was shining and it was pretty warm. We arrived at the beach and the group changed into their bathing suits before lunch. After people were done eating, they went and jumped in the lake. I went for a walk with Jillian and Ann; we were coming back when Austin Robison came running up to the picnic where there were a bunch of the leaders sitting. He exclaimed that he had a leech on his leg! Austin showed it to the leaders and they told him to pull it off. He told them that he had tried already but it hadn’t come off.
      Afterward, I talked to him about what happened and he told me his story. “I don’t know how it happened, but I believed it happened when I was swimming. I was swimming and I think I got the leech when I stepped into a mud hole and went down to nearly waist deep. I went to the bathroom and I looked down at my leg and saw a leech. I tried to pull it off my leg, but it wouldn’t come off. I went out to the table where all of the leaders were sitting and told them; they told me to pull it off, I told them that I tried. Then someone pulled the leech off of my leg. Everyone was gathered around to see the leech.” After Austin found the leech everyone was checking to see if they had a leech on themselves.
      Right before we were leaving the beach, Elizabeth Boughton was washing off her flip-flops. When she went to put on her flip-flops she noticed there was something on them. Elizabeth had Mrs. Lowell see what it was; sure enough, it was another leech. Elizabeth had a big leech and a baby leech on her shoe. We watched the leech as it crawled around on the flip-flop. Jen Long came over and washed the leech off the flip flops. We watched as the leeches swam away.
      After there were leaches found on two people, on Austin and on Elizabeth’s flip flops, I know that I didn’t want to go in the water again. Even though the leeches attacked we all had a fun day. It was beautiful outside, and a very fun day at the beach. Hopefully no one else from our group gets attacked by the leeches.