PROJECT 2 post and reflection

Project 2 starts here!

My project is a narrative of a camping trip that a few friends and I went on last summer. Overall, the idea has stayed the same, but once I started the project I realized it wasn't what I really wanted to do. You can follow the links on the side of the page (from top to bottom), or I've provided links within each post. You can choose how you want to read the story, but there is an obvious sequential reading.

I basically told the story and included a lot of pictures, one video, and one sound clip. I used Windows Moviemaker to create the video, although it turned out pretty cheesy. I had a hard time figuring everything out,and by the time I did, the video was practically finished. I'd hoped that these visuals would help the reader see the story as they read it. I enjoyed using Audacity to create the sound clip. Audacity is easy to use and allowed me to incorporate about five different sounds in one sound clip.

Overall, I'm somewhat disssatisfied. I wish that I could've been more successful with MovieMaker. When I uploaded the video, some weird code appeared in all my blog post edit screens. I didn't know how to delete it without deleting my information. Also, I embedded the MP3 in my post, but it won't play. Unfortunately, there are links to both of these features instead of the features themselves. The point gets across though: the story is told and you can see how it relates to Morgantown summers.

A stressful ending

So, we're all sitting around having a good time when we realize the fire is dwindling.

Travis goes out to get more firewood.

All of a sudden we hear this:

(or listen here)

When he runs out of the woods, we jump in the car and go! We did come back in like 30 minutes to get our stuff that had been rummaged through by the bear. After we loaded the car up, we went home immediately.

So we all climbed out to sit on rocks at the bottom of this ledge, around where Travis was jumping off. I don't really think he knew what to expect.

check out his jump

http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=5910767058104756831&hl=en&fs=true" style="width:400px;height:326px" allowFullScreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash">

Later that night, we cooked and had some drinks. I had to start the fire again, of course.

We had no idea how our night would end.

The River

Every morning (and sometimes at night) we would go to the river. Rushing water and waterfalls were everywhere. We would usually walk the trails around the river around 10 in the morning, so no one would be there. One morning I fell asleep while we were resting on the rocks. I woke up to 20 or so kids running back and forth right beside my head. I almost got annoyed until a dad yelled in a forceful tone, "Addison, come here, girl. Cooommmmeee here girl!" This command sounded like a master calling to his dog. I felt bad for the little girl, so I swam to the rocks in the center of the water instead of getting mad.

When everyone had decided to jump in the water and hang out on the same rock, we noticed that there was a mini-waterfall not too far away. There was a small ledge underneath the waterfall where you could sit and watch the water run down. Everyone else swam out to this ledge, but I couldn't because of my knee. I started thinking about Morgantown summers and other things I could be doing right now. Instead, we started hiking through some trails right off the river. We found a place where people were jumping off, and our friend Travis decided to join the party. He jumped over and over.

Get some food

How did we spend

$60 on food at

Wal-Mart for a

camping trip?

We ate muffins or leftovers

for breakfast, but when

everyone became hungry that

evening, we had a problem

getting the fire to start.

The boys couldn't start the fire, so I had to do it.

Pretty pathetic.

Sometimes after we ate, we'd go to the River or have some drinks. Those drinks turned out to be stressful though.

Swallow Falls

The 6 of us piled in 2 cars and headed towards Maryland. Road trips always require more driving than the driver originally suggests, so I fell asleep for a while. When I woke up, we were definitely in Maryland because the mountains were a little flatter and cigarettes were $5.94 a pack. I was a little frustrated. Anyway, we made to Swallow Falls State Park after about an hour (probably more) of driving, but you wouldn't think so since the park is in the very western corner of Maryland.


We checked in and everything and drove down to the campsite, which looks like the picture on the left. I don't care how many times you've been camping, setting a tent up is a challenge. After we found everything, we headed to Wal Mart to buy food supplies. When we came back, we took a walk. The Youghiogheny River was amazing. There were waterfalls and rocks to climb everywhere.

Knee surgery

Knee surgery is no joke.
Before this summer, I had never broken bone, been stitched, or anything. I went to the doctor because I felt a lot of pain in my knee. While I was telling the doc about my problem, I felt really stupid because I never go to the doctor and I had no other complaint other than, "it hurts." Turns out I had a torn ACL ligament. I had surgery to have the ligament replaced in May. I had just taken my brace off permanentely when we went camping, and everyone wanted to climb mountains and swim under waterfalls.