Leaving for Trek

It was 5:00 in the morning. I forgot to pack pajamas... how am I going to squish those in with everything else? I really hope _____ isn't in my family. She harasses me enough already. It's so lame they won't let us be with friends. 8 miles? That seems like a lot of walking for the first day. Didn't the pioneers have covered wagons? My thoughts were swarmed with questions and worries. I couldn't imagine what the pioneer trek was going to be like, no matter how hard I tried. I couldn't sleep.

Soon I gave up on counting sheep and slithered out of bed. Decked out in a pioneer dress and apron, I found Braden upstairs in his costume, too. He looked more like a gardener. We wandered around the house a while before our parents finally woke up and we ate breakfast. Everything was packed tightly into my bucket (a 6 lb. bucket instead of a backpack so I can sit on it at mealtime).

"No wonder a bunch of the pioneers died," I said to my family, "I don't know how any of them survived without iPods." They all laughed at me and my dad proceeded to tease my wimpiness throughout the morning.

Later my mom came in the office when I was checking my email. "What's up?" she asked.
"I'm just enjoying my last moments," I said.
"You're going to trek, not to your own funeral," Mom reminded me with an eye roll.
It's pretty much the same thing.

I'm off to the canyons to hike with gardeners, buckets, and handcarts. At least we'll have flowers to put on my grave.