It must have been the altitude change

I wrote an entire lengthy blog the other day about the Holiday Bowl and the things I had learned about it, but as soon as I finished writing it and right before I pressed "publish post" the internet died and erased my entire post. So frustrating! I will rewrite the blog about the holiday bowl tomorrow, but for now I want to talk about my weekend in Big Bear.

It started out normal enough. I drove up there, ate camp food with my family, sat by the fire in the lodge, walked around amongst the trees and breathed in the clean, crisp mountain air. I spent a few hours Saturday afternoon locked in the car with the radio tuned in to the USC/CAL game which I was pretty much glued to for its entirety. I spent the evening sitting in the lodge with my mom. She read harry potter while I attempted to make a dent in the daunting pile of homework that was assigned that week and that I hadnt even begun due to initiation and my invite. Late saturday night is when I suddenly lost all sense. I blame it on extreme lack of sleep over the past few weeks and a brief stint of insanity.

Luckily, we got to stay in these beautiful cabins with heaters so that while it was really cold outside, we were snug under our covers inside which a lot of the cabins didn't have. My dad and brother were staying together in a room across the hall and my mom and I stayed together. My mom was the official camp nurse, so if anyone got sick or if there was an emergency at any time day or night, they would come to my mom for help. She hadnt gotten asked to do anything the night before so I figured nothing was going to go wrong, but around 1 AM saturday night I hear a knock at the door. I was completely passed out at this point, but I woke up just enough to hear a guy at the door sounding really freaked out and asking my mom first if she had any clothes for him to wear and then if she would come with him. Something about it seemed off or somewhat sinister in the middle of the night when my mind was playing tricks on me, but i fell back asleep. I thought it was very strange that a mysterious guy would ask my mom for clothes and sound so desperate and in my illogical half-asleep state I started thinking about the Lacy Peterson case and the book "In the Lake of the Woods" and I convinced myself that this guy was up to no good. So, just to be sure, I hop out of bed and walk outside to see if the light in the nurse's cabin is on. Nope, it's not.

I go back to bed thinking it's no big deal, but then after about 30 minutes and my mom hasnt come back I start getting worried that either 1)this guy was actually a serial killer and has lured my mom into the woods and killed her OR 2) she was eaten by a bear on her way back from one of the cabins. Keep in mind this was 1:30 am and i was sleepy and not in my right mind. So i wake my dad up and tell him mom has been gone a really long time and I fear she's been slain by a deranged woodland serial killer and he shrugs and tells me to wake him in 20 minutes if she's not back.

Twenty minutes later she's still not back and at this point I have paced up and down, gone outside and then back to my room about 6 times I am 100% sure she's been killed and I go back to my dad. He and Matt get dressed, grab their flash lights and check out the nurses station...scaring this staff worker who was sleeping there half to death. They check out the lodge too, no sign of her and I can tell I've started to freak out Dad and Matt just wants to beat the crap out of someone...anyone. It's freezing outside and we're all standing outside with our flashlights and pajamas thinking about what to do when my mom comes sauntering along totally unscathed and clearly not eaten by a bear. She just laughed at us and we all went to bed...but I felt more stupid than I have ever felt before. A SERIAL KILLER IN THE WOODS? Good one Sarah.

Turns out one of the kids got sick with a cough and she had to wait around and lend her nursing expertise and the guy I thought was so creepy at the time turned out to be the dad who had walked over in just a thin shirt and that's why he had wanted clothes or something warm to wear. The next morning my mom told pretty much the entire camp the story of our late night search party because she thought it was hilarous and now I can never show my face around that camp again...because I'm retarded.


The end.