Outward Bound

Yesterday I sent Lindsey away on a plane to Baltimore, Maryland, all by herself.

In April she brought home a certificate from school that said she was outstanding in one way or another, and of course I thought that was pretty cool, and I put the certificate away. But then, in May, I found out that along with the certificate Lindsey had won a scholarship from Outward Bound to participate in a ten-day summer leadership camp. Wow!


It turns out that Outward Bound works with expeditionary learning schools across the country, and they awarded two scholarships to each school. And Lindsey got one of the two for our school! They paid for the flight to and from Maryland, the ten days there, and even her hiking boots. While she's there Lindsey will be backpacking, rock climbing, doing a high ropes course, and participating in community service, as well as having some leadership training, and learning goal-setting.

At first she wasn't sure whether she wanted to go; it sounded a little scary--especially being all the way across the country. She's never gone further than an hour away from home by herself (well, to girl's camp). But I told her, "You really should do this! It's a once-in-a-lifetime experience! You'll feel bad later if you don't! It will be really cool!" And so after a day's thought she said she would do it. Then I started feeling a little nervous about the whole thing. Especially as the time got closer, I started thinking, "Oh, man! I'm sending my thirteen-year-old daughter all the way across the country all by herself."

We got to the airport early yesterday, got checked in and spent an hour wandering around, looking in the gift shops. Pretty soon we ran into Mitchell Davis (the other scholarship winner) and his mom. Mitchell and Lindsey are friends at Entheos, and his little sister is good friends with Kaylie, so I'm glad Lindsey will be travelling with him. But his mom, Lindsey and I (I don't know about Mitchell) were still a tiny bit nervous. We (moms) kept telling them both, "Just stick together!"

And now Lindsey is off. She was a little nervous just before boarding the plane, but still cheerful. (Unfortunately I didn't get any good pics--I only had my camera-phone which I'm still figuring out.) She called yesterday afternoon, just minutes after she arrived in Baltimore--the flight was scheduled to land at 2:20 and my phone said 2:23 when she called. She got there safely, found the Outward Bound people, and is on her way for ten days of adventure. I won't hear from her again until she gets back Wednesday night, July 8.

But I'm excited to hear about the whole trip!